Posted on 09/17/2009 2:09:37 PM PDT by Admiral_Zeon
WASHINGTON -- In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.
During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.
But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.
Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."
After a confirmation process that revealed little of her legal philosophy, the remark offered an early hint of the direction Justice Sotomayor might want to take the court.
"Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions," said Douglas Kendall, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I don’t disagree on her point, but I’m not sure it falls under her purview.
Can we apply that same logic, then, equally to the Unions?
Again, you are confusing “corporations” with “groups”. Certainly groups have a right to speak collectively. This doesn’t necessarily mean that corporations as distinct entities may do so. Its quite simple — gather some employees or shareholders together and speak in the name of the employee/shareholder collective, not in the name of the corporation, and you avoid the problem.
The list, ping
“But Justice Sotomayor may have found a like mind in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
Duh
Insofar as they are considered distinct “persons” under law, then yes.
There was no 19th Century ruling, the "precedent" giving corporations 14th Amendment "equal protection" was a headnote written by a Marxist court clerk in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad. She is on absolutely solid legal grounds here.
I wonder what she makes of the little known phrase “Corporate Entity”
On the other hand, she wants to undermine the ability of corporations to operate in a climate increasingly hostile to corporations and profit earners generally. This fits very well with 0's contempt for wealth and wealth creation.
Tell her a corporation is a “collective”. It’s made up of workers, management, CEO, board of directors...a whole bunch of people with individual rights. Does this collectivist have a problem with the collective?
don’t underestimate the significance of this....stripping away the protections of legal personhood from corporations has been high on the Radical Wish List for many years now
Wanna play, Sonia?
Cheers!
But your point is distinct from the proper interpretation of the Constitution. Your point is a valid policy position, but conservatives don’t believe that judges should make policy masquerading as constitutional law.
...and then voting.
Cheers!
How's that RINO legacy working out for you, you China-loving globalist shill?
Unless the collection of individuals is a union then of course they have rights we never even imagined.
Well, she’s right in that we have to get back to the roots and build out — say for example with the meanings of “natural born citizen”, “may not infringe”, and “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”.
Corporate socialism has been a long time in the works.
I think what you are grasping for (but have forgotten) is the LIMITED LIABILITY doctrine that protects some but not all OWNERS of corporations, or stock in corporations, from direct liability for accidents, crimes, injuries, etc. committed by officers, employees, etc. of the corporations.
Even if you got rid of corporations you'd still hve the issue of group liability and that would run right up against the Constitutional doctrine of indiidual responsibility for one's own acts.
The courts in the late 1800s were faced with a multitude of corporate schemes and an equally large multitude of slick lawyers who wanted to get around those schemes and go after owners, so the courts addressed the issue by first separating capital responsibility from personal responsibility.
Nothing more than that. An obvious, common sense, easily understood concept ~ which was ancient!
Later limitations on free speech took place when incumbents realized that incumbency, by itself, virtually insured thei re-elections IF they could deprive their unelected opponents of the funds necessary to run a campaign.
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