The question is not Are Corporations People? It's Are Corporations Citizens of the USA?

[aquart]

Wizard 777 pointed that corporations do not permit us to participate in their elections, so why should we let them participate in ours?

We don't permit FOREIGN MONEY in our elections. We don't want non-citizens interfering.

Are corporations citizens of this country? They pay taxes. Do they pay and collect Social Security? Money may be free speech...which creates a horrible inequality between the vocal rich and the voiceless poor...but is corporate personhood a voter in our elections? Does Verizon go to the polls and cast a vote? If Verizon can't vote, why is it allowed to contribute money?

[JDPriestly]

1. You are wrong. People are protected by the Bill of RIghts regardless of whether they are citizens.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Amends

The rights protected by the Bill of Rights are subject to reasonable regulation. Commercial speech, which includes the speech of corporations, may be reasonably regulated. People as used in "or the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" is, as we all know, the plural of "person." The First Amendment is intended to apply to the rights of the people, not of non-persons such as corporations in my view.

Corporations were not the normal way that businesses were organized at the time the Constitution was written. So, it is doubtful that the Founding Fathers intended to be insuring the same rights for corporations that they were insuring for people.

You don't have to be a citizen to enjoy the protection of the Bill of Rights, but you arguably do need to be a person. That is why corporations want to be defined as persons. They can enjoy the rights of persons but don't have to bear the responsibilities of persons.

The 14th Amendment limits the rights of states to restrict the rights of citizens:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Amends

[aquart]

2. And the participation of non-citizens in the election process is....?

I get how the corporation argument is framed. I'm trying to say our argument may be harder for our esteemed opponents to come at if we frame it as a privilege of citizens. Basically, I'm putting corporations in the same basket as all those illegal aliens they yell about: NON-citizens. Should NON-citizens be able to buy our elections?

[JDPriestly]

7. I'm with you that that is an issue. The problem is that the issue befor

the Supreme Court is the First Amendment rights, the rights under the Constitution, of corporations. So, the issue is whether they are included in the phrase the rights of "the people . . . " in the First Amendment,

[druidity33]

6. how's that?

I don't see how what you quoted proves the OP is wrong. I'm not a lawyer, so maybe i just don't get it. Want to explain how aquart is wrong in layman's terms?

:shrug:

[drm604]

3. They were actually born in Kenya.

I have proof!

All joking aside, it's an interesting thought.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. No they are obviously foreign nationals, "citizens of the world", mercenaries,

contractors, who accept the hospitality of the highest bidder.

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. Justice Kennedy made the argument that they have "knowledge"

What utter BS. If he feels this is rational, then I challenge him to put a "corporation" (not its employees or contractors/attorneys) on the stand and Q&A it on its "knowledge". Any topic is good with me.

As someone astutely pointed out in another thread - how does protecting them under #14 fit with the 'can't buy/sell' language in #13?

[JDPriestly]

8. If the corporations have "knowledge," may we ask them to pass a test

to show their "knowledge." Persons take examinations. Can a corporation sit down and take an examination? It's not the corporation that has knowledge, it is the people who work for the corporation that acquire the knowledge. The corporate knowledge sits in papers in boxes and documents on computers and in the minds of the corporation's employees. The information in the papers in boxes and documents on computers can only be useful when known to the employees of the corporation. The employees of the corporation as well as some of the shareholders are persons, but not the corporation.

The phrase "corporate knowledge" is a turn of speech. It should not be used to suggest in a literal sense that corporations have knowledge.