FREEDOM IS RESTORED: 1st AMENDMENT WINS!

It's a mystery to me, O'Bill, why this clown thinks that the constitution will be amended just because he says it must be. It seems to me that he has no clue about just what a difficult procedure amending the constitution is.

Amending the constitution to redefine what an individual is would not repeal any Amendment.
Likewise, adding in a defined rights of corporations would not repeal any amendment.

not OK for 60 nanoseconds.

In vivid contrast, the majority overruled a 19-year-old precedent (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce) that had lambasted the corporation, when it entered the political arena, because of ”the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s suport for the corporation’s political ideas.” That, the Court had said in 1990, was a form of corruption that legislators could use as the basis for singling out corporations for restrictions on their political activity. The overruling may have been intended, in part, to scuttle that image.

The rehabilitation of the corporate “person” almost certainly was a project that five of the Justices were prepared to embrace. It could be argued, indeed, that the Court put the case over to the current Term for a second argument, focused on corporation’s rights under the Constitution, as part of that project. There was not a hint that those five, in the end, were in any way moved by the suggestion at that second argument by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that the Court may have been wrong for a century about awarding “personhood” to corporations.

The majority put aside the dissenting opinion’s repeated mentions of the special favors that the corporate form gets, treating those as a completely inadequate foundation for treating corporations differently as political citizens. And Justice Antonin Scalia, in a separate opinion buttressing the majority ruling, went to considerable lengths to enhance the constitutional pedigree of corporations’ rights and to denounce the dissenters’ suggestion that the Founders did not think highly of corporations.

The question now arises whether the enhanced legal stature of corporations will make a difference in other fields of constitutional law. One might suggest that corporations have already benefitted from greater sympathy from the current Court " for example, in constitutional limitations on the size of punitive damages that juries may assess for corporate wrongdoing. And, this Term, there seems to be quite a realistic prospect that the Court, applying the Due Process Clause, may limit the scope of the federal criminal fraud laws when an executive of a corporation is accused of depriving the shareholders of “honest services.”

Going further, one might speculate whether it would be worth starting a lawsuit to test some of the restraints that states impose on corporations as conditions in their charters, in an effort to further liberate the corporate form. Or, perhaps, one might anticipate a lawsuit if, as is already being suggested in some quarters, that Congress might respond to the Citizens United ruling by passing a law to require corporations operating in interstate commerce to be federally chartered, and decreeing that, as such, they are not “persons” with constitutional rights.

It is not too much to expect that lawyers for corporate America may well be looking to explore the outer possibilities of their clients’ “personhood” and new-found constitutional equality

WASHINGTON --

In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.

Many of those commenting on the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission have focused on the power-grab part. I agree. It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.

"If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more," a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John Roberts -- back when -- and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned that line against him.

As bad as the court's activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship
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Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie "could have done more than discourage its distribution -- they could have banned the film." Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.

That the majority would stoop to this claim underscores the weakness of its case -- and the audacity of the result it has inflicted on the political process.

Let's repeat that. As Justice Stevens says: "of course . . . speech does not fall entirely outside the protection of the First Amendment merely because it comes from a corporation," and "no one suggests the contrary." The fact that all nine Justices reject a certain proposition does not, of course, prove that it's wrong. But those who argue that (1) corporations have no First Amendment rights and/or (2) restrictions on money cannot violate the free speech clause should stop pretending that the 4 dissenting Justices agreed with you. They didn't. None of the 9 Justices made those arguments.

Jeffrey Kaye.Journalist and author
Posted: January 23, 2010 04:46 PM

C'mon folks, give us a break! About a year ago, on the advice of my accountant, I became a Corporate entity, and so I write these words as an "Inc." There, I said it. I am out of the closet and ready to champion the great new civil rights movement of our era--liberty and justice for all Corporations!

It is time for us Corporations to throw off our yokes. Time to declare that no longer will we tolerate the bigoted insults of those who see us as less than human. Time to assert that no more will we be treated as second-class citizens in the country we own.

There are those who say the U.S. $upreme Court erred when this week it officially recognized our free speech rights in a ruling that lets us spend as we wish in political campaigns. President Obama today said that the ruling "strikes at democracy." Oh really? Democracy takes a hit because we are now able to exercise our God-given right to freely buy the politicians of our choice? I don't think so. We have been unshackled. No more will we being unjustly constrained--able only to window shop outside the political department store but forbidden from partaking in its cornucopia. "Look but don't touch, and certainly don't buy," was the humiliating burden of the anti-Corporate tyranny that ruled us for too long.

"[T]he Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker's corporate identity," wrote Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy in his brilliant opinion. The dark cloud of censorship has been lifted. Speech and purchase power are now one. It's as if we Corporations have been allowed to move to the front of the bus or sit at the restaurant counter. However, our work is not yet over. Yes, we can now put our money where our Corporate mouths are, and we will, but we cannot yet rest.

Mindful of our right to marry, we have taken full advantage of the privilege of holy matrimony. . Mergers and acquisitions are running at record numbers. But it is time to assert our full rights, lest we be considered three-fifths human or less. Endowed by our creators with certain unalienable rights, we Corporations now need to move beyond the First Amendment. In keeping with the ideals of equal protection granted in the 14th amendment of the great constitution of the United States, we now stand ready to claim the right that has been so long overdue--the right to vote. What use is free speech if we are denied the freedom to act? In that, we look for inspiration to the words of President Lyndon B. Johnson who said, in proposing the Voting Rights Act: "There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country." Right on, brother!

And, so my fellow Americans--Corporate and non-Corporate--please join me in the next noble cause. Extend true universal suffrage to the weakest among us--America's Corporations. We make the ballot boxes, and now we need to fill them. "One Corporation, one vote" will be our starting point. But justice demands more. Corporate citizens deserve proportional democracy. Today, we take up the cause of "one share, one vote." Yes, I know there will be objections. People will point out that under that system, Bill Gates will have 680,970,258 votes. But, let me ask you this? Does liberty have a limit? Will Big Government dare to set the price/earnings ratio of Democracy?

Our time has come! Our cause is just! The dividends will be ours!

In elections, might I say that whatever is disclosed about who sponsors an ad( and it will be disclosed) will probably not get my vote.
If, for example, an insurance companies PAC spends money on a candidate, thats reason enough to suspect his loyalties . Hes probably a shill.

Seems like Roberts and ALito (who was already a shill when he was in Philly) have already shown us that they are two liars .

ACTUALLY, Freedom has not been restored, since an OLIGARCHIC FASCIST interpretation of the 1st Amendment has been forwarded by this decision.

These two can understand that this decision, too, can be overturned in the future.

Quote:

Seems like Roberts and ALito (who was already a shill when he was in Philly) have already shown us that they are two liars .

Don't know either one of them and not sure if your opinion pertains to this ruling or you've had prior dealings with them.

My feelings about these two guys was from their appointment hearings in fron to the Senate Subcommittee. They both swore up and down to honor the concept of Stare decisis, which established precedent of previous USSC decisions. These two can understand that this decision, too, can be overturned in the future.

Are you really going to pretend you're well read on this subject, and ask others to commit to reading, when you don't even recognize the Justices?

This isn't a valid criticism. The Supreme Court is not bound by Stare Decisis. And we should all be grateful for that. See Dred Scott if you need help understanding why.