Comments on: “‘People’s Rights Amendment’ Would Knock Out People’s Rights”

By: ZB

ZB — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:02:20 +0000

Hans Bader, the case is called Dartmouth College v Woodward, or Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. It talks of of the rights of “the trustees” plural to have the contract acknowledged and enforced. The college was merely acting for them (“had standing”), not independent of.
Due to your reasoning the whole of The Bill of Rights should apply to the corporate form, yet it does not, never has, and prior to 35 years ago the justices would have picked apart and rejected any lawyer arguing a bank in, and of itself had free speech rights like a born, naturalized citizen(s), or otherwise living breathing human(s). Last year Judge Roberts, showing a line of inconsistency because not even he completely believes such wretched nonsense, ruled that personal privacy laws did not apply to ATT corporation. Still, The Supremes as of the last three to four decades have been excellent usually at finding ways a state licensed “legal fiction”, or the “paper mask ” people incorporated wear, and usually wealthy (such as a bank, or Monsanto), has rights independent of the “real biologically living face, and body”. This type of reasoning is not only of the absurd, but it leads to the corporation in and of itself having a much greater voice than mere humans, individual and freely assembled (associated), as appears to be the intent of the lawyers and judges involved in producing this legal farce. (Talk About Overlawyered!, or should I say over thought, or half baked?) It is without wonder that The United States is rated as a less free society than ever within the last 30 years. (See the Freedom House report on our ranking for press freedoms compared to other countries). Compare that to the days when liberal, and moderate politicians and judges dominated the government 40 + years ago, and properly regulated things. And if freedom of speech (and the Bill of Rights) applies to non-humans equally with humans than certainly The Constitution’s Preamble: “We The People”, “…blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, and the Ninth Amendment which makes clear rights exist for humans because they are humans do not actually mean what they say. Just one last thing, Hans Bader, since this is an argument in part on who is mangling the reading of the constitutional text, and people love to go back to The Founding Fathers, and The Court Giants for inspiration, how come all along none of them had these notions about bank’s speech, and the like, that have been in legal vogue since roughly 1978, or 1980??? If that was the case, surely the Citizens United ruling should have been made 105 years ago to undo the Tillman Act of 1907 it effectively and recently dethroned after a century of practical enforcement?

By: Hans Bader

Hans Bader — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:14:39 +0000

If the constitutional right against impairment of contracts applies regardless of whether the aggrieved party is a corporation — as ZB appears to concede based on an 1819 Supreme Court — then so, too, should the constitutional “freedom of speech,” which protects speech regardless of whose speech it is, and regardless of whether the speech in question is by a corporation or not. The First Amendment’s freedom of speech does not contain any words limiting its protections to individuals, people, or citizens. So Supreme Court decisions like First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti holding that the First Amendment applies to corporations — decisions long predating the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — were rightly decided.

By: ZB

ZB — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:00:48 +0000

Hans Bader claims: “The Supreme Court has long recognized that corporations have constitutional rights, ever since its decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819). The Dartmouth College case dealt the “impairing of contracts” by a state. Contracts cannot be tampered with under Article I, Section 10. The case did not bring into play the college, or corporation’s 1st, 4th or 5th amendment rights. By implication the trustees, or shareholders had those rights protected since the state of Vermont could not “impair the contract”. State power is limited by Article I, Section 10 within the People’s Rights Amendment because they must be “… otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.” If the language needs explicit tweaking for reassurance than the Article and Section cited can be restated in a rewritten amendment. Additionally, the rights of people within a company cannot be nullified, but are in fact reinforced within section 3 of the McGovern text. Corporate personhood and extending the Bill of Rights to Corporations did come from the summary of the 1886 Santa Clara decision, and not prior. Yet America was a fully free society except for African Americans who had the very 14th Amendment that was supposed to allow for their equality used ironically in Santa Clara to create the origins of corporate supremacy.

By: Hans Bader

Hans Bader — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:53:54 +0000

ZB claims:

“the aim of the language is to restore the United States Constitutional system, and corporations to the pre-1886 Santa Clara Supreme Court Decision Era.”

No, it isn’t. Pre-1886, corporations had rights. The Supreme Court has long recognized that corporations have constitutional rights, ever since its decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819).

I explained that at this link:

http://www.examiner.com/article/amendments-try-to-take-away-the-rights-of-corporations-and-gay-people

European courts have also ruled that corporations have free speech and due process rights.

If you get rid of company’s rights, it is doubtful whether companies’ shareholders will have any enforceable property rights in their shares in the company, given the plain text of the “People’s Rights Amendment,” and judicial limits on shareholder standing apart from the corporation they hold shares in.

By: ZB

ZB — Sun, 20 May 2012 19:49:48 +0000

Correction: The third sentence of my recent post should have said: “Therefore, the idea that somehow the first, fourth, and fifth amendments, as well as other constitutional protections would be gone for people, and their property within a business, or other corporation is not true. “

By: ZB

ZB — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:21:00 +0000

The so-called People’s Rights Amendment will remove rights from the corporation itself, not abolish the corporation. The shareholders, and employees within are “natural persons”. Therefore, the idea that somehow the first, fourth, fifth, and other constitutional protections would be gone for people, and their property within a business or other corporation is not true. Apparently, the aim of the language is to restore the United States Constitutional system, and corporations to the pre-1886 Santa Clara Supreme Court Decision Era. Already in that time the United States was a booming free society, and economy. Churches, newspapers including the New York Times and Post existed, and corporations published books, etc., so the idea of putting corporations back to the “privilege status” will just restore balance in our society between Walmart, store Mom and Pop, and Joe Six Pack voter. The clause which says “…such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected State and Federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.” would still allow judicial review of what exactly the powers of Congress and the States are. Therefore this is not some sort of giveaway of power to a dictatorship. Finally, could the language be improved? Maybe? However, this is a proposal, and before any amendment to The Constitution goes through there are well constructed hurdles to force people to get their intellectual-verbeage act together. Congressman McGovern has continued a needed debate about corporate “rights”. Now, come to the table as fellow Americans and reason together, reasonably.

By: Hugo S. Cunningham

Hugo S. Cunningham — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:49:44 +0000

People’s Republics are ordained to protect People’s Rights.

By: Bored Lawyer

Bored Lawyer — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:46:10 +0000

The amendment is even worse than Will argues. UNder the amendment:

1. Federal and state governments could confiscate corporate assets (and those of other legal entities) at will — no right to just compensation. Similarly, the could be found civilly liable for any wrongdoing or guilty of any crime on the say-so of a government functionary — no right to due process of law.

2. Corporations could be barred from publishing or aiding in the publishing of anything critical of the current Administration/Congress/State Legislature/Bureaucracy. This would include barring newspapers owned by corporation to publish same, and barring ISPs and Bloghosting companies (who are virtually all corporations) from allowing their services to be used to post opinion pieces and blogs critical of the government. True, an individual would still be free to speak his mind, and he could print pamphlets on his home computer and hand them out at the local park/mall/public place, but he would not be able to use any means of dissemination owned by a corporation — which is most of them.

3. Corporations and other entities would not enjoy any right of equal protection or its federal equivalent under the due process clause. So any of the above laws (or others) could be applied discriminately. I.e., one rule for Republican/conservative organizations, another for Democratic/Liberal organizations.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:07:22 +0000

bubububub Exxon is riiiiiiiiiich

By: antiredistributionist

antiredistributionist — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:12:27 +0000

Are you kidding, Eric? Sure, Section 3 “upholds the rights of all people” (there is no reference to “entities,” contrary to what you say) – but Section 2 states that “corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state” are not included in the term “people” as used in the Constitution.

Talk about having your own reality.