Corporate Personhood and Move to Amend
Updated 12/3/2019
The pernicious doctrine of "corporate personhood" has meant that the
rights originally meant to protect human beings from the potentially oppressive
powers of our government now belong as well to the corporation, an
artificial entity. And no good has come
of it.
Corporations claim these
constitutional rights in Federal court as they attempt, often with
success, to overturn, weaken, or get around laws designed to protect the
environment, worker safety, public health and a myriad of other laws
including campaign finance laws (of which the Supreme Court decision in
Citizen’s United is the most recent and very blatant example).
It is important to know that corporate
personhood had its roots, not in Citizens United, but in the 19th
century. In 1868 the 14th
Amendment was ratified, giving citizenship rights to all persons born or
naturalize in the United States, the intended beneficiaries being the newly
freed slaves. Yet, of the 14th Amendment cases heard by the Supreme
Court in the first 50 years after its adoption, less than one half of one
percent invoked it in protection of African Americans, and more than 50% asked
that its benefits be extended to corporations. The
watershed moment came in 1886 when the Supreme Court (in a case called Santa
County v. Southern Pacific Railroad), citing the 14th Amendment, and
without hearing any arguments, declared unanimously that corporations are
persons deserving of the law’s protections. And they did this at a time when
all women, all Native American, and even most African American men were still
denied the right to vote. (This
partial history is taken from a talk on the abolishment of corporate parenthood,
first given September 21, 2001 in Santa Cruz, California by Molly Morgan. Click
here to see the full script of that talk.)
Move to Amend is a
coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals
committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a
vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate
interests. Move to Amend calls for an amendment to the US Constitution to establish
that only living human beings, not corporations, are endowed with
Constitutional rights and that money is not the same as free speech. It’s the We the People amendment
and it is before the Congress as HJR 28.
Imagine the possibilities of life without Corporate Personhood. Imagine corporations no longer able to use the 1st amendment right of free speech. That could prohibit political activity – no more contributions to candidates, no more lobbying. Imagine the dismantling of the military/industrial/congressional complex that, as Dwight Eisenhower warned, has gained unwarranted influence on national security policy. Imagine corporate polluters no longer being shielded by the Constitution. Without protections under the 5th and 14th Amendments, corporations could be prevented from merging and owning stock in other corporations. We could pass laws against chain stores and cell phone towers without the threat of our laws being overturned by the courts. We could organize openly at work. If corporate personhood is eradicated, a wonderful array of possibilities opens for citizen sovereignty to replace corporate governance.
What can you do to get
involved? CLICK HERE.