Company Men The 200-year legal struggle that led to Citizens United and gave corporations the rights

[applegrove]

Company Men

The 200-year legal struggle that led to Citizens United and gave corporations the rights of people

By KIM PHILLIPS-FEIN at the New Republic

https://newrepublic.com/article/147374/company-men-legal-struggle-citizens-united-corporations-rights-people

"SNIP......


More than 100 years ago, at the height of the last Gilded Age, Congress passed its first law prohibiting corporations from spending money to influence election campaigns. From the start, the wealthy chafed against this limit, and some sought to test it in court. Alcohol manufacturers—terrified of high taxes and Prohibition—might not have seemed the ideal candidates to take on this fight. But they were nonetheless the first to challenge the law, contributing cash to candidates in state and federal races and then arguing that any effort to keep money out of politics was no less than an unconstitutional limitation on free speech.

At that time, state and federal courts rejected these arguments out of hand. To the Michigan Supreme Court, for example, it was self-evident that a local brewery had no “right to participate” in elections. The company, wrote the chief justice in a 1914 decision, was created not to engage in politics, but “for the purpose of manufacturing beer.” In a different case involving the Brewers Association, a federal court ruled that corporations “are not citizens of the United States,” and that as far as the franchise went, they must “at all times be held subservient to the government and the citizenship of which it is composed.”

Yet the beermakers finally had their day in 2010, when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United. In a reversal of last century’s common sense, the Court found that corporations did have free speech rights after all and that campaign finance laws placed an intolerable restriction on those rights. In the next presidential election, corporate spending soared. Companies gave over $70 million in disclosed contributions to super PACs and likely hundreds of millions more in “dark money” donations to political groups that do not have to make public the details of their financing. Donate to one of these organizations and, as one fund-raising pitch put it, “No politician, bureaucrat, no radical environmentalist will ever know.”

For many critics, this sluice of cash was not the only troubling feature of Citizens United. It reflected a vision of society in which successful businesses and their leaders, as the winners in the marketplace, are seen as having earned a form of authority. To restrict their capacity to influence public opinion would be to impose a limit on the most talented and deserving people and unfairly favor the masses. The shift toward this view grew directly out of the rightward surge of the late twentieth century, a period of intense activism on the part of conservatives and business leaders. The case that led to the ruling had been brought by a libertarian political organization that sought to finance a film attacking Hillary Clinton, while the decision itself came down from a fiercely partisan Court, dominated by conservative jurists.

.......SNIP"

[elleng]

1. 'To the Michigan Supreme Court, for example, it was self-evident that a local brewery had no right

to participate” in elections. The company, wrote the chief justice in a 1914 decision, was created not to engage in politics, but “for the purpose of manufacturing beer.” In a different case involving the Brewers Association, a federal court ruled that corporations “are not citizens of the United States,” and that as far as the franchise went, they must “at all times be held subservient to the government and the citizenship of which it is composed.”'

The good old days of REASON!

[marked50]

2. We are seeing sort of the "end result of this conflict" at this time.

This has been a continuous battle between the powers that hold the wealth- usually defined as the currency- and those that think of a democracy as being made up of "the people".

The People are losing.

Right now our system of governance has devolved into a "Battle of the Oligarchs". We have Trump going after Bezos by using our system of governance for his concept of righteousness and revenge. What or who is next?

Of course, that is what we all want it to be (sarcasm) isn't it?.

We have the only method of representation for us now being our ability to mobilize financial powers to meet our needs.

This is shown by the success of the Parkland students to galvanize change through economic boycotts- prime example of Ingraham vs Hogg. How truly depressing that its. Where are our representatives? Heavily motivated by the money thing too.

The system has devolved into nothing more than who has the most money.

We will all suffer from this, until the point comes when we can no longer survive our environment- either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually and then our suffering will end.

[Jim Lane]

3. The linked article is misleading about the background of Citizens United

From the quoted excerpt:

{I}n 2010, ... the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United. In a reversal of last century’s common sense, the Court found that corporations did have free speech rights after all ....

It's simply false to say or imply that Citizens United BEGAN the doctrine that the First Amendment protects corporations. As the article notes further down, the Supreme Court had so held in 1936.

The New York Times is owned and published by a corporation. Should the government have the power to order the Times to print or not print a particular story? If you answered No, then you think the First Amendment protects speech by corporations -- and you're right.

The real defect with Citizens United is that it treated money as speech. Money expended to propagate an opinion is speech, but it's also conduct. Conduct can be regulated even when it has an expressive purpose, such as burning a draft card to protest the Vietnam War. That's the case whether the money is spent by a corporation or by an individual human being (what lawyers call a "natural person" ).