The idea that corporations have some degree of civil rights has some rather bizarre origins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
The US Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (1886), was a minor case dealing with taxation of railroad properties.
As such, it was just another case out of the pile, until it was time for the Supreme Court court reporter to write up a summary that would be published throughout the US, to explain the decision.
He wrote, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.”
But this statement, or anything like it, did not exist in the actual decision rendered by the court. In other words, as such, it was wholly the opinion of the court reporter, not the Supreme Court!
To his credit, the court reporter then sent a memo to the Chief Justice, asking if this was indeed the opinion of the court, to which he replied:
“I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision.”
So even the Chief Justice blew off putting the idea in *his* own name, leaving the credit with the court reporter.
The case is most notable for the obiter dictum statement that corporations are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Amendment_to_the_US_Constitution
However, by 1949, Justice William O. Douglas wrote that, “the Santa Clara case becomes one of the most momentous of all our decisions... Corporations were now armed with constitutional prerogatives.”
This is now such a troubling situation, that there is some talk of a constitutional amendment to specifically *strip* corporations of any perceived civil rights, which would require a rewriting of the vast majority of the corporate law which exists in the US.
It is noteworthy that all that is currently required of a corporation to have the equivalent of US “citizenship”, is registration in any US State. This means that foreign corporations with no loyalty to the US, as well as racketeering shell corporations.
So what? They can’t vote. Who cares if they are foreign corporations? Citizenship? LOL With millions of illegal aliens, who cares about a few corporations? I would rather have foreign corporations doing business here than millions of illegals sucking on the tit.