Posted on 09/17/2009 2:09:37 PM PDT by Admiral_Zeon
WASHINGTON -- In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.
During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.
But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.
Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."
After a confirmation process that revealed little of her legal philosophy, the remark offered an early hint of the direction Justice Sotomayor might want to take the court.
"Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions," said Douglas Kendall, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Of course I guess it doesn’t matter that these corporations are made up of individual people...who want to express their political opinions.
I must say that what she says makes some sense. I’m ready to be flamed, but if we are going to be consistent originalsts, can we really claim that the framers envisioned that corporations would be protected by the first amendment?
That said, all of us probably need to read those 19th century decisions before passing judgment.
Wow...wait till she-w**** gets hold of the Constitution written by those ol White Guys.
So what is she saying? Individuals have free speech rights but collections of individuals do not? Seems like a dangerous proposition.
Prior to the decisions Sonja is worrying about when rich people died their assets were parceled out among their heirs ~ not handed over to Communist apparatchiks to misuse!
We have no idea how radical this woman is and now she is there for life. Change.....its at the Supreme Court.
A “hint” of her philosophy? More like an atom bomb.
Of course the imbecile was just looking for a way to prop up campaign finance laws, but in teh process she revealed just how much she wants to overturn the established order.
Besides, doesn’t the campaign finance law also limit individual (human) contributions?
But if you do something in the corporate name, then aren’t you speaking on behalf of the corporation, not yourself? Many corporations say things on behalf of the shareholders’ interests that they might not necessarily believe themselves, because it is their job as an officer of the corporation.
Let us destroy the very foundations of freedom and capitalism and America.
No, she’s a moderate... really!!
The Senate should all be shot.
And if so, does that extend to Unions as well?
Interestingly some on the left hold the opposite view. Some think free speech is a collective and not an individual right.
Yeah, British judges (and Roman lawmakers too), centuries before the birth of the US. This is hard-core anti-corporate nuttiness.
Yea. You’re right.
I have often wondered about “rights” claimed by corporations which are state chartered entities and not “born”.
lol.
Shirley you jest!
There's also something in there about "religion" ~ which is definitionally a "group sort of thing", Armies, Navies, etc.
Even defense contractors were named in the Constitution!
Problem is Sotomayor comes from a very insular community that cuts itself off from the mainstream of American history, tradition and thought. We have rarely had a more narrow-minded and bigoted Justice.
Corporations are not just collections of individuals. They are separate legal entities. An individual can chhose to speak either in his own name, or in the name of an unincorporated group of people, or on behalf of a corporation. These are distinct.
Her new nickname is So-So
Without free speech rights, corporations (and stockholders). are screwed.
Don’t call me Shirley.
:-)
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