Pre-Hobby Lobby Timeline of Corporate Personhood(jeffreifman.com)
jeffreifman.com
Pre-Hobby Lobby Timeline of Corporate Personhood
http://jeffreifman.com/2014/07/01/hobby-lobby-latest-evolution-corporate-constitutional-rights/
2 comments
If only it were as simple as you make it sound ... in practice, Corporations repeatedly use commerce and contracts clause rights to sue communities and states to overturn environmental regulations. They use free speech rights to flood elections with money and affect the outcome. They use the rights from unreasonable search and seizure to prevent the release of acts of public harm in lawsuits under the guise of protecting intellectual property. The impacts of corporate constitutional rights have overturned our democracy.
> While the word corporation never appears in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has been slowly expanding rights for corporations since the early 19th century. These are judge-made “Constitutional” rights granted to corporations through misguided interpretations of the law; some might call these activist judges. The modern Roberts Court has been the most radical.
This betrays a substantial misunderstanding of the structure of rights and the purpose of the Constitution.
The Constitution does not grant rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc., and neither do federal judges. Not to people, and not to corporations. Rather, these rights are held to be essential features of human life. The Constitution is constructed to limit the government's ability to restrict these rights.
Do human rights disappear when humans come together to act collectively? This is the essential question that has been before the Supreme Court repeatedly, in cases like the NAACP, Pentagon Papers, Citizens United, Hobby Lobby, etc. (You might notice that only 2 of those made the list in the linked article.)
The Court has repeatedly ruled that humans don't give up their rights just because they join together to form an organization. The Hobby Lobby decision is consistent with that trend.
Like the decision or hate it, but the issue is not "corporate personhood." The decision is quite clear that the issue is how the government should regulate the conflict between the religious beliefs of humans who enter into voluntary contractual relationships.