Humbolt County, CA repeals legal status of corporations as "persons"

[Terran1212]

http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2006_06_08.shtml

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Voters in Humboldt County, California, passed Measure T, an innovative ballot initiative repealing the legal status of corporations as 'persons', limiting corporate influence on politics, on Tuesday, July 6.

Green Party activists led the effort to pass Measure T; the party and its candidates already refuse contributions from corporations.

"This is more than an issue of campaign finance reform -- it's a major step in the movement to bring real democracy to our political system," said Forrest Hill, Green candidate for California Secretary of State <http://www.voteforrest.org>. "Measure T is a model for other towns, cities, counties, and states to restore the original purpose of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was to ensure equal protection under the law to human beings, not to corporations, which are artificial legal creations."

For more on Measure T, visit
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2006_06_01.shtm> (Green Party release, June 1)
http://www.votelocalcontrol.org (Humboldt Coalition for Community Rights: Yes on Measure T)
and
http://www.duhc.org (Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County)

[Roland99]

1. This should be a national referendum!!!

[intheflow]

9. I would love for this to go national.

:kick:

[Daphne08]

27. Yes, it should!

[Kurovski]

34. I would also love to see this nation-wide.

In a country of crazy crap, the Corporation=person theory is among the craziest and crappiest.

[proud patriot]

2. woo hoo

it's a good start

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. I hope this sets a precedent

and that it survives the legal challenges that the GOP are bound to launch against it.

[me b zola]

19. I share your hope

:toast:

[Terran1212]

4. And to add, the evil Greens did it!

: p

[Voltaire99]

31. Those #$%@! Greens!

Don't they understand that politics is just appeasement, posturing and collecting money? ;-)

Bravo, Humboldt County Greens!

[EVDebs]

43. Movie 'The Corporation' implies that corporations should be committed

to mental health observation for the required 72 hours 'observation' period !

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.php?page_id=2

""THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES
To more precisely assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath." ""

[bleever]

5. Five, and up to the Greatest.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. YES! YES! YES!

We're free, we're free, at last! Thank God, WE'RE FREE AT LAST!

[stevedeshazer]

7. It's all gonna have to be done on a local level

The federal government is broken. Most state governments are, too.

[HamdenRice]

8. Unfortunately, it's only symbolic -- can only be done at federal and state

level. In other words, the sources of the corporation's limited liability is state corporate law. The source of the corporation being deemed a person is federal constitutional law and state constitutional law.

I applaud this as a great symbolic gesture, but cities and municipalities cannot revoke a corporation's personhood or limited liability.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Actually, corporate personhood is not constitional law

nor is it California state law.

In 1886 the court reporter of the U.S. Supreme Court claimed that the court had ruled that "corporations are persons" in the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case. If you read the case itself, you find that in fact the court ruled no such thing. But the reporter wrote it up in the headnotes of the case - not a legal document, but only a commentary on the case - and subsequent generations of corporate attorneys claimed it was so. Over time, it became so.

Fo those who wish to educate themselves about this issue, Thom Hartmann has done extensive research and has excellent resources on his site.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/summary.shtml

Humboldt County's move is a good first step to challenging the erroneous conventional wisdom of "corporate personhood". I'd be interested in starting a similar campaign in San Francisco if there isn't one already afoot.

I've also been kicking around an idea in my head for a couple of years now. If, as corporations assert, they have all the constitional protections, rights, and privileges as individuals then what is stopping a corporation from exercising its right to vote?

Now, let's take this a little further. What if a thousand or so Democratic activist individuals establish themselves as individual corporations. It is legal for an individual to be a corporation. And what if each of these individual corporations registerd to vote. For instance, I would be registered to vote as Julie Willing and also as Julie Willing, Inc. Because, conventional wisdon says that Julie Willing, Inc. is a separate entity from Julie Willing the individual, then Julie Willing, Inc. should have all the rights and privileges granted under our constition. Thus, Julie Willing, Inc, should have the right to vote. No doubt, the Republicans would legally challenge the right of these individual Democratic corporations to vote. They would try to make the case that these Democrats are voting twice. It would force the issue of corporate personhood back to the Supreme Court.

[EFerrari]

18. And what is the limitation on the number of corporate entities

I can set up?

:evilgrin:

:thumbsup:

[Luminous Animal]

23. If you've got the money, honey...

There is no limit.

[pberq]

25. Yes! no corporate personhood

[HamdenRice]

35. Wow -- you really don't understand constitutional law!

Santa Clara and the cases that followed it clearly establish that a corporation is a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. It wasn't just Santa Clara that established this, but hundreds of subsequent federal cases. The idea that corporate personhood was recognized as a mistake by the writer of headnotes simply isn't consistent with how federal judges thought about corporations at that time or thereafter.

And the idea is not that a corporation is a person for all purposes; it is that a corporation is a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment, which prevents states from passing laws that "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This means that "equal protection" and "due process" analysis could be applied to any law that singled out a corporation or even an industry for special, usually detrimental, treatment. So, for decades, if a state tried to pass a law regulating (for example in a famous case) the hours that a baking establishment could force its workers to work, the court could say, this law discriminates against bakers, and does not provide "equal protection" to bakers.

This continued until 1938, when the New Deal Supreme Court decided Carolene Products, and inserted the most famous footnote in Constitutional history, footnote 4. The court basically said that the federal government could regulate the quality of milk, because courts would defer to legislatures in regulatory cases; it then added this footnote:

CAROLENE PRODUCTS FOOTNOTE (1938)
Footnote 4.

There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten Amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the 14th.

It is unnecessary to consider now whether legislation which restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation, is to be subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny under the general prohibitions of the 14th Amendments than are most other types of legislation...

Nor need we enquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statues directed at particular religious...or nationaL...or racial minorities; whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry...

This footnote means that the court would scrutinize legislatures when they discriminated against or burdened (1) fundamental rights, like free speech, (2) political processes, liking voting, and (3) racial minorities.

In other words the Court said it was getting out of the business of scrutinizing legislative business regulation, and was getting into the business of protecting rights -- which soon led to the civil liberties cases, the voting rights cases and the racial discrimination cases.

So strictly speaking, although corporations are still treated as persons for purposes of the 14th Amendment, laws that discriminate against them as persons are acceptable except under the most egregious circumstances.

As for your suggestion that corporations vote, again, this is a really misinformed understanding of the Constitution and voting laws. To put it bluntly:

Voting is a right of citizens;
Non-discrimination is a right of persons;
Not all persons are citizens, even if all citizens are persons.

For example, legal aliens have rights as persons, but don't have all rights of citizens, such as voting rights. Similarly corporations have certain rights as persons, but not rights as citizens, such as voting rights or personal fundamental rights under the Constitution, such as free speech (their speech is called "commercial speech" and can be regulated).

No locality can over turn federal Constitutional law. So again, while I admire what this municipality has done, it is purely symbolic. Although a state supreme court or state legislature could overturn corporate personhood under a state constitution, any laws passed under such a regime could still be appealed under the federal Constitution to the US Supreme Court. So basically until we change the Supreme Court or amend the Constitution, corporations will have certain limited rights as persons.

[AngryAmish]

11. Questions for Cali legal scholars

The state creates and recognizes corps. Can a county change this unilaterally?

[Luminous Animal]

14. RE: creating corporations...

Just because states grant corporate charters does not mean that they also grant them the same rights as individuals.





(edited for spelling)

[Cleita]

12. Thank God for the great liberals and environmentalists in

Humboldt county! Every county in California should follow suit then it will have to be a state referendum and as California goes so does the nation or that's what they say anyway.

[philly_bob]

13. Misleading? Or did I miss something...

I'm a sympathetic reporter, and I thought this was quite interesting, but when I looked into it, there were two big problems: (1) At none of the links above could I find the actual wording of Measure T and (2) from what I gather it seems a campaign finance reform measure, which prohibits non-local corporations from contributing to local candidates.

Significant locally. But not useful, to me, as a story about repealing the legal status of corporations.

I'm just acting for a little more clarity, Greens!

That being said, the most interesting link was http://www.duhc.org/corporateRule.html, a kind of slide show, with great history factoids like:

The Supreme Court of Virginia stated in 1809 that if an applicant for a corporate charter’s “object is merely private or selfish; if it is detrimental to, or not promotive of, the public good, they have no adequate claim upon the legislature for the privileges.”

and

This raging struggle led President Rutherford B. Hayes to say in 1876: "This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations."

[Luminous Animal]

15. RE: corporate charters

Actually Virginia's Supreme Court decision reflected how all states for the 1st 100 years of our union chartered corporations. A corporation was granted a charter for a fixed period of time to complete a specified task and mandated a public good.

[Luminous Animal]

17. I checked the Measure T website...

and you are right. It doesn't seem to address the notion of "corporate personhood" at all.

[BlooInBloo]

20. Who cares! Enough people have said it! It must be true! WOOHOO!!

:rofl:

I hope this isn't another truthout debacle.

[Luminous Animal]

22. Well that is idiotic.

One person on this board mischaracterizing the intent of Measure T is not going to have far reaching ramifications.

It would be cool to know the long term strategy of Measure T's backers when this is challenged in court.

[Voltaire99]

30. Google, my friend.

How hard is it to conduct a search?

Google--->humboldt county corporations--->general results returned--->click on "News"--->presto!

In 10 seconds, I found this editorial about Measure T in the California Times-Standard. It's one of quite a few pieces Google coughed up:
http://www.times-standard.com/fastsearchresults/ci_3896204

[mike_c]

41. I realize this thread is cooling fast, but I might have some info...

...in that regard. Measure T was NOT designed to be an assault on corporate personhood. I live here, I listened to the considerable local debate on the measure, and I voted for it. Measure T limits the amount of money that corporations based outside Humboldt County can spend on local election campaigns, referenda, etc. It is a response to an attempted recall of the county's district attorney two years ago by a coalition of (mainly) pro-timber industry conservatives financed in large measure by the the Maxxam Corporation- owners of the former Pacific Lumber Company, which was being sued by the DA at the time. Their response was to attempt to engineer a recall of the DA. They failed, but the resulting campaign was very divisive, and resulted in a ballot initiative limiting the ability of outside corporations with deep pockets to buy the outcome of local elections. That is Measure T.

That said, Measure T was put on the ballot in county that has an active and vocal anti-corporation movement. Measure T is not all the OP suggests, but there would likely be broad support for such legislation in Humboldt County. Unfortunately, as discussed elsewhere in this thread, such legislation would be largely symbolic at the local level.

[Jara sang]

16. K & R

[long_green]

21. May the spirit of Humboldt County sweep the country

there's my prayer for this Sunday.

[shadowknows69]

24. And its crops

Amen and pass the peace pipe.

[bridgit]

26. that sound about right...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1377999

[mike_c]

28. Ummm-- I voted for Measure T....

The block campaigning against it was very old-school, pro-business, mostly republican, etc. It doesn't repeal corporate personhood-- that's way overstated in the OP, it just blocks outside corporations from donating to local political campaigns. The pro-business lobby has painted this as an attack on corporations' "free speech rights," in essence a round-about attack on their personhood I suppose, but that is not the core issue of Measure T.

[paparush]

29. That's HUGE!! Finally...small steps!!

[conflictgirl]

32. YAY!!! Woohoo!

I so desperately hope Humboldt County is setting a trend that the rest of the country will pick up on!

[Vidar]

33. Wonderful idea. Hats off to the Greens.

[The Anti-Neo Con]

36. Awesome, it should be repealed!

What person do you know who lives for hundreds of years anyway?

[Mrspeeker]

37. YAY

Santa Cruz should do this next!

[leftofthedial]

38. this might be the most important news of the last 5 years

if only it were national

[stepnw1f]

39. Hell Yes... This is GREAT!!!!

Corporations should never have as much power as they presently do. If people who work for corporations want to vote as a person to have a say in our govt, fine, but not as a corporate entity. Individual rights....

[maxsolomon]

40. take it to the supreme court

and watch it get slapped down 7-2

[GreenPartyVoter]

42. woohoo! Bet the Feds won't let it stand, tho.

[ArmchairMeme]

44. K & R

Wow! This is a hopeful sign to see that people are taking action to limit the influence of corporate on voting.

Perhaps other locations will follow the leader and it will be come a trend.

[Canuckistanian]

45. Fantastic news

This idea of "corporation as person" has been taken to the extreme. Now, corporations have MORE power than the average person in terms of government influence, tax breaks, freedom from prosecution, etc.

Time to give more power back to the REAL "persons in law".

[DiverDave]

46. This has NOTHING to do with corporation's as PEOPLE!!

The OP got it wrong, it is for out of state corporation's to not be able to spend money on local ballot issues.
A small step, yes, but bringing the corporation's down?...nope