It's a profoundly jinxed ruling because it goes to the heart of elections and elections are the infrastructure of how a democratic republic ought to operate.
MB: How did the idea to outlaw corporate personhood develop?
DC: A community organizing group called Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County spent ten years organizing and educating the community specifically about corporate power, which includes corporate personhood. It also includes the whole enchilada, as it were.
MB: I noticed that the words "although they are not people" were included in the majority decision. Is that significant in any way?
DC: They say that they are not living, breathing entities, but they are affording corporations constitutional rights and understand that, if you have a constitutional right, it means that, because of your status as a person, a human being, the majority, through its normal operating purposes cannot infringe upon your core rights and I support that. And so do you and so do all Americans that the majority should not be able to infringe upon the constitutional rights of others. There is a role for the courts to play if the tyranny of the majority somehow suppresses a minority.
But, to say that corporations have any constitutional rights at all is a perversion of that doctrine.
MB: Do you think that the majority made that statement intentionally?
DC: Of course. There is a growing movement of outraged citizens that is howling at the doctrine of corporate personhood. Frankly, I'm proud to be one of the core people who have helped to set that frame ten years in the making. We're going to continue to use the frame because it's a valuable frame.
Corporations are not persons. They should not have constitutional rights. Constitutional protections should only protect people.
Remember this. I'm not saying that corporations don't have legal rights. I'm saying that those legal rights can only properly come about through the political process. Corporations are creatures of state law and, therefore, the state has the authority and responsibility to say what the rights of a corporation are.
Human beings are not creatures of state law. Human beings are persons with inalienable rights and those rights are codified, acknowledged and recognized in the Constitution. That principle is something that liberals, conservatives and A-political people all understand and know at the very gut level. That's why corporate personhood is an abomination and it's why we're organizing using that frame.
MB: You are proposing an amendment to the Constitution that states that corporations are not people. Is that not right?
DC: We are proposing an amendment which states that corporations are not persons and, therefore, cannot claim any constitutional rights.
So the fact that the court asserted that corporations are not people misses the point and doesn't address anything.
Our amendment, when it passes, will, in fact, be ironclad because it will allow local, state and federal governments to pass laws with confidence because they cannot be overturned by corporations. It will put the political question of economics squarely where it belongs, in the political landscape, in the political debate.
MB: What kind of support do you have on the national level at this point? Is it too early to tell? I know you've been working on this for a long time.
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