>On Sun, 24 Jan 2010, SA wrote:
>
>>In response to the Citizens United decision, there seems to be a
>>movement afoot by some folks on the left to amend the Constitution
>>to end corporate personhood. See here: http://www.movetoamend.org/
>>. Maybe I'm missing something important, but this seems insane.
>
>I've just been reading the dissent to the Citizens United case
>(written by Stevens, but joined by all four). And according to
>Stevens, when it comes to regulating campaign spending, Congress has
>been happily making a legal distinction between natural and
>corporate persons since the Tillman Act of 1907. Pace Stevens, the
>law on this was a long settled cumulative tradition until this
>decision threw it all out with what seems in his telling like pretty
>dubious legal maneuvers.
>
>>From this I take it that:
>
>1) A century's experience has shown that there is no inherent
>systemic problem with passing laws that give corporate persons fewer
>protections that natural persons; and thus
>
>2) The amendment drive here could be fixed with a few words so that
>it wasn't crazy. Instead of abolishing corporate personhood, the
>amendment could simply say that Congress and the states can pass
>laws that discriminate between corporate and natural persons when
>such discrimination is found to be in the public interest.
>
>Which I think is really what people who sign this mean. They don't
>really want to abolish corporations. They just want to be free to
>pass laws to curb what they can do.
>
>Michael
I think the MoveToAmend.org group is simply trying to restore the authority of state and federal government to regulate corporations. I don't think they're trying do abolish corporations (though, of course, there may be a few corporaphobes who favor eradication).