Corporations Are Not Human Beings

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Michael Bennet today introduced a constitutional amendment to grant Congress the authority to regulate the campaign finance system.

“The flawed Citizens United decision allows corporations, including international corporations, to use their vast wealth to drown out the voices of the American people, and it allows them to do so anonymously from behind shell organizations.” — Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

“The proposed amendment:

• Authorizes Congress to regulate and limit the raising and spending of money for federal political campaigns and allow states to regulate such spending at their level;
• Includes the authority to regulate and limit independent expenditures, such as those from Super PACs, made in support of or opposition to candidates;
• Would not dictate any specific policies or regulations, but instead would allow Congress to pass campaign finance reform legislation that withstands constitutional challenges.”[1]

While the proposed amendment addresses the most obvious problems with the wrongly decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission it does not go far enough. Even more troubling than the result of the Court’s opinion is the reasoning behind it. Writing for the Court[2], Justice Kennedy granted new status and rights to corporations.

“Although the First Amendment provides that ‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,’ §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions.”

By extension the Court has bestowed upon corporations all the rights and privileges of citizenship.

In his dissent Justice Stevens wrote,[2]

“The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.”

Were I to propose an amendment it would read as follows,

Corporations are not human beings. They are not endowed by the Creator with unalienable rights. They have only those rights enumerated by Congress and the States.