

Pre-Hobby Lobby Timeline of Corporate Personhood - newscloud
http://jeffreifman.com/2014/07/01/hobby-lobby-latest-evolution-corporate-constitutional-rights/

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snowwrestler
This is another in a long line of bad articles about corporate personhood.

> 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.

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newscloud
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.

