Why treating corporations as natural persons is anathema to democracy.

[MrFun]

I did not want to post the entire lengthy dissenting opinion, so I'm quoting excerpts; below is the URL to the entire written dissension.

The basic premise underlying the Court’s ruling is its iteration, and constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its “identity” as a corporation. While that glittering generality has rhetorical appeal, it is not a correct statement of the law. Nor does it tell us when a corporation may engage in electioneering that some of its shareholders oppose. It does not even resolve the specific question whether Citizens United may be required to finance some of its messages with the money in its PAC. The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.

In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZX.html

[MrFun]

The dissenting judges also explained why the ruling procedure itself was not appropriate:

The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution. Before turning to the question whether to overrule Austin and part of McConnell , it is important to explain why the Court should not be deciding that question.

Scope of the Case

The first reason is that the question was not properly brought before us. In declaring §203 of BCRA facially unconstitutional on the ground that corporations’ electoral expenditures may not be regulated any more stringently than those of individuals, the majority decides this case on a basis relinquished below, not included in the questions presented to us by the litigants, and argued here only in response to the Court’s invitation. This procedure is unusual and inadvisable for a court. 2 Our colleagues’ suggestion that “we are asked to reconsider Austin and, in effect, McConnell ,” ante , at 1, would be more accurate if rephrased to state that “we have asked ourselves” to reconsider those cases.

In the District Court, Citizens United initially raised a facial challenge to the constitutionality of §203. App. 23a–24a. In its motion for summary judgment, however, Citizens United expressly abandoned its facial challenge, 1:07–cv–2240–RCL–RWR, Docket Entry No. 52, pp. 1–2 (May 16, 2008), and the parties stipulated to the dismissal of that claim, id. , Nos. 53 (May 22, 2008), 54 (May 23, 2008), App. 6a. The District Court therefore resolved the case on alternative grounds, 3 and in its jurisdictional statement to this Court, Citizens United properly advised us that it was raising only “an as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of … BCRA §203.” Juris. Statement 5. The jurisdictional statement never so much as cited Austin , the key case the majority today overrules. And not one of the questions presented suggested that Citizens United was surreptitiously raising the facial challenge to §203 that it previously agreed to dismiss. In fact, not one of those questions raised an issue based on Citizens United’s corporate status. Juris. Statement (i). Moreover, even in its merits briefing, when Citizens United injected its request to overrule Austin , it never sought a declaration that §203 was facially unconstitutional as to all corporations and unions; instead it argued only that the statute could not be applied to it because it was “funded overwhelmingly by individuals.” Brief for Appellant 29; see also id., at 10, 12, 16, 28 (affirming “as applied” character of challenge to §203); Tr. of Oral Arg. 4–9 (Mar. 24, 2009) (counsel for Citizens United conceding that §203 could be applied to General Motors); id., at 55 (counsel for Citizens United stating that “we accept the Court’s decision in Wisconsin Right to Life ”).

“ ‘It is only in exceptional cases coming here from the federal courts that questions not pressed or passed upon below are reviewed,’ ” Youakim v. Miller , 425 U. S. 231, 234 (1976) (per curiam) (quoting Duignan v. United States , 274 U. S. 195, 200 (1927) ), and it is “only in the most exceptional cases” that we will consider issues outside the questions presented, Stone v. Powell , 428 U. S. 465, 481, n. 15 (1976) . The appellant in this case did not so much as assert an exceptional circumstance, and one searches the majority opinion in vain for the mention of any. That is unsurprising, for none exists.

Faced with this gaping empirical hole, the majority throws up its hands. Were we to confine our inquiry to Citizens United’s as-applied challenge, it protests, we would commence an “extended” process of “draw[ing], and then redraw[ing], constitutional lines based on the particular media or technology used to disseminate political speech from a particular speaker.” Ante , at 9. While tacitly acknowledging that some applications of §203 might be found constitutional, the majority thus posits a future in which novel First Amendment standards must be devised on an ad hoc basis, and then leaps from this unfounded prediction to the unfounded conclusion that such complexity counsels the abandonment of all normal restraint. Yet it is a pervasive feature of regulatory systems that unanticipated events, such as new technologies, may raise some unanticipated difficulties at the margins. The fluid nature of electioneering communications does not make this case special. The fact that a Court can hypothesize situations in which a statute might, at some point down the line, pose some unforeseen as-applied problems, does not come close to meeting the standard for a facial challenge. 6

[MrFun]

Dissenting judges also pointed out another fallacy in the majority ruling:

In many ways, then, §203 functions as a source restriction or a time, place, and manner restriction. It applies in a viewpoint-neutral fashion to a narrow subset of advocacy messages about clearly identified candidates for federal office, made during discrete time periods through discrete channels. In the case at hand, all Citizens United needed to do to broadcast Hillary right before the primary was to abjure business contributions or use the funds in its PAC, which by its own account is “one of the most active conservative PACs in America,” Citizens United Political Victory Fund, http://www.cupvf.org/. 40

So let us be clear: Neither Austin nor McConnell held or implied that corporations may be silenced; the FEC is not a “censor”; and in the years since these cases were decided, corporations have continued to play a major role in the national dialogue. Laws such as §203 target a class of communications that is especially likely to corrupt the political process, that is at least one degree removed from the views of individual citizens, and that may not even reflect the views of those who pay for it. Such laws burden political speech, and that is always a serious matter, demanding careful scrutiny. But the majority’s incessant talk of a “ban” aims at a straw man.

[Felch]

Is this some sort of performance art? Are you actively trying to be the most boring poster ever?

[SlowwHand]

Good thing you whittled it back. Now it's TLDR, not TFLDR.

[Berzerker]

the NY Times aint a corporation?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Is this some sort of performance art? Are you actively trying to be the most boring poster ever?

I believe he's won the award a few times in the past.

[Zevico]

1. To understand the dissenting opinion one must read the majority opinion first.
2. Posting blocks of the opinion doesn't help much. Take out the block text and throw a link to the majority and dissentient opinions. Or the case itself. Whichever.
3. If you want to discuss this issue then a good way to start is by explaining your own views. Thus far your contention is that corporate 'personhood' is anathema to democracy. Yet democracy in your country still exists. If it were an "anaethema" to democracy then why does your democracy still exist? Moreso, your democracy recently elected into power a Democratic-majority Congress (now no longer the case) and Senate, as well as a Democratic President. Does it follow that they, too, are part of this threat to democracy?

[DaShi]

In before HC posts something ignora...aw Zevico beat me to it.

[Zevico]

Enlighten me, wise one.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Can't get blood from stones.