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Comment by c3534l | Hacker News Reader

> US corporations are citizens

No they're not. You're confusing the already commonly-confused concept of legal personhood with citizenship.

> but they can contribute unlimited campaign contributions

Citizens United ruled that actual human beings had the right to make unlimited campaign contributions and that the right to do so could not be rescinded just because those flesh-and-blood individuals decided to pool their money into a corporation. People have the right to organize for political action and congress cannot take that away.

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> Citizens United ruled that actual human beings had the right to make unlimited campaign contributions

No, it didn't. Campaign contributions are still limited.

Citizens United built on the established precedent that people unaffiliated with campaigns are free to spend their own money how they wish, as long as they don't coordinate with campaigns.

Citizens United ruled that this right applies to people who pool their money together.

Actually campaign contributions weren’t the issue. Citizens United decided that’s Congress could not take away the right of flesh and blood people to air a political advertisement just because they were organized as a corporation.

This is so beyond the pale as to be far beyond the realm of logical discussion.

If I have pooled my 'right of personhoop' contributions into a corporate asset base and thus absolved myself of liability laws regarding the disposition of this asset base -- what basis do I have to have to claim 'my' personhood rights over how this asset base is distributed to political campaigns?

If what you say is _actually_ true then it should be illegal for corporations to disperse campaign funds in anything other than an amount that _exactly_ reflects the relative ownership amount of every single stockholder in that corporation -- otherwise an individual shareholder's claim on the percentage of personhood ownership of the corporation has been rescinded.

I have no problem limiting campaign contributions and certain political activities. The constitution does, though. The law generally likes to treat corporations as separate from their owners, but no such notion exists in the constitution. And if it comes to a question of constitutionality, then it doesn't matter that our laws limit the financial liability of a stockholder to his or her contribution because that's not a constitutional question.

The constitution as interpreted by five out of nine sitting judges at the time the question was last ruled on. It's reasonable to think the constitution says otherwise, although you are correct as to the law of the land at the moment.

True enough.

And I also think it's fair for you to use the shorthand, "The constitution says ..." as a stand-in for this. But there seem to be some people in the thread who are not too familiar with the American legal system, and I don't want those folks to be confused into thinking the document actually says anything directly about corporate person-hood and free speech. Not trying to put you on the defense or anything.

It's only beyond the pale because you appear to misunderstand the ruling and the existing law.

A corporation still cannot make unlimited campaign donations. They can however spend their money however they choose. As long as they are not coordinating with any compaign.

If a candidate is running and promises to raise income tax to 99%, then I can form a political action committee or corporation and spend as much money as we want trashing the candidate that is pushing that idea. We cannot, however, donate unlimited funds to his opponent or work directly with any campaign, pay their expenses, etc.

It is a perfectly reasonable freedom that just happens to have negative consequences.

The corporation cannot make campaign donations. They can't even talk with or coordinate with any specific campaign. They can, however take a public stand about who they want to win and run commercial to that effect.

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