Hawaii just found a way around Citizens United. Other states are following | Hacker News Reader

Hawaii just found a way around Citizens United. Other states are following

ms.now

56 pointsxyst25 comments

Corporations, as an entity, deserve no Constitutional rights. Only the individuals that make them up, and as individuals, not as a group.

"Corporations are people" should be the example quote under the definition of "Gaslighting".

If corporations are people, and they kill someone, why do they only have to pay a fine and/or possibly elect certain employees to go to prison?

I can't poison a billion+ people like monsanto did and then pay a portion of the profits as restitution. If I poison 1 person I go to jail for life.

Fascinating! But does this only apply if the company is incorporated in that particular state? If there is any state that doesn’t adopt the new law structure, then companies will just re-incorporate to that other state.

Of course, not every company may find it worthwhile to do that. So on the whole, it will probably mean companies that aren’t that involved in political spending will become even less involved. But, the largest spenders may find it worthwhile to re-incorporate so they can continue to do it.

Hawaii can only make laws for Hawaii. So I don't even think it could stop a Hawaiian corporation from spending political dollars in another state. But it can probably stop corporations from spending money in Hawaii even if they are not incorporated there. This law will make its way to the supreme Court relatively quickly I expect.

Corporations/LLCs generally have to explicitly register with every state they do business in. Presumably at this juncture they can be subject to the same restrictions. No idea how this concretely plays out with this law though.

More info

https://afj.org/article/corporate-power-reset-movement-updat...

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/addressing-question...

Citizens United might be cooked, finally.

Stories like this one, though rare, often remind me that there is hope, and that society is not static. That even though there is corruption, and setbacks, by continuously pursuing a goal we can slowly claw our way towards a better tomorrow.

We have to do something tho. Today I was thinking out loud how it would be awesome if we could build a middle ground party around mamdani and company, along with like minded individuals. Sure he couldn't run for President, but what if the Party was different in it's constitutional structure. What I'd party power was divided into two heads, chairman(who vehemently defends the brand), and the political leader (charismatic figure dujur). This setup would mimic nature, close to perfect ecosystems in nature make use of antagonistic forces to maintain balances and preserve environment. This thir party would exist smack in the middle of the spectrum. Let the Oligarchs have the republican party, and let the corporatist/wall-street/speculators have the Democratic party. The Pleb/people can build a new modern real and functional party in 2026. Why Mamdani?? He just achieved what seems like an impossible fiscal feat, in your face Bezos and his bold claim that taxing the Rich won't make a difference. Honestly guys, the Mandani movement has gained cosmic gravity power with that move, I'm talking probably surpassing Bill Clinton's mobilization and even the legendary "yes we can" of Obama fame. Even if he cannot run for President. We'll make him Governor of the new Moderate Centric Progressive People's Party. First constitutional commandment: Though shalt not take candy from Corporations.

high school, something, magna carta seperation of church and state, something, something

NOW, we need a seperation of business from state, where state regulation is explisetely antagonistic to mega business/bank acumulation of assets/capital. It has to happen, and soon, or China, which maintains an actual functional central government, will thrive, while we decend further into a new dark age.

Separation between wealth and church and journalism and state.

Unconstitutional on 14th amendment grounds and first amendment grounds.

They are privileging speech rights from some groups over other groups (unions v corps).

You can (and others surely will) make that argument. But it doesn't apply because an LLC isnt a protected group. Gov'ts are fully allowed to discriminate outside of the relatively constrained race, religion, gender stuff. If the individuals in an LLC want to politic, then they are using the wrong venue. The state has created other venues and can force citizens to use them (you surely approve of this power when it forces your doctor to be board certified).

Where in the constitution does it say that corporate entities have any rights at all?

Corporations inherit their rights and privileges from the people in them. Because a corp is in fact just a series of individuals in a trenchcoat. (This would make immediate sense if we had not let grammar decay and you implicitly knew corp = plural)

Those people did not lose their individual rights; they are still free to donate using their money. Corporations are not people even if they are made up of people.

The people making up the corporation can all vote as individuals and the corporation itself has no vote. This is no different.

people are corporations. I hardly exist as an individual in america. I do not own anything, my company does (my company employs only me and soon my daughter when she is of age), I do not buy anything, my company does. I don’t have phone service or internet service or practically anything under my name. and my company (me) has about the same rights as you, an individual, except of course a lot more cause capitalism be capilizing :)

Not necessarily. Unions are typically organized as a not-for-profit. The legislation acts on all entities including unions.

Repeat after me: Corporations and LLCs are not individuals. Corporations and LLCs are government creations. Corporations and LLCs do not have natural rights.

Corporations, just like a group of concerned mothers pooling money for a billboard, are a grouping of people. And shareholders have rights to spend their own pooled money on speech, just like the mothers have that same right.

This is disingenuous - a group of concerned mothers does not have a government-created liability shield, for starters.

In general, shareholders are always able to pool their money directly in the manner you are stating. This being uncommon shows that the situations are not equivalent.

>Repeat after me: Corporations and LLCs are not individuals. Corporations and LLCs are government creations.

They are however, groups of individuals.

I know that's part of the Supreme Council's current justification for why corpos deserve natural rights, but I don't really see what it actually has to do with anything. Regardless of how corpos might be regulated, the individuals associated with a corpo are all still capable of exercising their free speech rights in their own individual capacity. Declaring that the government-created legal entity should not be able to direct individuals to speak a certain way fundamentally preserves those individuals' rights. The corpo's owners are also still able to freely speak on the corpo's interests using their own individual rights.

Yeah, and those individuals already have rights. I don't know why you think the group itself should have rights too on top of it.

Should we give corporations the right to vote? Should its members would have double voting rights?

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