A friend forwarded me the link to this announcement by “the liberal public relations firm,” Murray Hill, Inc., that it will follow up the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case by running for Congress. It’s absurd and tongue-in-cheek, of course, and pretty funny to boot. But the more I thought about it, being constitutionally enamored of crazy ideas, the harder I found it to articulate precisely why it’s such a crazy idea. What’s wrong, exactly, with having a representative in Congress consisting of not one person but a collection of people authorized to act on your behalf? If a significant number of people thought that, say, the Sierra Club (Inc.), or the Institute for Justice (Inc.), or the Center for Democracy and Technology (Inc.), or some other aggregation of individuals — even, I suppose, Walmart, Inc. — could better represent their interests in regard to the proper scope of Congressional activity, why would we deny them that choice? What is so sacred in the idea that only individual human beings are capable of exercising the representative function? I’m sure I’m missing something, and vigilant readers will be able to tell me what it is, but I must say that whatever it is, it’s not jumping out at me.
Chris Travers says:
David Post:
For starters, our age restrictions assume natural persons. Would a corporation have to have been in existence for 30 years in order to run for a Senate seat? If I incorporate my business, 18 years later do I get a right to vote a second time if my business is successful?
However far worse: If IBM was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, that would make the position perpetual, right?
February 4, 2010, 4:42 pmBD57 says:
Age requirement.
February 4, 2010, 4:42 pmNaG says:
In addition to the age comments above, corporation foremost has an obligation to its shareholders. That obligation may get in the way of an oath to represent the interests of the constituents and to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States.
February 4, 2010, 4:46 pmVehical Driver says:
The funny thing, is that you are essentially doing this under most parliamentary systems. I vote for the Conservatives, or Liberals, or New Democrats, or Bloc Quebecois, not for a candidate.
February 4, 2010, 4:47 pmDave N. says:
Umm, how about the specific language from the Constitution, to start:
Assuming, arguendo, that corporations are somehow “persons” under this analysis, I am aware of nothing that grants “citizenship” status to corporations (let alone the age issue, which others have mentioned).
Of course, no sentient being outside the legal academy would seriously argue that a ficticious person (which is what a corporation is) would be eligible to run for office, vote, write a will, or any of the variety of other activities that a “real” person has every right to do.
So yes, Pinnochio, even though you might be a person, you are not (at least until the end of the story) a real little boy.
February 4, 2010, 4:51 pmJoseph Slater says:
Dave N. is absolutely right, but to bolster NaG’s concurring point, see this post by law prof. Adam Winkler.
February 4, 2010, 4:54 pmegd says:
Probably more of a “public corruption” issue.
It’s one thing to argue that lobbyists and special interests are buying off your representative.
It’s something else entirely when the Representative’s stock (and corresponding voting power) are available at the NYSE.
Edit: although the “corporate person as supreme court justice” might be an interesting addendum to the Shadowrun setting. Justices Renraku & Aztechnology would certainly ask some interesting questions.
February 4, 2010, 4:55 pmJohn A. Fleming says:
Divided loyalties. A corporate entity, public or private, (non)commercial, is a special-purpose entity formed to do its own thing. Only an individual can credibly claim to say that he or she will work with undivided loyalty to further the interests of the people. Any corporate entity would be dishonest in saying so, by definition.
February 4, 2010, 5:00 pmruuffles says:
Heh heh.
February 4, 2010, 5:01 pmGino says:
David N.,
The provisions you cite only apply to “persons.” There are no such limits on corporations. So age, citizenship and habitation are irrelevant as far as corporations are concerned.
I for one welcome our new corporate overlords.
February 4, 2010, 5:03 pmLuke K says:
Aside from a few independents, people run not only as individuals but as representatives from their parties. They pledge to uphold the constitution, and to represent their political party’s views.
Why couldn’t a person run as an individual while pledging to respect and represent the views of the NRA or the Sierra Club. Of course, the person could just stop listening to their sponsoring organization for voting advice, but that sounds about as unlikely as Republicans or Democrats switching parties.
February 4, 2010, 5:04 pmChris Travers says:
I would agree with this. A state is a corporate entity, and natural persons are its agents and representatives.
Corporations can’t do things which are unfit for the corporate form. For example, two corporations can’t be eachothers corporate agents.
February 4, 2010, 5:13 pmChris Travers says:
I am wondering if David Post thinks we should start nominating for-profit corporations as judges.
Furthermore it occurs to me that appointing a family-owned small corporation to a judicial position would be essentially granting a title of nobility.
February 4, 2010, 5:14 pmCJColucci says:
Vehical Driver:
February 4, 2010, 5:16 pmI’ve often wondered what voters in parliamentary systems do when they prefer the program, and the general quality of the leadership team, represented by Party X, but Party X’s candidate in their district or riding is a corrupt, stupid, thug, and Party Y’s candidate is an honest, intelligent, statesman. Do they vote for the thug to get better policies and a better administration, or do they vote for the individually better candidate, possibly contributing to turning the government over to Party Y. And does the voter’s decision change if Party X’s victory (or defeat, for that matter) is in the bag?
Cal Attny says:
I is teh corporation.
February 4, 2010, 5:22 pmHouston Lawyer says:
Corporations may be legally bought and sold.
Could I run different corporations that I own in different districts, resulting in my ownership of all of the votes in Congress? Then I could be king.
February 4, 2010, 5:23 pmJohn R. Christiansen says:
Embedded category problem: The constitutional provisions assume conditions applicable only to natural individuals. I ran into the same kind of issue responding to a client question whether their customized consumer medical content application had to be licensed to practice medicine – I had to conclude that it did not, simply because the conditions to licensure could only be fulfilled by a natural individual, and that it was simply the wrong question. (Right Q&A? FDA.)
Along the same lines, perhaps the most fun I ever had writing a motion for summary judgment was against a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress on a corporation. The lawyer who pled that claim got kicked off the case . . .
February 4, 2010, 5:24 pmSwan Trumpet says:
In its Citizens United v. F.E.C. decision, SCOTUS did not declare corporations were citizens with all the rights of citizenhip. The decision makes plain that corporations should enjoy the same First Amendment rights as persons only in the limited area of free speech.
This is a right that has always been enjoyed by certain corporations whose primary business has been the news media, but all other corporations were denied this in the wake of McCain/Feingold. Before Citizens United, no one ever suggested that the Washington Post or Fox News run for congressional office.
February 4, 2010, 5:32 pmChris Travers says:
Maybe you could own all the corporations sitting on the Supreme Court.
Then not only would you be king, you would be able to pass that title on to your children as well….
February 4, 2010, 5:36 pmChris Travers says:
That’s classic! I will be laughing about that all afternoon….
February 4, 2010, 5:38 pmtroll_dc2 says:
If a corporation COULD run for Congress, where could it do so? Most corporations are chartered in states like Delaware and New Jersey, even though their principal place of business is elsewhere. What state would they be a citizen of for the purpose of running for office?
February 4, 2010, 5:40 pmRandy says:
If a corporation is a person, then can I marry the corporation? And is it eligible for social security benefits?
February 4, 2010, 5:42 pmDave N. says:
Randy,
In my earlier post, I included “marriage” in the laundry list of things a “real” person could do and corporation could not, but edited it out to avoid having the thread deteriorate into one about gay marriage.
On the other hand, you raise an interesting point. How do you determine the gender of a corporation?
February 4, 2010, 5:48 pmChris Travers says:
Well, traditionally marriage had been limited to people of the opposite sex, so that excludes corporations. Now, with the SSM movement, some states also allow people of the same sex, which still excludes corporations.
What we need to accomplish this is an NPCM (Natural Person-Corporation Marriage) movement.
February 4, 2010, 5:49 pmDave N. says:
You don’t explain how the text of the Constitution is irrelevant to corporate “persons” as opposed to natural “persons.” So please explain how the age and citizenship requirements embedded in the text of the Constitution are irrelevant.
February 4, 2010, 5:51 pmNR says:
Randy,
There you go again, trying to redefine corporate mergers. Mergers have always been between two corporations, not a natural person and a corporation. Our entire society is based on this great tradition and moral truth. Why do you hate America so?
-NR
February 4, 2010, 5:54 pmToday's Tom Sawyer says:
Actually, there is one area in which corporations are considered citizens: federal jurisdiction. For corporations, they can be considered citizens of states in which they are a)incorporated and/or b) their principal place of business (either majority of business done and/or headquartered at). In support of the personhood of corporations, they are also judged by the same criterion for personal jurisdiction. As for a corporation holding office, they could win an election and then appoint their representative to actually hold the office for them, pursuant to Constitutional requirements (for the precedent behind this, see the original selection of senators, which is basically the corporate entity of the State with the legislature as Board of Directors appointing a person to sit in that capacity). Not necessarily all that against the Constitution if you think outside of the box and reason by analogy.
February 4, 2010, 5:58 pmNR says:
Because the provisions you cite, Article I, Sections 2 and 3, do not require one to be a “person” to run for office, and they impose age and citizenship restrictions only on “persons.” So if corporations are not persons, then Gino is right. Ironically, however, this would also mean that corporations don’t have free speech rights and aren’t protected by the 5th and 14th amendments. I, for one, welcome our new impotent rightless corporate overlords.
February 4, 2010, 6:08 pmShelbyC says:
If we let people marry corporations, next they’ll want to marry LLC’s.
February 4, 2010, 6:12 pmArkady says:
Breaking News…
Senator G. Behemothcorp (R. Delaware) was expelled from the Senate today for gross violations of ethics involving laundered funds from one of Behemothcorp’s Columbian subsidiaries, Fundrugs and the payment of massive bribes in that country. Upon expulsion, he was immediately taken into custody by U.S. marshals. In addition, the 3 million stockholders of Behemothcorp are expected to surrender themselves at the nearest U.S. marshal’s office within the next 48 hours. Passports for all have been suspended by the State department. Lawyers for stockholders are withholding comment until they see the list of charges being lodged, and until they can, in the words of one who wishes to remain anonymous, “figure out just what the hell Heller has gotten us into.”
February 4, 2010, 6:15 pmGD says:
While corporations are “persons” in the eyes of the law, the US Capitol is populated by “congresscritters.” There is no persuasive case law holding that corporations are “critters.”
More serious answer below.
*************
February 4, 2010, 6:23 pmYou may have an issue surrounding proxies/delegation of duties. My understanding is that a congresscritter cannot sign a proxy or otherwise delegate their vote. By its very nature, a corporation must delegate authority to its officers (and cannot act except through its officers or a shareholder vote). If a corporation is permitted to designate an authorized officer to vote, why would other individual congresscritters not have a similar right to delegate authority.
Dave N. says:
True enough, but that is through the provisions of a very specific statute: 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1). Without this statutory provision, corporations would not be “citizens” for diversity purposes.
February 4, 2010, 6:30 pmChris Travers says:
That’s an interesting theory. Next, a President will back a horse in a race for the senate…..
February 4, 2010, 6:40 pmToday's Tom Sawyer says:
In order for a federal court to have jurisdiction, there must be both a Constitutional authorization AND a Statutory authorization, so that still leaves us with a question about Constitutions and corporate personhood.
February 4, 2010, 6:42 pmRob says:
Life imitates the Onion:
Supreme Court Allows Corporations To Run For Political Office
February 4, 2010, 6:52 pmDave N. says:
I don’t think so. The Constitutional provision creates the federal judiciary. The statutory provision grants the federal judiciary its jurisdiction over specific cases and controversies (remember, the federal courts are courts of limited and not general jurisdiction).
“Corporate personhood” is not a part of the constitutional authorization for a federal judiciary.
February 4, 2010, 7:03 pmDon de Drain says:
Corporations can be bought and sold. Politicians can be bought and sold. Perfect fit.
February 4, 2010, 7:03 pmChris Travers says:
I liked the old Icelandic system. A seat at the legislature (and court) was property that could be bought or sold. the catch? No executive branch of government.
February 4, 2010, 7:49 pm1040 says:
I agree. Make corporations eligible to run for office, and increase efficiencies by cutting out the middle man.
February 4, 2010, 7:51 pmElliot says:
I suppose I could get around all the objections by simply running for Congress as the Walmart senator who will vote exactly as the Walmart CEO tells me to.
February 4, 2010, 8:13 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Did you win? :)
February 4, 2010, 8:32 pmq says:
Presumably, a corporation would run for office because it’s in the interests of its shareholders. In which case, maintaining office would also be in the shareholders’ interests and representing the interests of its constituents would seem to be aligned to shareholder interest.
To the extent that maintaining office has nothing to do with representing constituents, that’s more of a structural issue, as an individual politician would have no obligation to do so either. In fact, in such a situation, I’d prefer the corporation which at least is beholden (hopefully) to its shareholders who are likely to be many and diverse, as opposed to an individual who is only beholden to him or herself.
Also, all citizens and entities are required to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States, not sure why you’re worried about that.
February 4, 2010, 8:59 pmBarbara Skolaut says:
Too bad we can’t elect Wal-Mart to
February 4, 2010, 9:06 pmReCongress. I’m sure they’d do a better job that its present denizens.DJR says:
If corporations had a right not to incriminate themselves, litigation against them would be much harder, and my job would be a lot easier.
February 4, 2010, 9:10 pmq says:
Also, corporations are far less evil than individuals. What’s the most evil a corporation has ever done? Most examples are probably a corporation cooperating with a government run by a particularly evil individual. Which proves my point.
I’m not sure I see what the problem is.
February 4, 2010, 9:10 pmSteven Den Beste says:
I didn’t think that Supreme Court Decision really was about making a corporation into a person. I thought it was about recognizing that a corporation is made up of people, and that those people have the same right of free political expression as any other people.
What McCain Feingold said was that the people in the corporation did not have free speech if they were speaking on behalf of the corporation, and such an exception isn’t justified under the First Amendment.
If that’s correct, then it has nothing to do with making the corporation itself into a person, which would mean that it doesn’t give the corporation the ability to run for office.
February 4, 2010, 10:31 pmJohn Herbison says:
Well, five members of SCOTUS backed a horse and installed him as president. (One end of the horse, anyway)
February 4, 2010, 11:17 pmChris Travers says:
Ever hear of the Homestead Strike?
February 4, 2010, 11:37 pmGerbilsbite says:
CHARACTER.
February 5, 2010, 12:06 amq says:
How many people died? Less than 10? That’s really the most evil thing a corporation has ever done, even if I were to count the mob violence as something the corporation “did”?
Plenty of people today have done worse.
February 5, 2010, 12:23 amOren says:
Truth be told, that hasn’t been working very well for us either.
I have never read about the Homestead Strike. From Wikipedia:
Sounds more like a mob than a union to me. They seems to have (without any reason, let alone justification in law) deprived the rightful owner of the plant the use of his property.
The union has every right to strike and no right to prevent others from working by violence.
February 5, 2010, 1:22 amravenshrike says:
Corporations cannot age. They can have been incorporated for a certain amount of time, but that is not aging. As such, any requirements that require a certain age they are ineligible for.
February 5, 2010, 1:22 amBrandon Berg says:
Yes, and from what I’ve heard it’s just another episode in the long and shameful history of union thuggery. Though nowadays unions tend to be incorporated, so point taken.
In general, I find claims of nonretaliatory violence by management against unions to be somewhat implausible. Unions have a clear incentive to use violence to scare off replacements. While unethical, it’s a move that could plausibly further their goals. But using violence against unions doesn’t strike me as something likely to be terribly effective at getting them to go back to work.
February 5, 2010, 1:39 amMike McDougal says:
Since when do individuals exercise the representative function? Congressional representatives don’t do the vast majority of work on which they rely. That is done by their staff, lobbyists, and constituents.
February 5, 2010, 1:46 amDQ says:
Of course, the idea of “corporate personhood” in Citizens United is specifically tied to political speech and “the marketplace of ideas” so a direct analogy doesn’t work. But it’s pretty funny.
I guess, it is not so crazy to imagine 30 people each bidding to make decisions for you. Indeed, this is exactly what many proportional representation systems do.
But at the same time, it is pretty clear that the Constitution does not anticipate such a system. c.f. “No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.” (Art. 1) Of course, a skewed reading could interpret this as length of incorporation and corporate residency. But, corporations are not citizens under any reading of our laws. see 8 U.S.C. 1401 et. seq. (“a person born. . .”) (emphasis added). Corporations are founded, grounded or incorporated, but not born. This answers the “personhood” problem.
February 5, 2010, 2:35 amReasoner says:
Though a corporation is sometimes treated like a person, corporations are not physical things and have no body. A corporation is more like an idea, like a trademark or other intellectual property. Corporations own buildings and have employees, but those are the possessions of the corporation, not the corporation itself. Real persons also own buildings and have employees, but those are not the real person’s body.
Since a corporation has no body, how would it assert its vote? If it sends a representative and the representative serves the full term, then it’s better to just elect the representative directly. If the corporation can change its representative mid term, then if two persons show up claiming they are the representative, then how would it be determined which is the true representative?
A corporation could be sold or its ownership could be transfered by its shareholders to another owner.
If more than one person controlled the corporation, the decisions of the corporation would have to be made by some kind of vote. This would effectively multiply the number of representatives beyond the number specified in the constitution. In fact, corporations could be formed composed of all the voters and thereby turn the government into a direct democracy.
February 5, 2010, 3:00 ambender says:
you’re putting the lion in sheep’s clothing. the agenda of the sierra club is constrained severely by it’s ability toraise funds through donations. think of it this way. say you move into a neighborhood and the homeowner’s association is controlled almost exclusively by one guy in the neighborhood simply by virtue of his having the biggest house. would you want to live inman
February 5, 2010, 3:55 ambender says:
……..would you want to live in that neighborhood?
perhaps if in your analogy we gave the sierra club the budget of a wal-mart, maybe the problem would jump out at you a bit more?
February 5, 2010, 4:01 amAnon says:
Sounds a bit like the voting systems in some mediaeval cities, where different professions or guilds (for butchers, fishmongers, goldsmiths, lawyers, etc) elected their representatives onto the city council.
The City of London still has a system where companies can vote for their local representatives. Hong Kong also has a system of “functional constituencies” where a certain number of seats are allocated to groups representing the professions.
February 5, 2010, 4:25 amMr L says:
perhaps if in your analogy we gave the sierra club the budget of a wal-mart, maybe the problem would jump out at you a bit more?
Wal-Mart, unlike the Sierra Club, is in the business of delivering products and services to consumers (as opposed to self-promotion and political lobbying) and as such must devote the vast, vast majority of its spending towards productive expenses. Despite posting annual revenues of nearly half a trillion dollars, it spends far less on lobbying and political donations than the Sierra Club’s $100 million annual budget.
So, no.
February 5, 2010, 4:37 amStuhlmann says:
If we are going to grant person-hood to corporations, then how about changing the laws, so that corporations can be arrested. If a corporation breaks a law (say wire-tapping a competitor – industrial espionage), why arrest and jail the employee(s) who were involved? Why not just arrest the company – seize all the corporation’s assets for the period of the sentence and forbid the corporation from conducting any business? Or have the corporation work for the government – prison work program. This might upset some shareholders and bond holders, but that is what they get for taking a hands-off approach to corporate governance.
February 5, 2010, 5:02 amAmiable Dorsai says:
Doesn’t that conflict with a corporation’s rights under the 13th amendment?
February 5, 2010, 6:25 amBrett Bellmore says:
I see no reason you couldn’t make a system where groups of people could run for an office, to hold it jointly, work. It’s not like the officeholders do all their own work right now. And they’ve so expanded their power and reach that doing the job well is beyond the capacity of any one individual. But it’s fairly clear implementing such a system would require some constitutional changes, and supplementary rules governing the structure of such teams.
It’s got nothing to do with Citizens United, though, which was just about quashing an effort to restrict freedom of speech by preventing real people from using corporations to organize their efforts to speak.
February 5, 2010, 7:33 amArkady says:
Damn, I meant Citizens United, of course. Been reading too many VC posts and they’re all cross-wired in my overloaded brain.
February 5, 2010, 7:43 amAmiable Dorsai says:
Thanks for the correction; I thought you were imagining “three million stockholders of Behemothcorp” arming themselves for trial by combat.
February 5, 2010, 8:41 amHouston Lawyer says:
It used to be that corporations could marry (merge) only into other corporations. Recently, corporations have been allowed to merge into partnerships, LLCs or any other entity. Just a matter of time before a corporation can merge into an individual. The downside of a merger is that there is usually only one survivor.
February 5, 2010, 8:42 amFantasiaWHT says:
Why would you put an apostrophe before the “t” in “cont”? There’s no omission of letters between n and t…
February 5, 2010, 9:28 amjpe says:
The age requirements, etal, would be satisfied by the agent of the corporation. What’s unsettling about a for-profit corp being elected is the conflict of interest. That seems to vanish when we’re talking about non-profs.
February 5, 2010, 9:36 amMartinned says:
Well, that depends on what kind of parliamentary system we’re talking about. In my country’s system, a list system, you only ever vote for the party, although you can try to improve a specific person’s chances of getting in by giving them a preference vote, i.e. by voting for the person on the list instead of for the list in general. In such a system, your question wouldn’t come up.
In the English system, with constituencies and parties, people would generally give more weight to the party than to the candidate. In many safe seats voters wouldn’t even necessarily see a lot of local campaigning, apart from the posters, etc. If, for some reason, a voter would have a serious problem with their preferred party’s candidate, they would obviously be more likely to switch parties if the general outcome of the election seems safe. Then again, individual MPs don’t really matter, since they tend to vote the party line. So electing “a corrupt, stupid thug” can’t really do much harm…
I don’t think that’s right. AFAIK, the current way of treating corporations for diversity purposes was settled by the Supreme Court in Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Railroad Compay v. Letson (1844), overruling the 1809 case of US v. Deveaux, which had required at least one out of state shareholder in order for diversity jurisdiction to exist. There’s a whole bunch of old railroad and banking cases in this area, while people were starting to get used to the idea of legal personality.
Which again shows that the metaphor of “buying” and “selling” corporations is wrong. Shares are bought and sold, but the owner of the shares does not own the company. At most, he might control it.
February 5, 2010, 12:03 pmyankee says:
Wouldn’t they just be satisfied by the age of the corporation itself? This is easily ascertained by checking the certificate of incorporation.
February 5, 2010, 12:05 pmChris Travers says:
Really? I don’t think it is wrong at all. In the US, many, many (small) corporations have a single shareholder and director who is also the chief executive officer. The corporation in that case exists solely to serve the owner. Hence I don’t think the 13th Amendment goes beyond natural persons.
February 5, 2010, 12:26 pmKent Allard says:
Probably for the same reason that directors of corporations must be natural persons – although board’s have fiduciary duty to the stockholders (even if they represent a VC fund). What duty do representatives and senators have (for breach of which they can be sued…)?
February 5, 2010, 12:45 pmMartinned says:
I don’t, either. But I also don’t think that it is strictly correct to say that single shareholder companies are owned by that single shareholder. Both company law in general and the statutes of the company in particular will restrict his ability to dispose of the company as he pleases, especially if it reaches a certain size. He may have to share control rights with independent board members, with employee representatives, or – more likely in this economy – with bond holders. Best case scenario he controls the company on his own, but even then the analogy with how people own chattels or real estate does not seem particularly helpful, and imho professional jurists should avoid it.
February 5, 2010, 12:53 pmAllan Leedy says:
A slippery slop.
February 5, 2010, 1:19 pmohwilleke says:
Corporations that run for office are called “political parties.”
In most of the world they can choose the candidates who will represent them, and deny those candidates a viable chance of running for re-election if they don’t. In many countries with proportional representation election systems, voters choose the corporation they prefer first, and the individual who will represent it is chosen second.
In the U.S., few political parties have an absolute say on who can run as a candidate under their banner.
Inside and outside the U.S., political parties can strip the power of elected officials who disaffiliate (a quite dramatic example of this recently transpired in the Colorado House of Representatives where a party departing representative lost her committee chairmanship, leadership post, and eligibility to appear on the 2010 ballot as a candidate of any political party).
In principle, political parties also probably have the power to strip an elected official of party membership with the same result, although this almost never happens. Party switches are almost always voluntary and usually from a legislative minority party to a legislative majority party. Notably, party switches empiricaly have a considerable impact on the legislative voting record of those who make them, a natural experiment that shows that political parties are not as impotent in influencing a member’s vote as one might suppose.
In Colorado, political parties can and routinely do replace elected officials who resign with other members of the same political party.
The only power political parties usually lack (and often apart from U.S. Senators and senior judges, only for the duration of a two or four year term) is the power to remove their current representative from office. The criminal justice system and/or bipartisan removal powers of legislative bodies can do this on a bipartisan basis, of course (see Congressman Trafficant from Ohio).
Also notably, the U.S. Senate, before it was selected by popular election, gave states similar power to political parties to select their representatives to the one suggested for a corporate representative. The electoral college also reflects something of this notion as it represents states rather than individuals through a popular vote.
Almost all political parties are organized such that lower level party organs elect representatives to higher level party organs which in turn elect representatives to yet higher level party organs. This is true incidentally, in both democratic countries with multiparty democracies, and in countries with one party states. Representation is allocated to entities not individuals.
When I was part of a group of students who established a student government system at Oberlin College (a very liberal institution), after a moribund previous version had for years ceased to operate, elect anyone or conduct business, our new “Student Senate” has a mixed composition. A minority of members were nominated by student organizations on campus and selected from a caucus of student organization representatives (I was elected as an ACLU representative), while a majority of seats were elected from the general student body on an at large basis. Thus, not only did we have corporate representative in our Student Senate, we had corporations who could vote through their representatives!
The motive for the student organization representation, and for having “at large” selection of representatives rather than some manner of population based districting (which was considered and rejected) was to harness as many politically active individuals who could command as much support as possible from the politically active part of the community on campus as possible. Our biggest concerns were putting together people with enough collective energy and motivation to make sure that the next election happened, as it has failed to under a more staid previous arrangement, and to create a student government composed of people who would actively seek to exercise power within the institution for the benefit of students, rather than simply hold dances, organize community service days and act as lapdogs to legitimate an unpopular college administration (the President of the College at the time for a former CIA analyst with a poor understanding of what made the institution tick).
As an administrable concept, the idea is not unworkable.
The outrageous part of the idea is not that an entity might have representation in a legislative body. It is that a “for profit” corporation might have representation, something that is unprecedented. There is nothing very evil about aggregating interests through entities. The evil comes from formally granting actual power to people who don’t pretend to be seeking the public good as they conceive it. In practice, it would never matter, however, because looking out for number one and no one else is not a very good slogan upon which to run for office.
February 5, 2010, 8:31 pmohwilleke says:
It happens every day. It is called arbitration. In some areas of the law (e.g. credit card disputes) it was, or was until recently, the dominant means by which private law is adjudicated.
February 5, 2010, 8:33 pmohwilleke says:
There were times in ancient Rome where the number of votes you could cast was based on the number of dollars you paid in taxes (a bit like corporate shareholder voting and HOA voting today), and tax collectors got a piece of the take. Indeed, public officials paid for public works out of their personal funds. They had a power to tax to go with it and operated government as for profit corporations. This gig went bad in the late Roman Empire, because few could manage to collect enough taxes to offset to costs of maintaining the government, so public offices were made hereditary in order to force wealthy people who held them to devote their private fortunes to paying for government. As a result, many wealthy people abandoned cities and moved to the country.
The Roman private law judicial system was really more like an organized collection of for profit arbitrators than it was like a modern civil service judicial bureaucracy.
In most of Europe the quasi-public office of notary, which carries public duties similiar to the non-electoral functions of a Secretary of State or Clerk and Recorder, as well as transactional legal duties, for a particular area (sometimes one more one seat is available per district) can be bought and sold like seats on the New York Stock Exchange.
It isn’t uncommon for U.S. municipalities to sell the exclusive rights to provide some government service (e.g. cable TV or trash collection) on a for profit basis to the highest bidder and impose their own user’s fees.
February 5, 2010, 8:43 pmohwilleke says:
Corporations don’t marry, but they can form domestic partnerships. Partnerships with both natural persons and corporations as partners are not at all unusual.
February 5, 2010, 8:46 pmohwilleke says:
We’ve had yellow dog democrats for generations, why not horses? After all, all the commentary is horse race coverage anyway.
February 5, 2010, 8:48 pmohwilleke says:
One last thought. Corporations as parents? Been done. They’re called orphanages.
February 5, 2010, 8:56 pmGuy says:
But Congress can’t grant jurisdiction to the federal courts that the Constitution doesn’t authorize, that means either that corporations constitutionally are citizens for diversity purposes, or that we have to adopt some bizarre legal justification, like that the court is technically exercising arising under jurisdiction because the case “arises under” the jurisdiction-granting statute, which in turn would be authorized by the commerce clause.
February 5, 2010, 11:59 pmbyomtov says:
What’s the most evil a corporation has ever done? Most examples are probably a corporation cooperating with a government run by a particularly evil individual.
Bhopal comes to mind. Various other environmental disasters – Love Canal, for one – which have caused all sorts of health problems for lots of people.
And your “cooperating with evil individuals” sounds pretty innocuous, but isn’t, especially when corporations sometimes helped install said evil individuals to begin with.
February 6, 2010, 1:38 pmChris Travers says:
Sure. Add to that things like the coup against Arbenz in Guatemala…
February 6, 2010, 4:35 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, something funny:
In 2009, a number of state representatives in the Washington legislature submitted a bill to committee designated as House Bill 2286.
In the spirit of “Think of the children” the act purported to do a number of things to increase penalties for distributing materials that were deemed harmful to minors.
Besides repealing the safe harbors for museums and libraries, the 7-page bill also added new crimes to the books. The bill was really pretty horrible (in that it left open prosecutions of parents for allowing minors to have access to pornography). Fortunately it died in committee.
However, the really amusing part of the bill was the definitions (new section 2). In particular, these definitions appeared, by a plain reading of the bill, to consider corporations and business partnerships to be minors if they were around for less than 18 years. Here is the relevant portion:
Right next to eachother in the document, even.
February 6, 2010, 4:45 pmJohn Herbison says:
Without having read the bill, I suspect that the reason for including entities other than natural persons here was to provide that corporate entities or partnerships that distributed pornographic materials would be subject to punishment (most likely in the form of a fine).
February 6, 2010, 5:25 pmChris Travers says:
Almost certainly. However the bill was substantially draconian it was defeated on other grounds :-).
For example, the parental exception required “bona fide purposes.” If the parent says “I don’t care if you go look at porn. Go ahead” that seemed to be prohibited.
I just thought this was one of those things where if you tried to look at textual construction, it would create rather funny (maybe not QUITE absurd, but close) results……
February 6, 2010, 6:06 pmShalom Beck says:
What is good for the country is good for General Motors.
(I win the thread!)
February 6, 2010, 6:57 pmL Nettles says:
Exactly how could a Corporation take the oath of office?
February 7, 2010, 2:37 pmMartinned says:
The same way the corporation speaks any other words: through one of its officers.
February 8, 2010, 8:36 amq says:
Gross negligence causing the death of 25,000 people and the suffering of a couple hundred thousand is disastrous, but hardly measures up to the evil people in their individual capacities have engaged in. For every environmental disaster, most (all?) of which are accidental, there’s likely an ethnic conflict in Africa perpetuated by individuals that’s far worse.
Sometimes, but not usually, and in any case, it’s a wash in the comparison as surely both individuals and corporations are helping to install said evil person. On average, it’s safe to say the corporation doesn’t have as much influence as the individuals.
My point isn’t really to argue corporations are never evil, but rather that between corporations and individuals, corporations have a better track record in terms of “evilness.” This is to counter what surely many people find icky about corporations becoming elected officials: that corporations are immoral, or at best, amoral.
The ironic thing is that your average person acts like they trust corporations more than individuals. It’s far more common to loan money to a bank than to an individual, in terms of total dollar amounts. Even compared with friends.
February 8, 2010, 2:32 pmRick says:
The problem I see is the problem I see in much of the analysis behind the majority’s decision in Citizens: a corporation isn’t a “collection of people” or an “aggregation of individuals.” It’s not a form of association, or a manifestation of assembly, it’s a separate legal entity by definition, whose interests don’t necessarily coincide with that of even a single shareholder, and which doesn’t necessarily partake in the rights of its shareholders, or in the protection of right to assemble. Even in NAACP v Button, the court’s summary used the words “*although* a corporation”… the NAACP was protected because of the pattern of “cooperative, organizational activity” for a directed political purpose on the record, akin to a “political party.” IOW, a corporation isn’t necessarily an assembly, an association or an aggregation and its legal status is such that those that can be seen as such are an exception.
February 8, 2010, 10:01 pmKimberly Houser says:
I teach a law class and plan on having my students read these comments. You all cover a lot of points. We’ve been discussing Citizens and corporate personhood for a couple of weeks now. See http://intheeyesofthelaw.com/2010/02/10/old-declaration-new-constitution-all-in-one-weekend/ and http://intheeyesofthelaw.com/2010/01/22/supreme-court-rules-that-bribing-political-candidates-is-now-legal/
February 10, 2010, 9:32 pmWill the Nation-State cease to exist? : Scary Libertarian says:
[...] The idea of corporate governance seems at odds with our current reality, where the state is advancing its role across the board. But, strangely enough, in the face of the most aggressive growth of state power in history, the idea is popping up in diverse places. [...]
March 25, 2010, 8:46 pm