A Very Recent Corporate Personhood Topic

Courtesy of a New York Times article, viewable here.

During the primary season of the 2008 elections, an conservative organization known as Citizens United wanted to release a documentary about Hillary Clinton, which essentially sought to paint her in an extremely negative light. They group wanted to release it through video-on-demand, as opposed to directly on TV, but they were prevented from doing so due to campaign finance laws against corporations being so involved in the election process.

The group sought to fight the restriction, but was defeated at both the trial and appellate level, and the case was accepted by the Supreme Court. The Court heard arguments back in March, 2009, but decided to rehear arguments in September, and thus Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was born.

Interestingly, liberal groups are divided on the issue, according to the article, with many against the perceived excessive corporate influence on the political process, and others, namely the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing against the government restriction of this kind of speech.

The original arguments before the court were initially fairly narrow in scope, but the decision to rehear the case likely belies the Court's intention to further consider potential ramifications of the larger issues at stake. Some fear that the Supreme Court's decision to rehear arguments, and in light of the fact of its conservative bloc majority's support of corporate positions, may overturn court precedent and eliminate federal restrictions against direct corporate influence on campaigning.

Given that the Supreme Court was set to rehear the arguments last month, it is likely that the formal opinion will be released in the not-to-distant future; until then, we will have to wait and see.

In essence, the question being asked is whether a corporation enjoys the same rights that a real living, breathing human-being does in terms of political advocacy. Should a corporation be allowed to say what it wishes about candidates or other issues, or does the inherent nature of a corporation make such allowances dangerous and toxic to a fair political process?