Montana approves Initiative 166: Corporations are not people!

[bripat9643]

Unfortunately for the loons in Montana, the Supreme Court has already ruled the opposite on the at issue.

Corporations Are Not People in Montana

BLLINGS, Mont. (CN) - Montana voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved an initiative stating "that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings."

Voters approved Initiative 166 by 75 percent to 25 percent, according to early, unofficial returns reported by the Billings Gazette.

The initiative also clarified that in Montana, money is not speech; it's property.
The initiative was a rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which unleashed corporate political donations. According to the Gazette's early returns, 224,679 Montanans voted for the measure, and 74, 361 opposed it.

Now that's giving power back to the states!

 

[Oddball]

On the other hand it was funny to see a state saying that corporations don't have constitutional rights as if a state could invalidate Constitutional Rights!

They shouldn't have constitutional rights. THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE or persons by any stretch. They are a group of people.

Thank you for confirming my "dumb as dirt" observation.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Corporations Are Not People in Montana

BLLINGS, Mont. (CN) - Montana voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved an initiative stating "that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings."

Voters approved Initiative 166 by 75 percent to 25 percent, according to early, unofficial returns reported by the Billings Gazette.

The initiative also clarified that in Montana, money is not speech; it's property.
The initiative was a rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which unleashed corporate political donations. According to the Gazette's early returns, 224,679 Montanans voted for the measure, and 74, 361 opposed it.

Now that's giving power back to the states!

A political donation most certainly is a form of speech in every meaningful way. It is tortured logic to say otherwise. When you give a donation to a political candidate or party, you are expressing your viewpoint by giving some of your assets to that group or person.

Using the odd logic of the Montana initiative, the government should place limits on how many times you can drive to a candidate's local HQ, how many rides you can give to campaign volunteers, how many copies you can make of campaign literature at your own expense, etc., etc.

And if corporations are not, in effect, people, then what are unions? Are unions merely the building materials used to build union offices? A corporation is a group of people who have formed a business for the purpose of making money. The corporation is not the bricks, chairs, and desks of corporate offices--it is made up of the people who own it and who work for it.

When people who own a corporation see proposed legislation that could be harmful to their financial interests, they have every right to express their concern via donations to elected officials or candidates who oppose that legislation. Similarly, if a corporation sees a candidate who is proposing policies that would harm their company, the owners of that corporation have every right to make donations to that candidate's opponent.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You really have no idea how the world works, do you? Tell me something, exactly how is a corporation supposed to speak without money changing hands? They pay their employees, who speak for them, and the board of directors makes money off the corporation, which is more money changing hands.

Gee, they can write an op-ed in a newspaper, have a press release, send out a mailer, make an appointment with congress and express their ideas or issues. There are millions of ways in this age of technology. Money should NEVER be considered speech, especially where our representative government is concerned, because you know who will lose every time... those without money.

The person who writes the op ed gets paid, so does the guy that stands up in front of the press. I am pretty sure the mail costs money, and the guy that goes to Congress gets paid. I guarantee you that, no matter what method of speechifying you come up with, money changes hands.

Come to think of it, all those reporters get paid too, usually out of advertising revenue from those corporations and the Congresscritters get paid out of tax dollars from those corporations. You are so stupid I am surprised you remember how to tie your shoes.

Not allowing money to change hands will mean that no one gets paid, and no one gets to talk.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Well I'm sure the people at NBC, ABC, CBS, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, AP all agree with you.

Oh yeah, they're big rich corporations too.

But they shouldn't have to be big rich corporations just in order to be heard. Don't you get it?

Hey, jerk face, Citizen's United was not a big rich corporation. All they wanted to do was show a movie about Hillary during the primary, but they couldn't because they were neither big nor rich. Yet, for some obscure reason, probably because you are so dumb you have to have an ID to tell people your name, you think this is about big corporations.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

On the other hand it was funny to see a state saying that corporations don't have constitutional rights as if a state could invalidate Constitutional Rights!

They shouldn't have constitutional rights. THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE or persons by any stretch. They are a group of people.

Groups of people lose their rights? Why?

 

[Photonic]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

 

[Leweman]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

Media isn't equal. Next...

 

[Photonic]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

Media isn't equal. Next...

With the internet, it is. Deal with it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

Let me try to explain this to you.

The federal government requires anyone who wants to talk about political issues and/or candidates to do one of two things. The first is be rich enough to buy their own TV and radio time, the other is to form a corporation so they can pool their money in order to be able to buy TV and radio time. That means that. you specifically, by saying that corporations should not be allowed to spend money on political issues, are denying people who are not rich equal opportunity.

The Supreme Court, quite logically, ruled that to be unconstitutional, and you agree with them.

 

[bripat9643]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

The Bill of Rights doesn't guarantee "equal speech," moron. It guarantees free speech.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

Media isn't equal. Next...

With the internet, it is. Deal with it.

It is? Tell me something, since you are on the internet, do people pay the same amount of attention to what you say as they do what Mathews and Limbaugh say, or do they have the advantage because they have access to corporate structure you want to pretend is evil?

 

[Richard-H]

This is one issue that will cross partisan lines. Once enough states have passed laws like these, there's going to be a huge political sentimant to turn this into a Constitutional amendment.

Thanks Montana!

 

[LibertyLemming]

Congress shall make no laws abridging the freedom of speech.


Hope that helps!

Nobody cares about the constitution anymore, haven't since the Civil War

 

[g5000]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

I don't think you have any idea what equal means.

.

 

[LibertyLemming]

If money is free speech, then free speech is unequal. That is not constitutional.

I don't think you have any idea what equal means.

.

Find the word equal for me in there, even so, everyone has an equal right to earn money.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

This is one issue that will cross partisan lines. Once enough states have passed laws like these, there's going to be a huge political sentimant to turn this into a Constitutional amendment.

Thanks Montana!

I agree, screwing people out of their rights is a bipartisan issue.

 

[House]

Nobody ever claimed they were people. They are legal persons.

That little legal semantic difference seems to have flown clean over the heads of the nose pickers.

I'll believe a corporation can be a person when I see one die in the electric chair.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Corporations Are Not People in Montana

BLLINGS, Mont. (CN) - Montana voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved an initiative stating "that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings."

Voters approved Initiative 166 by 75 percent to 25 percent, according to early, unofficial returns reported by the Billings Gazette.

The initiative also clarified that in Montana, money is not speech; it's property.
The initiative was a rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which unleashed corporate political donations. According to the Gazette's early returns, 224,679 Montanans voted for the measure, and 74, 361 opposed it.

That’s nice…

…and very silly.

We can assume this is predicated on a misreading/misunderstanding/misinterpretation of Citizens United.

The CU Court said nothing about ‘corporations being people,’ nor did it declare money 'speech.’

What the Court did say, however, is that government restrictions or limitations of funds manifests a device by which government restricts free speech and political discourse, absent a compelling, justified rationale.

For well over 50 years the courts have held that corporate entities are indeed entitled to Constitutional protection:

The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations. This protection has been extended by explicit holdings to the context of political speech. Under the rationale of these precedents, political speech does not lose First Amendment protection “simply because its source is a corporation.”

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N

If Montana should attempt to restrict or limit corporate political discourse, any such measure would be invalidated per Citizens United and the invalidation would survive appeal.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Citizens can be overturned without touching the 14th.

No libertarian analysis will be followed.

It's "persons", not "people"....There's an important legal distinction to the semantic difference.

After that, they'll have to repeal the 14th Amendment and overturn both Santa Clara County vs Union Pacific Railroad and Citizens United to make that stick.

Good luck with that.