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Full-Text Articles in Law
Neither Persons Nor Associations: Why Recent Corporate Law Scholarship Undercuts Citizens United And The Constitutional Rights Of Corporations, David Ciepley
David Ciepley
This Article challenges the Supreme Court’s practice of extending constitutional rights to corporations, using Citizens United (2010) as the focal point of its analysis. Originally, corporations were understood to receive all their rights in grant from government. This precluded their holding constitutional rights against government. In the late 19th century, two new theories arose that conflate corporations with natural persons and thus attribute to corporations some of the rights of natural persons: (1) the “association” theory, which treats the corporation as little more than an association of natural persons, and (2) the “real entity” theory, which treats the corporation as …
The Constitution, Citizenship, And Corporations – A Critical Look At Citizens United V. Fec, P M Vasudev
The Constitution, Citizenship, And Corporations – A Critical Look At Citizens United V. Fec, P M Vasudev
Palladam M Vasudev
“Associations of citizens” is a phrase the US Supreme Court used in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) to refer to corporations. This notion was, apparently, an important element in shaping the Supreme Court’s judgment that permitted corporations to participate in the democratic process through campaign funding. Presumably, the “citizens” the court had in mind are the shareholders of corporations. Treating corporations as citizens in the collective, the Supreme Court upheld their political rights, and there is evidence of disquiet with the decision in Citizens United. My article examines the Supreme Court’s characterization of corporations as associations of citizens …