I did not find in either Opinion where the Supreme Court held that corporations are humans. That is an obvious absurdity, yet it has become the shorthand complaint of those claiming "liberal" allegiances who oppose these outcomes. That is a misleading representation of what the Court held in both cases, and only a careful reading of the Opinions can reveal the complex issues raised and decided. Any attempt to simplify either Opinion is absurd. There is no valid substitute for going to the source if one wishes to have an informed opinion about those cases.
CITIZENS UNITED:
Most opponents to recognition of First Amendment rights for corporations defiantly insist that "money is not speech." They are understandably incensed that very wealthy and reactionary people can buy influence with their money via ads against arguably more "reasonable" liberal candidates. However, I think this issue needs to be viewed for what it is: whether or not the First Amendment protects the toxic, deplorable, overwhelming "speech" and electioneering of the reactionary toads with too much money. Regrettably, I think that is EXACTLY what the First Amendment protects.
This case arose when the "nonprofit" group, "Citizens United," wanted to produce a video highly critical of Hillary Clinton when she was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. They wanted to show the video "on demand" on cable TV. They failed to get a declaratory ruling that the First Amendment prohibited enforcement of Section 441b of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) by the Federal Election Commission. In oversimplification, that Section prohibited ads seeking a specific political outcome within 30 days of an election. Citizens United, claiming that the First Amendment was intended precisely to protect political speech, first and foremost, appealed to the Supreme Court.
I said above "regrettably" because I agree with most critics of the CITIZENS UNITED decision that there is way too much evil money in politics. I hate being out-spent, and I am certain that some legislators happily vote to please their well-heeled masters. However, several issues arise: in Virginia, fewer that half of all registered voters have been showing up at the polls recently, so for me a much bigger issue is that the big money is simply not influencing nor corrupting their votes because they are not cast at all! Those politicians who have eagerly gone after the big money are already predisposed to support and oppose the same issues as their wealthy benefactors, so I fail to see that any serious "corruption" is occurring. No one can seriously assert that, "but for" those nasty contributions and videos, the outcomes would be any different; besides, if bribery is occurring, it should be prosecuted. We already have laws outlawing bribery. Political censorship is simply abhorrent to me. I think the First Amendment was EXACTLY intended to protect ALL political "speech," including nasty videos. Further, I think the First Amendment guarantees me the right to pool my money with others to get a bigger "speech" bang for my buck. I think the First Amendment guarantees the right to be offended!
We cannot have one First Amendment for the "right" people of lesser means and a more restrictive First Amendment for the evil, wealthy reactionaries. That is stupid. And, I certainly don't want some unelected bureaucracy (the FEC) deciding what speech is permitted and what isn't, as the CITIZENS UNITED Opinion clearly addresses. The answer to offensive "speech" is more "speech," not government censorship. It is amazing, even frightening, that so many self-described "liberals" are so comfortable with the notion of censorship of people and organizations they don't like. All they can focus on is the fact they are being outspent, but they want their politics for free, and the big money deprives them of that
Finally, they have also utterly failed to show any connection between the "evil money" and political outcomes. It is ASSUMED that such money influences voting patterns, but no such evidence has been produced. Consider all the nasty money thrown at Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012, yet he handily won election both times. To be sure, he had his own big money, but to use that as a justifier, it means that one must conclude that he corrupted more "for" votes than did the other side!
HOBBY LOBBY:
Justice Alito's opinion starts out making it clear that they are ruling only in the cases of closely held corporations, where the objecting owners own or control most if not all of the stock. He says that Congress, in adopting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA"), did not intend to deprive business owners of protection of their moral principles if they choose to put their business into a corporate form of existence.
In the HOBBY LOBBY case, the objecting husband-&-wife owners owned all the stock. They objected to being required by HHS to provide medical insurance inclusive of birth control benefits for corporate employees as a violation of their sincere religious beliefs that life begins at conception, so to be forced to provide such medical insurance would violate their protections under RFRA.
One of the core principles we learned in law school is that a corporation's provision of limited liability turns on maintaining the "separateness" of the corporation from the investor individuals, such that only the shareholder's investment is at risk, rather than the risk of unlimited personal liability. We were further taught that this principle remains the same regardless of the size of the corporation, and that the owner shareholders should not treat the corporation as their "alter ego," subject to the risk that the corporate creditors might "pierce the corporate veil" and reach those shareholders personally, the very thing use of the corporate form of business was intended to prevent. That "alter ego" risk is much greater with closely-held corporations than, say, large publicly-traded corporations.
Now comes along the US Supreme Court doing violation to the core principle of "separateness" of corporation and owner by imputing the owners' personal moral and religious beliefs upon the employment policies of the corporation. I could not find any discussion of this issue in the HOBBY LOBBY opinion, if only to dismiss such concerns. It appears that the entire United States Supreme Court has blundered into destruction of a core principle of corporate law in its zeal to assert religionist attitudes about healthcare.
I think this decision is absurd. There should NEVER be any identification between a corporation and the owner shareholders thereof. The US Supreme Court seems unconcerned.
That is my take on these two very complex decisions.
