Corporate personhood is the status conferred upon corporations under the law, which allows corporations to have rights and responsibilities similar to those of a natural person to whatever degree U.S. courts decide they can.

This has resulted in U.S. law treating corporations as what some lawyers call ‘metaphysical persons’. That is, they’re persons for some purposes and they’re not persons for others.

The Supreme Court of the United States (Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819), recognized corporations as having the same rights as natural persons to contract and to enforce contracts way back in 1819.

(Note: It is important not to confuse the desirable 1819 Supreme Court ruling that corporations can enter into and enforce contracts like people can with the undesirable 2010 Supreme Court ruling regarding corporate personhood which allows them to use their money to manipulate our political system to increase their profits [even at the expense of the national interest and American citizens]).

Everything was fine until around the turn of the 20th century when U.S. courts began to force our elected legislatures at the state and federal levels to treat corporations as people first for the purposes of contracting and rights to property and later extending them the right to manipulate our political system.

The latter problem, which is now coming to the forefront of the fight for campaign and political reform, concerns the corporate personhood aspect of campaign finance which turns on Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). Buckley ruled that political spending is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, while Citizens United ruled that corporate political spending is protected, holding that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech.

Obviously, this creates a very unhealthy political environment worse than any ever before seen in modern America regarding campaign financing and political integrity.

Occupy DC’s General Assembly recently realized the danger this presents to the integrity of our political system and passed a “corporate personhood resolution” on Saturday calling for a constitutional amendment ending the “judicial fiction of corporate Constitutional rights stating:

“In 2010, the United States Supreme Court decided in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that independent spending on elections by corporations and other groups could not be limited by government regulations. This decision is only the latest in a long line of judicial rulings that have invented the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, affording corporations the same constitutional rights as people. The corrupting influence of money in politics, exacerbated by corporate personhood, subverts democracy. The Supreme Court has enshrined corporate personhood and interpreted the First Amendment to prohibit Congress from regulating money in politics. The only way to reverse these rulings is an amendment to the Constitution.”

The problem with their resolution is that they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It’s desirable for corporations to be able to enter into contracts to do business but it’s not desirable for them to be able to manipulate our political system away from the people.

Our problem is how do we accomplish this. It is very very very very unfortunate that the only way to fix this problem is to get the Supreme Court to reverse themselves on the 2010 Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission ruling, pass a Constitutional amendment nullifying it, or seek to negate their ruling through changing the entire methodology of campaign reform for everyone: real people and corporations (e.g. metaphysical people).

http://en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Citizens_United_v._Federal_​Election_Commission