Finally, Citizens United comes to its logical conclusion.
A judge in Delaware, where many big U.S. companies are incorporated, ruled on Tuesday that a small town that allows corporations to vote in municipal elections was not violating the state's constitution.
It used to be the case, at least in early democracies, that only landowners could vote.
So what is old is new again.
Predominantly men and rich men were landowners. I think, from what I've heard from some of these fucking billionaires you're on the money (pun intended).
Got it, and got that right away back when CU came down. It has been disheartening to watch the slide into corporate corruption being accepted at all levels as legitimate political speech as well as to watch as the nastiest of human constructs displace actual humans in the making of decisions that determine the course of all life on the only habitable planet we know.
Fortunately, this is offset with states like Hawaii, and I think it’s either Wyoming or Montana that just voted to strip corporations of the power (which is distinct from the right) to spend money on elections.
Delaware is a loss cause.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @FritzAdalis Montana had a law drastically limiting corporate money in politics after it was shown time and again to be buying elections. Citizens United overrode it. Now a group in Montana is working on a new approach to fixing it:
@FritzAdalis
"The group sought a court order blocking Fenwick Island from counting votes by 'non-human artificial entities' in future elections."
Watch big techs spin up thousands of "AI Agents" with servers in Delaware to vote there and claim that this precedent allows it
Have these people registered for the draft? Do they pay personal income taxes? If not then it seems like a two tiered system.
seems like if a corporation can vote, it should be paying the same tax rate as any other voter...
poll taxes are the wrong knob. the fascists would always find ways to use it to deny individual voters they don't like.
And be subject to the death penalty if they kill someone
i am no fan of corporal punishment but i do think that if corporations try to claim that they are "persons", they need to accept all responsibilities and punishments. not sure exactly how we would give life imprisonment to corporations but i'm willing to figure out how we hold them just as responsible as anyone else for any illegal acts they perpetrate.
if they kill, they should be held fully accountable under the law.
Or break the corporate veil and directly prosecute the board members and C-suite?
i'm a big fan of not having incorporation being a license to let those running said corporations be immune to the consequences of their illegal actions.
@raven667 @johntimaeus @FritzAdalis
yes. human beings should be held responsible. boards realizing that they aren't immune from criminal decisions might deter other folks from making the same bad choices.
@paul_ipv6 @johntimaeus @FritzAdalis my ideas: prison = company is temporarily halted from conducting business. Death penalty: closed and liquidated.
Shareholders and employees suffer. But we utterly disregard fam/coworkers’ suffering when a Real Person is arrested.
@InkomTech @paul_ipv6 @FritzAdalis
The only problem with killing a company is the impact on workers.
I've long advocated that corporate fines should be much larger. And then doubled, with the second half taken directly as shares from the C-suite and board and given as equal shares to the employees
@johntimaeus @paul_ipv6 @FritzAdalis yeah, that really bothers me, too. But when someone crimes, we don’t consider their jail sentence’s impact on their dependents. And if CompanyX closes abruptly, employees might (a) stop tolerating coworker / boss criminal behavior and (b) start a replacement company.
As for huger fines, A few countries adjust fines based on income or family net worth. https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/13/europe/switzerland-speeding-ticket-wealthy-fines-swiss-latam-intl. $90,000 Swiss francs for 17 mph over the speed limit.
Why the eye-popping penalty? Because the speedster, a repeat offender, is one of Switzerland’s wealthiest people, and the Vaud canton, or region, serves up fines based on factors like income, fortune or general family financial situation.
@InkomTech @johntimaeus @paul_ipv6 @FritzAdalis Yeah, but people don’t commonly have more than maybe eight dependents, while it’s common for corporations to have far, far more. Seems like the corporate death penalty could be:
• Send the board and upper management (say, EVP and up) to prison
• Void all outstanding shares (vaguely like chapter 11 bankruptcy, but for control of the company)
• Start an automatic lawsuit for ordinary shareholders against the board and upper management for the loss
• Forcibly turn the corporation into an employee co-op or similar with a state-selected transition team
Punishes the people who made the decisions while protecting the employees. More like a corporate lobotomy, I guess.
@InkomTech @johntimaeus @paul_ipv6 @FritzAdalis That’s what trials are for. We’re not supposed to hand out the death penalty without a trial (part of why ACAB), after all.
I’m just talking about a way corporations could be existentially threatened without immediately wrecking the livelihoods of all of their employees. To use your example, if Exxon were simply dissolved, that’s 61,000 people sharing the punishment, most of whom wouldn’t have had anything to do with the action leading to the punishment.
@InkomTech That question could have a lot of interpretations.
The difference between them is jail is pre-trial detainment while prison is post-trial.
In the abstract, both represent a loss of freedom of movement and action.
As for how the concepts could apply to corporations, state-appointed administrators who replace the board and C-level execs and who are minimally accountable to shareholders.
As for how I propose applying it to the board and upper management, that would probably need to be decided during the trial based on culpability. With strong evidence, some could go to prison for life.
@FritzAdalis @BurritoSommelier
but like, how many corps can we have per property
because surely it isn't one vote per lot
@bob_zim
I started to read it and got lost. Anyway, here's the decision:
https://aboutblaw.com/blQg
And here's the law cited by the judge:
https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=130205&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HB121
@FritzAdalis Oh. This is why. I completely missed this. How did RI amend their state constitution? It's usually quite difficult.
"In 2008, Delaware's General Assembly amended the charter to allow non-resident voting by artificial entities, including corporations, partnerships, trusts and limited liability companies, which must be chartered in Delaware."
This is the shit that right-wing gremlins make happen when they're not stomped down completely. And they can do it because idiots like me stop paying attention when things seem OK-ish nationally.
@FritzAdalis the horror 😭
This is totally fucked up
@FritzAdalis hasn't this been going on for centuries in the City of London?
@holdenweb @FritzAdalis That actually exists: revocation of the corporate charter. The offender can only stay in business as a partnership, meaning every investor is fully liable for all debts and judgements.
This is more than enough to effectively execute any business with substantial externalized risk. It is rarely used however: the US executes people of color not rich people and corporations.
@FritzAdalis
Not finished yet.
Corporations cannot stand in elections yet.
Only when Pollution'r'us Inc can run for mayor, everything will be fine in the USA.
@FritzAdalis
So if a person owns four companies, he can cast five votes?
They don't even consider "one nan, one vote" an ideal to aim for.
@FritzAdalis
Oh, so technically, your secret uncle in Bahamas¹ needs to own the company...
¹) The one who handles the taxes anyway.
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