[rayiner]

I don’t understand why people have so much trouble understanding that a “corporation” is just a proxy for the humans that own and control the corporation. In this case, non-residents who own a house on the island can vote according to the charter. The charter just says that this doesn’t change because you move ownership of the house into a legal entity that some human then owns and controls.

The actual grievance seems to be unrelated to the corporation itself. People just associate “corporations” with rich people, and they won’t want rich people to vote.

[craftkiller]

> they won’t want rich people to vote.

I don't think anyone would object to a rich person casting a single vote and maybe putting a bumper sticker on their car or a sign in their yard. The issue people take with the rich and politics is the outsized influence they wield in elections. The whole "one person one vote" thing falls apart when the rich can throw millions at advertisements and millions at the "charities" run by the politicians they bought.

[BurningFrog]

This is just a disagreement with the principle of free speech.

If you're only for free speech as long as it doesn't change people's minds, we have very different perspectives.

[craftkiller]

The issue isn't that people are trying to change people's minds. There are two issues here:

First, the rich have unimaginably more power in changing people's minds. This isn't sitting down at a bar and having a chat with hank to try to convince him to vote on prop 99. It is the wealthy putting their opinions on your phone, television, and billboards, reminding you of it multiple times per day. If politics is truly a contest of ideas, then the playing field needs to be level so that the ideas can be evaluated fairly, rather than it simply being a contest of who can buy enough ad space to brainwash people to vote against their interests.

Second, the wealthy don't have to change people's minds. They can purchase politicians by "donating" to them, going to million-dollar-per-plate dinners hosted by them, directly giving them money by staying in their hotels, etc. You don't have to convince a politician that they should vote on prop 99, you just need to pay them however much they want for their vote.

If the wealthy had exactly as much power in politics as a fireman or nurse, then I'd be all for their participation.

[BurningFrog]

> First, the rich have unimaginably more power in changing people's minds

If that was true everyone would love billionaires. I'm fascinated by the cluelessness of this assertion!

The actual research on campaign finance says that once you've managed to inform the voters about what you stand for and who you are, further spending does very little.

> simply being a contest of who can buy enough ad space to brainwash people to vote against their interests

This is the most anti democratic statement I've seen in a while!

If you think voters are such easily brainwashed fools, you can hardly be pro democracy!

[Capricorn2481]

> If that was true everyone would love billionaires. I'm fascinated by the cluelessness of this assertion!

Relative to how many of them actively campaign against our basic interests, I would say people disproportionately love billionaires.

[watwut]

Money are not speech. Yes, I know supreme court is openly pro corruption and lawlessness when to comes to their guys. That does not mean I have to buy that sophistry too.

[klaff]

Is this rich person also voting in the place where they actually live? I'm not against a rich person voting, I just don't want them to get more than one vote. I haven't read the opinion to see if that's addressed.

[rayiner]

The town charter allows double voting in municipal elections because it allows non-residents to vote.

[cucumber3732842]

Having grown up in a tourism/2nd home town I think this is probably a good thing. Keeps the place from being totally captured by local business interests.

But it would likely lead to other problems because the owner demographics are generally out of touch.

[pixl97]

> Keeps the place from being totally captured by local business interests.

I'm pretty sure this is a fundimental design of the US system. There are things your city is allowed to do by state constitution. Things your county is allowed to do. And things only the state is allowed to do.

This is expressly to enable the people that live in that place the right to self governance.

[esikich]

Does a corporation need healthcare? Can a corporation be jailed? Does a corporation have a finite life in which they can pursue happiness? Does a corporation have offspring it's trying to raise? Does a corporation have hopes and dreams? Does a corporation wish to visit a park or visit with their neighbors? Are you for real?

[Gormo]

Replace "corporation" in each of your questions above with "organizational model employed by people as a mechanism for coordinating complex activities", and the answers should all become clear.

Much of the discourse on this topic involves muddled, contradictory thinking that simultaneously argues "corporations aren't people" and "corporations are exercising autonomous agency as singular entities distinct from the people who constitute them". These two premises cannot both be true.

[wat10000]

Why can't both of those be true? I don't see any contradiction between them. The law doesn't seem to have any issue taking them both as true either. Corporations are considered their own entity under the law, but they do not enjoy all the rights of people. The whole reason this story is making headlines instead of being a humdrum "dog bites man" event is because corporations typically do not have the right to vote, even though people mostly do.

[Gormo]

> Why can't both of those be true? I don't see any contradiction between them.

"Corporations aren't people" and "corporations are singular entities unto themselves capable of exercising independent agency" are direct contradictions.

> The law doesn't seem to have any issue taking them both as true either. Corporations are considered their own entity under the law, but they do not enjoy all the rights of people

Corporations are treated as persons as a legal fiction to ensure that the methods for applying the law to their activities remains consistent and uncomplicated.

No legal framework has ever treated corporations as natural persons able to formulate their own autonomous intentions and act on those intentions unilaterally. The law is not unaware of its own abstractions.

The arguments for restricting "corporate speech" are confounding these distinct concepts together. If we are attributing rights only to natural persons, and hold that legal persons that are not natural persons do not possess rights on that account, then by the same account, we cannot attribute the power of speech to corporations, and must understand any speech that appears to originate with them as actually the product of the people who are merely using the corporation as a method of coordination.

If we are attributing the power of speech to corporations, then we must likewise recognize their right to speak freely. In fact, the first amendment explicitly protects speech itself without regard to its origin, such that any entity capable of speech must by that very fact have the right to free speech.

[Henchman21]

It _seems true_ when the people represented by the organizational model never face consequences for their actions, using the corporation as a liability shield.

So while corporations aren't people, they do seem to be exercising autonomous agency as singular entities distinct from the people who constitute them. Because by definition that is what a limited liability corporation provides? It seems that this is the crux of a lot of angst?

[Gormo]

> It _seems true_ when the people represented by the organizational model never face consequences for their actions, using the corporation as a liability shield.

Corporations don't function as a liability shield in the sense you're talking about. The idea that people can individually engage in criminal or tortious conduct without any direct accountability is a myth -- limited liability protects investors from financial liabilities that exceed their investment, but it in no way shields corporate managers from liability for their own criminal conduct in managing the firm.

> So while corporations aren't people, they do seem to be exercising autonomous agency as singular entities distinct from the people who constitute them. Because by definition that is what a limited liability corporation provides?

No, it does not do that in any way, shape or form. Limited liability means that creditors can't foreclose on your house to cover the debts of a firm that you own $100 of stock in. It does not shield anyone actually managing the company from civil or criminal liability for their actions.

> It seems that this is the crux of a lot of angst?

That angst is attributable to believing in misinformation pushed advanced by factions who benefit from increasing conflict and controversy in our society.

[Henchman21]

Excellent reply thank you!

So why then does it seem that corporations do in fact shield executives from criminal charges? Is this just collusion among the well-off? Money buys verdicts?

I’m happy to take your word on limited liability as IANAL (obviously) but it sure as hell seems like executives ought to go to jail a LOT more than they do. Corporations do terrible things in the world and are seemingly never held to account.

Finally, looking to my own education, can you suggest a place to read up on this topic so I am not flatly wrong in the future? Thx in advance :)

[underlipton]

Laymen here: my guess would be that the financial and social resources corporate representatives have access to (both personally and through the entity that has a vested interest in them not going to jail) make the prospect of prosecuting them for criminal misconduct unappetizing. It would be a lot of time and money to send people with a lot of powerful friends to jail for a handful of years, at best. As a prosecutor, what's better for your career: that, or spending significantly fewer resources putting street-level criminals in prison for 5, 10, 20 years?

The issues at hand seem distinct but related.

[Gormo]

> So why then does it seem that corporations do in fact shield executives from criminal charges? Is this just collusion among the well-off? Money buys verdicts?

Misinformation, propaganda, urban legends, etc.

> but it sure as hell seems like executives ought to go to jail a LOT more than they do.

Based on what? Which executives are you talking about, and what crimes do you suspect them of?

> Corporations do terrible things in the world and are seemingly never held to account.

Again, what "terrible things" are you talking about, and what level of accountability do you see lacking in the way existing police forces, regulatory agencies, and the courts respond to their behavior?

> Finally, looking to my own education, can you suggest a place to read up on this topic so I am not flatly wrong in the future?

I'd start with any basic intro-level textbook on business law.

Before you start, given the extent to which your previous comments indicate you're relying on how things feel or seem to you, I'd recommend considering the extent to which you are reading your own assumptions and emotional attachments into your perceptions of the outside world, and the extent to which you're relying on echo chambers and biased sources of information to validate your theories and assumptions.

[EnergyAmy]

The contradiction clears up when you realize that corporations are legal fiction without rights, merely privileges granted to them.

You can act in your capacity as a person and exercise your rights, taking on personal liability.

You can act via a fictive legal proxy, which has no rights and shield yourself from some liability.

Trying to blur those two is madness.

[Gormo]

> The contradiction clears up when you realize that corporations are legal fiction without rights, merely privileges granted to them.

That's not really correct. Corporations are recognized as distinct entities as a legal fiction to make application of law to them easier, but the law "pierces the corporate veil" routinely where that legal fiction is not applicable, and in those cases, recognizes the factual nature of corporations merely as methods of coordination employed by the underlying people using them.

> You can act via a fictive legal proxy, which has no rights and shield yourself from some liability.

No, this is definitely not correct. Limited liability implies that you can separate your financial accounts from that of the business, such that creditors can't target your personal assets to cover the debts of the organization, but doesn't necessarily shield you from legal liability for the actions you personally undertake in with in the context of the business.

The idea that the organization has no rights insofar as it is being regarded as an entity unto itself is also false, as a great deal of extant jurisprudence demonstrates.

[esikich]

Those people can already vote. I have no idea what your point is.

[rayiner]

No, but the people who own and control the corporation all do.

[EnergyAmy]

They can vote and act in their capacity as people. They can fuck off otherwise.

[SkyPuncher]

The problem is voting has historically been limited to, real, living things. This has inherently limited the total amount of votes cast and where.

Corporations are an artificial entity that literally anyone can make. Even things like property ownership are somewhat artificial. Lots can generally be split and joined through a process.

This allowance of artificial entities voting seems to open a rabbit hole of secondary issues.

[abejfehr]

> ... they won’t want rich people to vote.

I think it might be more than that

[wat10000]

If the corporation is just a proxy for the owners then why is this in court? Why aren't the humans just voting directly? It's well established that it's OK for humans to vote.

[rayiner]

Because the municipal charter in question confers to vote on the property owner. Which might technically be a corporation.

[wat10000]

The question is, why did they bother to take it to court instead of just transferring ownership directly to their persons and then voting as humans? If corporations are just proxies then why bother with the lawyers and the court fees and the time?

[rayiner]

Because they want the other benefits of the corporate form. Why should they have to choose between the benefits of the corporate structure and exercising the rights the municipality has given property owners?

[ceejayoz]

> Why should they have to choose between the benefits of the corporate structure and exercising the rights the municipality has given property owners?

Why shouldn't they?

They're trading one benefit for another.

The individual house owners don't get all the benefits of an LLC for similar reasons.

[rayiner]

> They're trading one benefit for another

Why? What’s the logical basis for this idea that they should have to choose between these benefits?

[EnergyAmy]

Because corporations aren't people. Full stop.

[bit-anarchist]

To the extent that is relevant to law and ethics, they are. Juridical people, as it goes.

[tiahura]

because the city of Fenwick Island decided it wanted to set things up a different way, the ACLU challenged, and the judge said the city can it up how they want to.

[wat10000]

The question is not what the law says (the headline is sufficient to understand that), but why people are doing this at all. If corporations are just proxies for their owners, then owners who want a vote could just own the property in their own name rather than their corporation's and problem solved. There is some reason they don't do this. I want rayiner to spell it out for me, because that "a corporation is just a proxy" line is 100% horseshit.

[mschuster91]

> I want rayiner to spell it out for me, because that "a corporation is just a proxy" line is 100% horseshit.

Not the original author, but generically, there are a few reasons why one would place a residential property in a distinct legal entity.

Most commonly it's to shield a property against others - spouses, children or other relatives with legal inheritance claims, especially if the jurisdiction in question treats corporate ownership more favorably to the goal of the person in question than they treat real estate ownership. In some cases, cough Rene Benko, the aim is to have a corporate veil against the government or creditors, although more commonly a trust is the chosen vehicle instead of a corporation.

The other way around is rare, but also works - the legal entity caps your exposure. Think of, say, your house catches fire due to shoddy electrical works. Some dumbass neighbor kid climbs over a fence, drowns in your pool and is barely rescued in time, but their brain is now fried for good and the kid will need 80 years in intensive assisted living. You own your home outright? All of your other wealth can be seized now to make the neighbors whole. However, if a LLC owns that home, your exposure is now limited to the value of the home - the LLC goes bankrupt, the house is sold off with the proceeds going to the neighbors, you can keep the rest of your wealth.

[wat10000]

Right. And maybe in exchange for that, you don't get a non-resident vote anymore. That doesn't sound outrageous to me. If the LLC were a pure proxy then none of these advantages would apply. It makes sense that there might be some tradeoffs involved.

[rayiner]

> If corporations are just proxies for their owners, then owners who want a vote could just own the property in their own name rather than their corporation's and problem solved

Exactly! They could do that, so the law shouldn’t treat the two situations differently. You just proved my point, not yours.

> There is some reason they don't do this

I’m sure they have many reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact that the corporation is a proxy for people.

Your real argument seems to be that you think people should have to choose between exercising their rights and having the protections of the corporate form.

[wat10000]

"Protections of the corporate form"? You mean they aren't just proxies?

[rayiner]

The fact that the corporate form has other benefits doesn’t mean that the corporations aren’t proxies for the purposes relevant here.

[malcolmgreaves]

Got ‘em!

[trinsic2]

The problem is corporations mostly don't have the same interests in communities as people and they are motivated by other concerns that can run counter to the good of society. So yea.

[pavon]

Setting aside the corporation part, is there precedent for allowing people to vote in multiple residences? In my experience, when you register to vote in one location you are no longer allowed to vote where you were previously registered, regardless of how many places you own houses. Some places cross-reference voter registrations to enforce this, and others don't really check, but it has been the rule everywhere I have lived.

[folkrav]

"Corporations are controlled by humans, therefore critics are motivated by anti-rich sentiment" is definitely a take

[bit-anarchist]

Where did the "therefore" come from? From OP's comment it didn't, that's for sure.

[tiahura]

When I hear people grouse about the concept corporate rights, I always ask them why they hate New York Times _Co._ v. Sullivan.

[ceejayoz]

And they scratch your head and say "but... that ruling applies to regular people, like NYT staff and you and me."

It simply sets a high standard for proving defamation claims by public figures.

[rayiner]

“NYT” staff don’t publish the paper, the corporation does.

[ceejayoz]

Irrelevant.

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan - and the First Amendment it draws upon - applies to everyone, regardless of what corporation they may or may not work for. An unemployed person is protected from defamation claims by public figures under it just fine.

It does not establish any special corporate rights.

[rayiner]

Sullivan absolutely establishes corporate rights. Otherwise, Trump could enact a ban on “fake news” and say it applies only to the corporation itself, not the staff. The staff can write whatever they want, but the corporation can’t use its printing presses, etc., to disseminate what the government considers fake news.

[ceejayoz]

> Otherwise, Trump could enact a ban on “fake news” and say it applies only to the corporation itself, not the staff.

That's some really tortured logic.

Such an act would simply be a violation of the First Amendment (and Article I, for that matter). The corporate nature of its target is, again, entirely irrelevant.

Sullivan sets a high standard for defamation claims by public figures. That's it. They protect you saying defamatory things about Hillary Clinton as long as you don't write down "I know this is false and I'm defaming her because I hate her guts" explicitly somewhere.

[Hizonner]

... and if they own 50 houses, each through a separate LLC, they can vote 50 times, even if they do not in fact even live in the area.

... and you can probably come up with a legal way to permanently bind a corporation to vote according to specific rules.

... and larger corporations have totally inhuman internal decision making processes that frequently arrive at conclusions no human would reach.

[EnergyAmy]

This is an impressively awful take, congratulations.

Corporations aren't people and don't have rights or votes.

If you want to have a say in the way a place is run, you can do so in your capacity as a person.

If you want to do so from a legal fiction "proxy", fuck off.