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corporate personhood
'Logical Conclusion' of Citizens United as Delaware Judge Lets Corporations Vote in Local Elections
Delaware is home to more corporations than people. Human people, that is, as under longstanding state law and the US Supreme Court's infamous 2010 ruling, corporations are people, too.
May 27, 2026
A judge in Delaware—a state with more registered business entities than people—ruled Monday in favor of a small town that allows corporations to vote in local elections.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled that the town of Fenwick Island, population 400, did not violate the state Constitution by permitting business entities—which make up 12% of the town's "population"—to vote in municipal elections, as case plaintiff the ACLU of Delaware had claimed.
"What is a 'person?' When one cuts to the heart of this case, that is the question," Karsnitz wrote to open his 20-page ruling.
‼️‼️Delaware Superior Court upholds a municipal ordinance allowing individuals to cast votes on behalf of LLCs, trusts, and corporations in local elections against a challenge that the ordinance constitutes unlawful vote dilution for real persons under the state constitution. aboutblaw.com/blQg
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— Anthony Michael Kreis (@anthonymkreis.bsky.social) May 27, 2026 at 1:46 PM
"According to the law, a person is anyone or anything that can initiate and be subject to legal proceedings. By this conception, any adult, corporation, or institution is a person, but a minor is not a person, a fetus is not a person, and a humanoid robot... is not a person," the ruling continues. "This highlights that legal personhood is dependent solely on legal recognition."
The judge noted that in 2008, the Delaware General Assembly amended Fenwick Island's charter "to expand its voter registration rolls to allow individuals to cast votes on behalf of trusts, limited liability companies, partnerships, and corporations that own property in Fenwick."
"Today, the overwhelming majority of legal entity property owners in Fenwick registered to vote, and on whose behalf votes are cast, are trusts," Karsnitz added.
"I appreciate that Plaintiff may disagree with Delaware’s policy of authorizing certain municipalities to allow voting on behalf of entity property owners," the judge wrote.
"Visions of faceless large corporations, or even HAL, controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction," he continued," referring to the malevolent artificial intelligence-powered computer in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film version of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. "However, Plaintiff has not demonstrated that this policy violates the principle of one person/entity/one vote."
"Plaintiff points to no other persuasive independent authority than the Elections Clause of the Delaware Constitution itself," Karsnitz concluded. "And matters of policy are appropriately left to legislative bodies, not the courts."
Fenwick Island Mayor Natalie Magdeburger told Reuters earlier this year that "a property owner who pays taxes and is subject to our ordinances should have a say in who represents them on our Town Council."
Meanwhile, the ACLU of Delaware contends that "with over 2 million business entities incorporated in Delaware–roughly double the amount of actual people living in the state–the people of Delaware risk having their voices drowned out when towns like Fenwick Island allow corporate voting."
Karsnitz's ruling does not mention Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 US Supreme Court decision affirming that political spending by corporations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other groups is a form of free speech protected by the 1st Amendment that government cannot restrict. The decision ushered in the era of super PACs—which can raise unlimited amounts of money to spend on campaigns—and secret spending on elections with so-called “dark money.”
While Delaware's corporate personhood laws long predate Citizens United, numerous critics of Monday's ruling referred to the case, including the progressive legal advocacy group Demand Justice.
"Corporations aren't people," the group asserted on X. "They don't have kids in local schools, they don't drink the water, they can’t be jailed for crimes, and they shouldn't get a vote."
Some compared Hawaii, where Democratic Gov. Josh Green recently signed legislation clarifying that corporations are not people, with Delaware.
"Hawaii made a move to rein in Citizens United," writer Van Dennis posted on X, "and Delaware responded, "The fuck you are."
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No Kings, No Corporations: Rejecting Authoritarian and Corporate Rule
As we protest authoritarianism this Saturday—and legitimately condemn the many anti-democratic and unjust actions of Trump—let us also remember the tyranny of our corporate overlords who have been—perhaps more quietly but not less aggressively—eroding our democracy.
Jun 11, 2025
The “No Kings Day” mass rallies and marches this Saturday across the country will be, hopefully, a political and cultural affirmation of the democratic vision that we should be a self-governing people, a vision that has never been fully realized. The events must not only reject the reemergence and expansion of authoritarianism of Trump from his previous administration. They should also acknowledge the much longer tyranny and authoritarianism of corporate rule.
Speeches, signs, chants, and petitions will undoubtedly address the numerous authoritarian actions by the Trump administration since the election. These include pardons and immunities for loyalists, the use of federal agencies against political opponents, use of disinformation and threats against elected officials, mass deportations and family separation, executive orders that trump local and state governments, government loyalty purges, crackdown on the media and dissent, and militarized response to protests – such as the overreacting deployment of the Marines in response to the largely peaceful protests against ICE immigration raids in Los Angeles.
As we protest authoritarianism this Saturday—and legitimately condemn the many anti-democratic and unjust actions of Trump—let us also remember that tyranny has many symbols. One is a red hat. The other is a corporate logo.
The No Kings Day actions are just the latest and important public resistance to Trump’s tyrannical actions that have included other nationwide demonstrations and civil disobedience, legal challenges, whistleblowers and leaks, mutual aid, sanctuary networks, state and local government pushback, worker and union actions, and campus resistance.
Yet the reality is that Trump and his Project 2025 playbook represent one form of authoritarianism that, while distinct in some respects, intersects with another deeply entrenched form: corporate domination.
Unlike Trump’s style of blatant and unapologetic brute force, intimidation, and open defiance of the rule of law, corporate rule has been a slow, legalistic, never ending, and largely invisible seizure of power — not by individuals, but by artificial legal entities with little public accountability.
Corporations today define nearly every aspect of our lives:
- Our values: Consumerism and its emphasis on profit-first “logic” and primacy of property protection over human rights and the rights to a livable world.
- Our labor: Work hours, wages, and benefits are dictated by corporate interests.
- Our environment: Corporations control production, pollution, extraction, and destruction.
- Our food system: From seeds to supermarkets, agriculture is consolidated and chemically dependent.
- Our technology and data: AI, surveillance, and algorithms are driven by profit and privatization.
- Our politics: Elections, legislation, and regulation are shaped by lobbying and campaign contributions.
- Our culture and information: Entertainment, education, and news are filtered through corporate lenses.
How did this happen? The sword and shield of corporate rule is the U.S. Constitution. Despite corporate entities being originally created and defined by the government as a public tool to provide goods and services, the Supreme Court declared them to be private institutions, out of bounds to public definition and control. What had originally been the state providing mere “privileges” via the granting of charters or licences that could be withdrawn via the revoking of charters that violated the law became constitutional rights deemed beyond the reach of legislatures or individuals.
The Supremes have anointed corporations the constitutional rights of natural persons for more that a century, including:
- First Amendment rights — to spend unlimited money on elections (Citizens United v. FEC being the latest decision), to not to speak, to lie, and even to some extent religious rights
- Fourth Amendment rights — to block health, safety, and environmental inspections.
- Fifth Amendment takings rights — to challenge local and state regulations under the Takings Clause that affect profit.
- Fourteenth Amendment equal protection — to avoid differential treatment in the law, even when such laws protect local businesses and communities over chain stores and other businesses.
Corporate “personhood” is an absurdity, yet humanly, environmentally, and democratically lethal.
While there have been frequent mass actions over single corporate abuses, we don’t see mass protests in the streets about the totality of corporate rule. Why does corporate tyranny go unchallenged?
Corporate rule has been normalized. It is:
- Cultural: So embedded that we barely notice it — from Amazon to Apple to Exxon to BlackRock. Call it the “fish discover water last” syndrome in which it's so much a part of our daily lives that it’s hardly recognized..
- Gradual: It’s happened over a century, one Court decision at a time, which is challenging to understand given the legal complexity and, of course, rarely covered by the corporate press.
- Justified: We’re told corporations bring jobs, innovation, and prosperity — even as economic inequality soars and corporate entities are increasinbly able to shift capital where and when they want to other states or nations.
- Powerful: We’re told that the economic and political power of mega-corporations is inevitable and irreversible – so public focus should remain on elections, statutes, and regulations that merely manage corporate harms and impose minimal guardrails, keeping us perpetually on the defensive, opposing one corporate abuse or company at a time while censoring ourselves from demanding structural change.
- Feared: To criticize corporations is to risk being labeled “anti-American,” a “socialist,” a “Luddite” or worse.
Move to Amend exists to expose and abolish corporate constitutional rights and the doctrine of money as speech through the We the People Amendment (HJR54). This is not about regulating corporations better. It’s about breaking the illegitimate foundation of their power and declaring that we should have the power and right to define corporate actions.
As we protest authoritarianism this Saturday—and legitimately condemn the many anti-democratic and unjust actions of Trump—let us also remember that tyranny has many symbols. One is a red hat. The other is a corporate logo.
So let us all turn out on No Kings Day not only to oppose authoritarian rule, but also as an opportunity to oppose corporate rule, which will remain long after Trump is gone.Keep ReadingShow Less
Criminal Corporations Are Not People, But Trump Just Pardoned One Anyway
"If you're a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn't matter," said one consumer advocate.
Apr 03, 2025
In what could be a U.S. first, President Donald Trump last week pardoned a criminal corporation, a move that largely flew under the proverbial radar amid his pardon spree for white-collar criminals including at least one of his supporters.
On March 28, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; company co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed; and former business development chief Gregory Dwyer.
The company and the four men hads each pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate" anti-money laundering program, as required by law. In January, the U.S. Department of Justicesentenced BitMEX to a fine of $100 million, while the executives were sentenced to criminal probation and ordered to pay civil fines.
While experts noted that Trump acted within his rights to pardon the corporation, there is no known precedent for a president taking such action.
Trump's corporate pardon sends a clear message: “If you’re a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn’t matter”
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— Rick Claypool (@rickclaypool.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Noting the U.S. Supreme Court's highly controversial 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—which affirmed corporate personhood and the dubious notion that unlimited outside spending on political campaigns is free speech—Stanford Law School professor Bernadette Meyler told The Intercept that "while we have seen the rise of a trend of treating corporations as persons in other areas of law, we haven't seen that so far in the area of pardoning."
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and preeminent pardons expert, wrote for The Hill on Tuesday that the BitMEX pardons send the message that "companies involved in financial crimes don't have to worry about accountability under this president, as least when it comes to crypto, for reasons that he has no incentive to ever make known."
"BitMEX can continue its prior criminal practices with federal impunity, and maybe even rely on the pardon to thwart future investigations into related conduct by federal lawmakers or state prosecutors," Wehle added. "The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people, including the more than 77 million who might finally be realizing that they voted for lawlessness last November."
"The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people."
Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor specializing in corporate crime and punishment, told The Intercept that the BitMEX pardons are part of a wider pattern of impunity under Trump, who "now seems to be systematically pardoning corporate malefactors left and right without respect, really, to any real serious consideration about the merits of the cases [or] the larger policy implications of issuing these pardons."
As the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen recently noted, "The Trump administration has dropped, withdrawn, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in its first two months in office."
Beneficiaries include companies owned or led by Trump donors or allies, including private prison giant GEO Group; Zelle network banks JPMorgan and Bank of America; crypto firms Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, OpenSea, Ripple, and Robinhood; and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"Trump's corporate pardons show the president's true base is the billionaire executives and corporate elites lining up to indulge their greed at the trough of Trump's corruption," Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool said last week. "Trump's soft-on-corporate crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America's consumers, workers, and communities."
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman added that the Trump administration's "effective no-enforcement policy against corporations virtually guarantees more financial scams, more workplace discrimination, more poisoning of the air and water, more food contamination, more fraud, more disease, and more preventable death."
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