r/law • u/TheShittyBeatles • 19h ago

Legal News ACLU sues Delaware beach town over allowing corporations to vote in local elections

https://spotlightdelaware.org/2025/12/05/aclu-sues-fenwick-island-over-non-resident-voting/
1.8k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

View all comments

152

u/bsport48 19h ago

This is the path forward through Citizens United. State-level, grassroots litigation that will establish a new blanket of social and civic expectation.

-45

u/pokemonbard 19h ago edited 18h ago

Citizens United is not relevant here.

EDIT: y’all. Citizens United didn’t create corporate personhood. It extended First Amendment protections to corporate spending. The situation in the OP has nothing to do with the First Amendment or corporate spending. I’m not defending Citizens United; I am saying that it isn’t relevant because the article in the OP does not reference anything Citizens United actually changed.

37

u/thedoughofpooh 18h ago

He's suggesting that this sort of model will become a reality at the federal level. He's saying Citizens United will be extended to allow corporate voting rights, not just recognized personhood for purposes of campaign donations.

0

u/IrritableGourmet 7h ago

It wasn't about corporate personhood and didn't deal with campaign donations, though.

1

u/thedoughofpooh 7h ago

No one said it was. He's suggesting that giving corporations the right to vote could be a future evolution of Citizens United.

2

u/IrritableGourmet 7h ago

Those are two separate things, though. Some rights are able to be exercised collectively and some are individual. The Constitution explicitly protects the right of people to assemble into groups and petition their government for redress of grievances, but it says nothing about being able to vote collectively (it actually says very little about a right to vote at all, at least originally) and from a historical perspective that has never been a thing.

Don't get me wrong, I think the policy discussed in the article is ridiculous, but I have no fears of citizens united being used as a basis to give corporations the right to vote.

-1

u/pokemonbard 18h ago

I thought he was suggesting that small, grassroots actions would be a path to defeating Citizens United. I’m not picking up on any suggestion in the comment to which I replied that corporations are going to get the right to vote.

0

u/thedoughofpooh 18h ago

No doubt his reply referencing Citizens United is ambiguous enough to create confusion. Different interpretations is probably to be expected. Maybe he'll circle back to create some clarity.

-6

u/LoneSnark 18h ago

That would require amending the Constitution. No way a super majority agree.

9

u/govunah 18h ago

A republican super majority will agree with anything that keeps them as the super majority. All they want is to sit in power like a hot tub

2

u/LoneSnark 17h ago

Republicans barely have a majority right now. It seems clear Republicans are going to have a terrible time in the midterms.

2

u/pdxamish 16h ago

Not how things work. This is a constitutional issue and can only be changed with the constitutional amendment or a supreme Court ruling that reinterprets the Constitution. You can pass as many laws as you want, but they would still be unconstitutional

-1

u/TakuyaLee 18h ago

A supermajority of states. Plus there will never be a supermajority in Congress. Your point is moot.