Supreme Court Entitles Corporations to Political Rights of Citizens

Here's one for the "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" Hall of Fame.

The point at which US corporations began to enjoy rights originally intended by the Founders only for citizens is generally identified as the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court case. What most agree is a "passing reference" (aka obiter dictum in lawyer-speak) entitling corporations with Fourteenth Amendment Rights is at times attributed to Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite.

But Waite ---
It turns out that it wasn't any Supreme Court Justice who granted citizens rights to what had been, at the time, a much simpler charter authorized by each state.

A Court Reporter Gave Citizens' Rights to Corporations
The remark attributed to the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case was not part of the court's formal opinion. Instead, it appears only in a summary of the case written by Court Reporter J. C. Bancroft Davis, in official United States Reports publication of Supreme Court decisions.

Ah, me.

At this point, feel free to Wiki, Google, Bing away at this topic. Did Waite verbally mention the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection as applying in the case during the hearings? Perhaps, but in a somewhat vague correspondence between Waite and Davis, Waite appears to be saying, consider that we justices chose to avoid addressing that constitutional issue (14th Amendment rights applying to corporations) in our Opinion; take your queue from that in deciding whether or not to cite it in the report. The report was printed with the fateful statement made by Davis, a former president of two railroads (see? you can't make it up!), in the headnote. We've been living with the consequences ever since.

Where do we Go from Here?
The tide of accumulated citizens rights that have been awarded to corporations since then has ebbed and flowed. Corporations have been gaining rights in recent decades, adding First Amendment rights even before today's decision.

Now, I happen to think that the money in politics is one of the most important issues in the country. Even before this ruling, the current loopholed campaign finance system separates electability so far from the needs of citizens that the Congress' legislation and actions in huge matters such as war, banking regulations and healthcare are cartoonish at best, and highly destructive to our national interest at worst.

This week's ruling plunges the inefficiency of Congress right into Fester City.