Legal Commentary

There is a movement afoot to strip corporations of personhood, especially in the wake of Citizens United. The Vermont Senate just passed a resolution urging that the Constitution be amended to overrule Citizens United and recognize that "[t]he U.S. Constitution protects only the rights of living human beings." The particular constitutional amendment pressed by the Vermonters provides that "[c]orporations and other for-profit institutions are prohibited from attempting to influence the outcome of elections, legislation or government policy through the use of aggregate resources or by rewarding or repaying employees or directors to exert such influence."

What should one make of these sorts of popular efforts at constitutional drafting? On one hand, I have a sort of lawyerly impatience with what, at first glance, looks like incoherent blather. (Do these folks really want to strip the New York Times -- a for-profit corporation last time I checked -- of the constitutionally protected right to publish op-ed pieces?) But another more sentimental side of me warms to the idea of Citizens' Uniting around their view of the Constitution. True, the constitutional text being urged needs a lot of massaging to fit comfortably into any coherent theory of the First Amendment. But so what? Is that not what we pointy-head lawyers are supposed to do through litigation?

Perhaps my sentimental fondness for these sorts of resolutions is subconsciously rooted in the confidence that such efforts will go nowhere as serious efforts to amend constitutional text. What do other readers think? Is this resolution (a) more coherent than I think? (b) incoherent, but a worthy and reparable effort at popular constitutionalism (as I am inclined to think), or (c) dangerous blather that risks polluting our law with nonsensical rhetoric?