Here are two ways an American can make a citizen.
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1. Take your partner out for a nice dinner and a romantic dance.
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2. Once home, with no light but candles, remove unnecessary clothing, and let Nature guide you.
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3. Roughly nine months later, a citizen arrives…
…OR,
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1. Spend $75 online to set up a Limited Liability Corporation in Delaware.
This would be a damn funny joke if it weren’t true.
According to Supreme Court dicta in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that $75 is all you need to make an American a person under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
We know that the 2010 Citizens United case claimed that corporations are people, too. They can donate to political candidates, that is, purchase elections. There’s no other way to put it.
But there are two problems with the corporations-are-people assertion:
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1. I’ve never heard of a corporation that lost its legs in Vietnam
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2. Corporate citizenship is a complete fraud.
Thom Hartmann, the historian and talk show host, has put on his Sherlock Holmes’ deerstalker hat and discovered that the Citizens United decision was based on the fraudulent reporting of a key Supreme Court case way back in 1886. A corrupt clerk working for the Supreme Court combined with a dodgy Justice to falsely state that corporations are “people.”
That is NOT what the Justices decided in the 1886 case But in 2010, the corporate bum-lickers on the Court cited this fraudulent “precedent” of corporate citizenship — and put America’s elections up for sale.
Hartmann’s newly-released book, Who Killed the American Dream: The Greatest Political Crime Ever Told (Barrett Koehler 2026) is a rippin’ detective story whose power is in its hard history. Hartmann explains, and he’s on solid ground here, that Citizens United is based on an entirely fabricated reading of the Supreme Court’s 1886 decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
Before you run away screaming that Hartmann’s story suggests too much legalese, in fact, he’s written a film-worthy, gripping, horrific story which is, in its weird way — think The Sting with a bad-guys-win ending — very entertaining.
The plot line kicks off with this: Hartmann’s in a law library (the kind of the thing he does) and looks up the case on which Citizens United was based. He opens the Southern Pacific Railroad case and finds a head-scratcher: There is NOTHING in the opinion which grants corporations human-hood.
Nothing. Citizens United and the other crazy corporate citizenship cases are based on…nothing. Well, not nothing. There is what’s called a “head-note,” something written by the official court reporter that asserts it is a fair summary of the case.
In 1886, the Court Reporter had, in cahoots with a wily Justice, Stephen Field, monetarily greased by railroad interests, simply made it up. That is, “summarized” the Santa Clara case in a way that ignored the actual written conclusions of the court.
This is a big deal. A REALLY BIG deal. The corrupt court reporter wrote:
“The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Corporations are persons?!? Lots of corporations have been convicted of felony crimes — but I’ve never seen a corporation breaking rocks on a chain-gang.
OK, a little legalese is needed here. Every case has a head note drafted by a (hopefully) honest court reporter. But the head note has absolutely ZERO legal weight. It’s just an easy blurb for paralegals in a hurry. Like an old TV Guide summary of an episode of Gray’s Anatomy.
But, the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, working with his railroad buddies and the under-handed Justice Field, concocted a head note that granted personhood to these fictional entities known as corporations. I think Bancroft and Field would have made Tinkerbell a citizen, but Disney hadn’t made the movie yet.
The effect of Citizens United has been devastating to say the least. Now corporations can pull out their checkbooks and swamp your vote with millions of dollars in “donations.” Who do you think a politician will listen to: you with your one puny vote or Daddy Warbucks with a wallet thicker than a Big Mac?
The header granting corporations personhood was, like any Big Lie, repeated and cited often enough that it simply became the law of the land.
And the consequences are nothing short of evil. Corporations are, under the 2010 Citizens United decision, treated the same as people — people made out of flesh and bones.
Under former law, convicted murderer Charles Manson could not donate to a political campaign from prison…but under Citizens United, Charles Manson & Co. could write big checks to buy a pardon.
In 2011, I discovered a donation to support Republican Mitt Romney’s run against Barack Obama through Restore Our Future PAC came from a limited liability corporation called “F8 LLC.” The company only showed $87,000 in sales for the year but managed to donate a cool million dollars to the Republican campaign, Who is behind this million dollar payment? Investigators with the Campaign Legal Center dubbed the executive “John Doe.” Want to know who’s behind the GOP? Ask Mr. “Doe.”
Under Citizens United, Al Qaeda Inc. may donate as well as Putin & Sons. In the 2010 argument over Citizens United, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg asked how Americans can tell if the government of China is funding candidates via incorporated front groups in the US. Chief Justice Roberts said that would be up to Congress — that is, the very politicians bought by a Chinese front or “F8 LLC.”
How odd, Trump has argued that kids born in the US to immigrant parents aren’t Americans, but Corporations born in the Cayman Islands and registering in Wyoming have citizenship rights.
So, RBG’s question suggests a solution that’s less of a heavy lift compared to Hartmann’s call to amend the Constitution. Congress can allow corporations to donate if they certify and prove they have no foreign owners. That would be a bit of a problem for Citibank. Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding just bought $450 million of Citibank stock and more is controlled by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Would the Saudis try to influence American elections? Does a bear….?
Under current law, I can’t give to a candidate without stating my name and address. We don’t need a Constitutional Amendment to require that corporations that donate to campaigns list all their shareholders.
Right now, I’m completing my film about how the Brothers Koch stole $6 billion in oil from the Osage Nation. They bought their way out of a criminal indictment by literally purchasing themselves a new Congress through a corporate shell called “Triad.” At the time, corporate donations were a go-to-jail felony, but the Kochs slithered away until Citizens United, when their fake corporate front was legalized.
So what’s the problem with corporate cash in campaigns? This: Wise men have said, “Corporations have neither bodies to kick nor souls to damn.” Corporations are artificial creatures that feel no pain but can inflict it. And they do.
And what truly should make you ill is, as Hartmann lays out, the legal case for Citizens United was a fraud, a scam, a con, a bamboozle.
Who Killed the American Dream?: The Greatest Political Crime Ever Told is out now and available from Amazon, on Kindle, and wherever good books are sold.
Greg Palast is an investigative journalist. His not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund is launching a series of 6 reports on vote suppression — and how we can reverse it — in coordination with our partners at Black Voters Matter Fund, the NAACP of Georgia, Transformative Justice Coalition and the late Rev. Jesse Jackson’s RainbowPUSH. From the 14th Amendment to the 10th ring of voting hell, he and his colleagues expose the arrow in the heart of democracy.
They are in real need of your tax-deductible donation RIGHT NOW to get these films and reports out. Journalism done right is not journalism done cheap. And that’s why we have such impact. As CK Hoffler, attorney with RainbowPUSH says, “We rely on the work of Greg Palast and his team.”