As we’ve learned over the past few years from Republicans, corporations are people. You see, any time people get together to do things, they have the same rights as individuals. It makes one wonder how we’re allowed to regulate any business at all. But that’s another topic for another day. You see, while corporations have been given person-status because they are no more than collections of people, some members of the GOP apparently don’t think that the states are also collections of people:
In 1913, the 17th Amendment was passed to override part of Article 1, Section 3, of the Constitution, which designated that state legislatures, not the people, select two people per state to serve as senators…
Today, [Pete] Hoekstra and some other GOP members couch the argument of a 17th Amendment repeal in the concept of giving states back their full rights under the Constitution.
The Roll Call article lists four other GOP members who’ve made remarks about repealing the amendment since 2010: Representatives Jeff Flake and Todd Akin, Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock, and Senator Mike Lee.
Mourdock, a Senate candidate in Indiana, said earlier this year that the 17th Amendment hurts the states.
“The House of Representatives was there to represent the people. The Senate was there to represent the states,” Mourdock said in February.
Got that? The House is there to represent the people. In contrast, the Senate is there to represent something that is not the people. Specifically, it is there to represent the states. You know. Those things that aren’t people. Because only corporations are people.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Jeff Flake, Pete Hoekstra, Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin |
For the Sake of Science 
A state (specifically the government) is very much like a corporation, in so far as they are collections of people. Where it splits off is that a government represents, or at least has authority over, everyone in its territory, meaning they have a sort of monopoly.
States, governments, don’t need to be legal persons, non-government entities, like corporations always do to one extent or another. I find it interesting that the only contentious issue with corporate personhood seems to be that it’s owners aren’t stripped of their right to speech when acting as a group. Every other aspect of legal personhood, the ability to enter into contracts, the ability to sue and be sued, even the death penalty (corporations can in fact be put to death) are completely absent from the debate.
The state isn’t a legal person per say, and doesn’t need to be, but only because of its special powers and duties. The government has legal standing on it’s own, they call it sovereignty.