Friday Signpost: How a clerical error made corporations “people”
A history lesson from Hightower, courtesy of 2003
Greetings, Lowdowners! Deanna here. We’ve been digging through Jim’s archives lately — working on something we can’t fully talk about yet, but will soon. What we keep finding is pieces that are not only great, vintage Hightower, but also history lessons that help us understand how we got to where we are.
This one, from April 2003, explains exactly how corporations became “people” under the Constitution — not through legislation, not through a court ruling, but through a clerical error. Hightower was writing it in the shadow of a case that seemed like it might finally fix the problem… it didn’t. Seven years later, Citizens United happened, and now you know how the the Court paved the way for it to succeed.
