The Supreme Court heard arguments last week whether Donald Trump should be disqualified under the 14th Amendment to be President.

At issue is whether Trump’s (in)actions on January 6, 2021, should prohibit him from becoming President again based on the text in Article 3 asserting that any officer of the United States who has previously taken an oath to uphold the Constitution should be disqualified if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

While legal scholars disagree whether the 14th Amendment applies to Trump, can the same be said about whether any part of the 14th Amendment should disqualify a corporation from being a constitutional person? 

Article 1 of the 14th Amendment states

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

“Persons” clearly refers to human beings. The 14th Amendment was meant to protect previously enslaved human beings. “Due process” and “equal protection” were clearly intended to apply exclusively to human persons. 

Corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution. For the first 100 plus years of our history, corporations had no constitutional rights, only “privileges” strictly granted by the government. 

Yet, the controversial take-a-way of the 1886 Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court case was that Section 1 of the 14th Amendment provided corporate entities with equal protection constitutional rights, despite the Supreme Court not actually making that decision. 

Corporations hijacked the 14th Amendment.

Santa Clara became the fraudulent “precedent” or cover for Minnesota & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Beckwith three years later, declaring that corporations had equal protection and due process constitutional rights.  

It also set a precedent for all subsequent Supreme Court decisions right up to the present for the granting of corporations' constitutional rights (aka “corporate personhood”). 

Corporate constitutional rights represent corporate coups, constitutional insurrections led by black-robed Supreme Court members (a disproportionately large percentage of whom have always been corporate attorneys) wielding made-up legal decisions for more than a century that have preempted our ability to protect the health, safety and welfare of people, communities and the natural world. The Supremes have a long history of affirming property/corporate rights over human rights.

This is precisely why the Supreme Court is disqualified to be considered to end corporate personhood.

It’s up to us to end-run the Supreme Court by enacting the We the People Amendment (HJR54). 

Each and every single one of us has first-hand experience living in a society in which virtually every realm (i.e. health care, education, media, employment, transportation, energy, food, housing, etc.) is dominated by corporations. Our right as self-governing individuals is enough to qualify us collectively to rule on the role of corporate entities. 

Working to pass the We the People Amendment from the bottom up is the democratic means to achieve the ending of corporate rule.