sotomayor questions the corporate actor

In her first hearing, Justice Sotomayor said something that startled a number of observers:

During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court’s majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.

But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.

Judges “created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons,” she said. “There could be an argument made that that was the court’s error to start with…[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics.”

Of course, pundits were quick to point out that you can’t expect much based on a single comment, but it is interesting. American law treats actions channeled through organizations as fundamentally different than those coming from individuals. If Sotomayor’s comment does reflect a systematic skepticism of corporate rights, then one might ask where she draws the line. Limited liability? Protection for public servants? Is an appeal to public interest the basis for preserving some corporate rights? It’ll be interesting to see if this issues pops again and how various justices handle it.