If Peoria ever persuaded state lawmakers to pass a law like Delaware’s House just approved, employers including Caterpillar, Ameren Energy Resources LLC, and RLI could vote in municipal elections.
On June 30, Delaware’s House of Representatives in a 35-6 vote passed a bill authorizing a town in the southern part of the state to let the artificial entities businesses use, like corporations, to cast ballots.
If Delaware’s Senate also approves the bill and Gov. John Carney signs it, the measure would allow Seaford — a town of about 8,500 people — to change its charter to enfranchise non-resident businesses. That would mean that corporations, LLCs, partnerships, trusts and other such artificial entities registered in Delaware would have the same voting rights as citizens.
Instead of the democratic principle of “one person, one vote,” the bill codifies the principle of “one person/entity/one vote,” as the bill’s text reads.
A business owner living there wouldn’t be allowed to vote in a local election more than once, as a person and also as a business. However, business owners living elsewhere could vote, which means such entities could vote multiple times: where the owners live, and in Seaford or any place with a similar law where their business is located.
Advocates for democracy and voting rights understandably denounced the bill, saying that it erodes the nation’s civic values and projects a dangerous message that artificial constructs should enjoy the same rights as human beings.
“This legislation has the power to transform our elections for the worse,” said Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Delaware. “With Delaware’s lenient incorporation regulations, this legislation could give LLCs, trusts, and outsiders the power to dominate Seaford’s elections.
“Artificial entities should not have voting rights.”
Indeed, common sense tells us that corporations aren’t people. Corporations don’t comfort neighbors, stay up with sick kids, help a friend move and countless other everyday human traits. But lawmakers and judges have been swayed to treat corporations as human beings.
“In a state with more registered businesses than residents, this bill gives wealthy outsiders the power to override the actual people of Seaford,” Snyder-Hall said.
More than 65% of all Fortune 500 companies and more than half of all U.S. publicly-traded companies are incorporated in the state of Delaware, according to Harvard Business Services (HBS) — some 1.6 million companies, including Alphabet (Google), Amazon, American Express, Comcast (NBC), CVS, Disney, Tesla and Walmart — plus the aforementioned Peoria employers.
They do so for several reasons. First, there are tax advantages.
“There is no state income tax for Delaware corporations that conduct business out of state,” HBS says, “no inheritance tax on stock held by non-Delaware residents, no state sales tax on intangible personal property (such as royalty payments), and shares of stock owned by non-resident aliens are not subject to Delaware taxes.”
Next, there’s less transparency; companies can register there without identifying their owners. Finally, Delaware has a special Court of Chancery that handles business disputes, with juries replaced by judges who specialize in such case law. That means “decreased liability and litigation judges,” HBS says.
The Seaford proposal is reminiscent of the eligibility to vote in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, when only white men who owned land could cast ballots.
More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010 decided by a 5-4 vote in “Citizens United v. FEC” to grant corporations the same right to free speech as individuals.
Such rulings and ordinances further blur the line between real human beings and abstract business structures — corporations already shield stockholders from many consequences. And their obligation — their fiduciary responsibility — is to mindlessly maximize profit to deliver to shareholders.
Where human beings ideally treat each other as they’d like to be treated, corporations compete above all.
“This is another step down the road to corporate tyranny,” Snyder-Hall said.
The New Testament says there’s no greater love than to lay down one’s life for others, but corporations can’t be bothered to even accept slightly smaller profits to help the environment or pay workers better.
Some people are reasonably concerned about Artificial Intelligence. But for those who value democracy on any level, another artificial threat exists, and it’s less intelligent than mindless.