Delaware is home to more corporations than people. Human people, that is, as under longstanding state law and the US Supreme Court’s infamous 2010 ruling, corporations are people, too.
A judge in Delaware—a state with more registered business entities than people—ruled Monday in favor of a small town that allows corporations to vote in local elections.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled that the town of Fenwick Island, population 400, did not violate the state Constitution by permitting business entities—which make up 12% of the town’s “population”—to vote in municipal elections, as case plaintiff the ACLU of Delaware had claimed.
“What is a ‘person?’ When one cuts to the heart of this case, that is the question,” Karsnitz wrote to open his 20-page ruling.
Does this mean that a company that outcompetes another into dissolving can be accused of manslaughter?