Sotomayor on Economic Issues

An interesting article by Jess Bravin about Sotomayor's recent oral argument queries about whether treating corporations as the equivalent of persons for constitutional purposes:

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."

After a confirmation process that revealed little of her legal philosophy, the remark offered an early hint of the direction Justice Sotomayor might want to take the court.

"Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions," said Douglas Kendall, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center.

It does seem possible that while Sotomayor might be a Breyeresque wet on civil liberties issues, she may also bring an economic liberalism that really has no representation on the current Court.

The rest of the article is very much worth reading, with good background information about Santa Clara County. What's striking is how cursory the arguments in favor of the very important concept of corporate personhood were, although the constitutional text is silent either way and it's certainly not obvious that it follows from the classical liberal principles that animated the rights in question.