PLF’s Hobby Lobby brief reminds the Supreme Court: Corporations have First Amendment rights, too

Editorial

Pacific Legal Foundation’s Hobby Lobby brief reminds the Supreme Court:  Corporations have First Amendment rights, too (re-posted with permission from Pacific Legal Foundation)

Obamacare is in front of the U.S. Supreme Court again. On March 25, the justices will hear oral argument in a high-profile challenge by Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation.

The two companies are targeting Obamacare’s controversial “contraception mandate” – the requirement that businesses provide insurance covering abortion and birth control, even if their owners have religious-based objections.

Pacific Legal Foundation’s friend of the court brief addresses the threshold issue in the case: Do corporations like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga even have the right to sue in defense of First Amendment freedoms, such as the free exercise of religion?

Some courts have ruled that for-profit business corporations cannot assert free exercise rights. But PLF argues, emphatically, that business corporations have full First Amendment freedoms – including the right to defend them in court.

The cases are Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation v. Sebelius.

Corporations are groups of individuals, acting collectively – so it’s wrong to deny them their rights

“Corporations are simply groups of people who choose to act together as a unit,” says Sandefur. “The free speech rights, property rights, and other constitutional freedoms that are and must be recognized for corporations, are simply the rights of the citizens who are acting collectively, in a corporate capacity, to form and operate those businesses.”

With our Hobby Lobby brief, PLF continues in our role as a leading challenger to Obamacare’s violations of the Constitution.  Most prominently, we represent small business owner Matt Sissel in a suit over Obamacare’s violation of the Origination

Clause (Article 1, Section 7).   Specifically Obamacare raises massive amounts of taxes,

yet didn’t “originate” in the House of Representatives, as required for new revenue bills.  

PLF Principal Attorney Timothy Sandefur recently conducted an interview of Students at California State University, Sacramento, who candidly share their opinions on Obamacare and how the erroneous law impacts them.

If you want to support the efforts of the Pacific Legal Foundations please check out their website: http://www.pacificlegal.org/

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