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Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

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Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#211

Post by bit-anarchist »

folkrav wrote: post #120
rayiner wrote: post #25

I don’t understand why people have so much trouble understanding that a “corporation” is just a proxy for the humans that own and control the corporation. In this case, non-residents who own a house on the island can vote according to the charter. The charter just says that this doesn’t change because you move ownership of the house into a legal entity that some human then owns and controls. The actual grievance seem…

"Corporations are controlled by humans, therefore critics are motivated by anti-rich sentiment" is definitely a take

Where did the "therefore" come from? From OP's comment it didn't, that's for sure.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#212

Post by akramachamarei »

Henchman21 wrote: post #205
akramachamarei wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the notion of No Taxation without Representation? With that in mind, shouldn't you get to vote wherever you are (substantially) taxed?

No. One person, one vote, with registration tied to where you live. Now, to discuss No Taxation Without Representation: we haven’t had proper representation since the number of representatives in the house was capped because we ran out of space for more chairs , so personally I consider that ship has sailed. I would love to get back to a place where We The People had representation. Alas we do not. Let’s start by add…

Yeah that would be good to address too. I wonder if we'd end up with vertically stacked Representatives like in Star Wars.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#213

Post by Henchman21 »

akramachamarei wrote: post #212
Henchman21 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. One person, one vote, with registration tied to where you live. Now, to discuss No Taxation Without Representation: we haven’t had proper representation since the number of representatives in the house was capped because we ran out of space for more chairs , so personally I consider that ship has sailed. I would love to get back to a place where We The People had representation. Alas we do not. Let’s start by add…

Yeah that would be good to address too. I wonder if we'd end up with vertically stacked Representatives like in Star Wars.

Well, if we're going to go all Star Wars with it, let's elect some kids to office. Smart kids. Kids with a sense of justice and fairness. But yes, I expect a sphere might be the best layout. Like King Arthur's Round Table, there is no head or foot.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#214

Post by cucumber3732842 »

Hizonner wrote: post #206
SoftTalker wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most areas, especially any that are at all developed, land parcels and minimum lot sizes are under the control of a county or city commission, council, board, etc. Subdividing a property is as expensive and time consuming as you might imagine dealing with the government, you'll probably need a lawyer to do it properly, have to appear before at at least one if not several public meetings or hearings, etc. And they…

You mean under the control of the commissions, councils, boards, etc that are being elected in these very elections? Elections in which many actual humans may not be paying attention to positions on "arcane" land use rules, but the non-human legal entities in question (or their managers) will be?

>under the control of the commissions, councils, boards, etc

Let me save you some words.

Next time just call them "the local real estate developer slime balls" because that's who makes up the vase majority of these organizations. Like maybe a particularly upstanding town might have a local banker or lawyer on one of the boards or something.

These are not democratic institutions. They are business groups that happen to be part of government.

These organizations are already in the pocket of business interests. If anything this change is destabilizing because it now means that the PE owned car-wash and the company that owns a bunch of chain franchise businesses in the town as well as every local business that owns land or the landlords thereof but is owned by people who live in the surrounding towns can push back and say "screw you, we're not all willing to bend over and take it so you can make another buck developing another street of McMansions".

Letting megacorps vote is probably bad. But I think we should see where this goes. There's a lot of "enemy of my enemy" potential here for the currently disenfrachinsed business interests to push back on the business interests that are in bed with government to the benifit of the people. Enemy of my enemy is my ally and all that.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#215

Post by singleshot_ »

mindslight wrote: post #202
singleshot_ wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would happen if the deed (a contract) was an agreement to violate the law restricting minimum lot sizes and was therefor illegal? It would be void and regardless of recordation, no transfer or subdivision would have occurred.

My point was that the laws regarding those minimum lot sizes are about buildable lots. Although now that I'm looking into this I think the snag would be trying to record that plot plan, where the Registry would be mechanically looking for a town approval stamp on the plan before they were willing to record it. But a new avenue has occurred to me that actually saves money on deed costs - nothing prevents multiple corp…

This idea is equally wrong for different reasons, but I do have a measure of appreciation for you having abandoned your first intrinsically broken idea upon the first resistance you encountered. Fail fast!

Why would thirty companies that owned a company together get one vote each instead of one thirtieth? The thirty companies would each have one vote in determining how to vote the one parent's vote.

(You are, however, correct to note that you can record absolute gibberish if you want to, so long as you pay the recorder. This does not effectuate a transfer of land, though; it merely serves as constructive notice to the person who is bound to look for such recorded notice, i.e., the beneficial purchaser for value. In a way, you could think of the function of a recorder as preventer of race conditions, not the database).

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#216

Post by mindslight »

singleshot_ wrote: post #215
mindslight wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that the laws regarding those minimum lot sizes are about buildable lots. Although now that I'm looking into this I think the snag would be trying to record that plot plan, where the Registry would be mechanically looking for a town approval stamp on the plan before they were willing to record it. But a new avenue has occurred to me that actually saves money on deed costs - nothing prevents multiple corp…

This idea is equally wrong for different reasons, but I do have a measure of appreciation for you having abandoned your first intrinsically broken idea upon the first resistance you encountered. Fail fast! Why would thirty companies that owned a company together get one vote each instead of one thirtieth? The thirty companies would each have one vote in determining how to vote the one parent's vote. (You are, however…

Well the choice was either accept the likelihood of a common restriction that seems to exist in many places, or dig into the actual specifics of the law in this Delaware county. I don't need to give myself a headache for fun.

Why would thirty companies each get a vote? Because that is what the charter says. There wouldn't be one parent company, rather the real estate would be owned by them all directly as tenants in common.

> 9. A. (2) Non-residents. Every property owner as of March 1 prior to the annual municipal election, whether a natural person or artificial entity, including but not limited to corporations, partnerships, trusts, and limited liability companies, and who is registered to vote, if provided by ordinance, shall have one (1) vote. A natural person shall be a citizen of the United States and age 18 on or before the date of the election. An artificial entity shall be a domestic entity in the State of Delaware.

https://charters.delaware.gov/fenwickisland.html

So they must be Delaware entities. Another thing I'm giving up on is that the Series LLC might not work. While each Series is legally independent from the others, I think they still might not be considered distinct "entities" (once again, not looking to give myself a headache to solidly determine that).

So either do one LLC/corporation per vote, or perhaps trusts might be even cheaper (no idea what filing/recording would be required for trusts, especially to substantiate them enough to register to vote)

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#217

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #172
rc-research wrote: post #28

> Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction. Company towns are well-recorded history, not science fiction. Lost Hills California (home of Wonderful Pistachios) exists in the real, present, non-fictional world.

I mean... Larry Ellison bought an entire Hawaiian island... from the Dole family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C4%81na%CA%BBi

His owning of a volcanic island is what solidifies him as a Bond villain for me.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#218

Post by kulahan »

ceejayoz wrote: post #203
kulahan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asbestos is still used today in some instances. Should’ve used heroin or something

So is heroin.

Oh? Which industry regularly uses this as a part of standard business for consumers? Unless... you're just pretending to be too obtuse to understand the extremely obvious implication here.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#219

Post by kulahan »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #199
kulahan wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s really nothing inherently profane about the concept, it’s just often abused. I’d love to see a few working examples out in the real world, personally.

> There’s really nothing inherently profane about the concept, it’s just often abused. The same thing can be said about any autocratic government, but the practical and documented historical issues are why they are not liked. Just as dictatorship works well when you have a good ruler who cares about the people, the issue isn't if you get a bad ruler, but when.

The same can be said about literally anything in existence, from this incredibly inane point of view. Lots of things are historically dangerous and only work well when people who don't suck is running it.

Most things suck when someone shitty is running it. This is the worst argument of all time. There's really no reason, based on the very bad argument you've presented here, to assume a local, state, or federal government would be any better than any corporation. Please, I beg of you, come up with some argument that takes more than two seconds to disregard.

Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says

#220

Post by croon »

kulahan wrote: post #219
xboxnolifes wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s really nothing inherently profane about the concept, it’s just often abused. The same thing can be said about any autocratic government, but the practical and documented historical issues are why they are not liked. Just as dictatorship works well when you have a good ruler who cares about the people, the issue isn't if you get a bad ruler, but when.

The same can be said about literally anything in existence, from this incredibly inane point of view. Lots of things are historically dangerous and only work well when people who don't suck is running it. Most things suck when someone shitty is running it. This is the worst argument of all time. There's really no reason, based on the very bad argument you've presented here, to assume a local, state, or federal govern…

> Most things suck when someone shitty is running it. This is the worst argument of all time.

I actually think it is the only argument.

As Churchill mused:

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

Company towns, communism, etc are bad specifically because of their ease of abuse, which is why our best (least worst) systems of governing are focused on transparency, accountability and minimizing abuse. It sucks that all that friction makes it less efficient, but alas we need to plan for the/humanities worst, because it continually crops up.

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