Bird-dogging on corporate rule

Here's a list of questions for candidates, forwarded and adapted from the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy (POCLAD) and Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC):

Friends of POCLAD,
Attached is a questionnaire developed by a member of our collective which addresses different dimensions of the same issue — citizens, not corporations, having the right to decide our lives, communities, nation and world.

While the survey was developed specifically to Ohio, it can easily be changed. Feel free to borrow, steal, amend or alter it to suit your needs for any election.

We feel it is a useful tool to educate others and to make the fundamental demand to Congressional candidates to increase the rights of people by eliminating the rights of business corporations.

If you circulate it to candidates and receive any responses, we’d love to know about it.

10 QUESTION SURVEY ON DEMOCRACY AND CORPORATE RIGHTS
Directed to Candidates for Government Offices

1. Do you believe that business corporations should be allowed directly or through
corporate-sponsored Political Action Committees (PACs) to donate to or invest money in political candidates or issue campaigns? (Note: at one time in Ohio, they couldn't.) If not, what do you specifically plan to do about this if elected?

2. Do you believe that public officials should have the right to examine the financial books of business corporations (i.e. to prevent future Enrons and mortgage company collapses and/or to access the true profits of oil companies)? (Note: at one time in Ohio, they could.) If so, what do you specifically plan to do about this if elected?

3. Do you believe that business corporations should have the right to move toxic trash
into communities from another state if people in those communities don't want it? If not,
what do you specifically plan to do about this if elected?

4. Do you believe that people should have greater legal and constitutional rights than
business corporations? (Note: at one time in Ohio, they did). If so, what do you
specifically plan to do about this if elected?

5. Do you believe that the health care system in the United States should be patient-run /
doctor-run or run by insurance corporations? If the former, what do you specifically plan
to do about this if elected?

6. Do you believe that the public has ultimate control over the public airwaves rather than media corporations? If so, what do you specifically plan to do about this if elected?

7. Do you believe that the public or business corporations should be in charge of
electronic voting machines that are used in public elections? If the former, what do you
specifically plan to do about this if elected?

8. Do you believe the Iraqi people have a right to control their own oil reserves (and by extension the right to control their own nation), or that oil production and profit
decisions should be placed in the hands of US and other western oil corporations? If the
former, what do you specifically plan to do about this if elected?

9. Do you believe workers should have the right to free speech and free assembly
(contained in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution) on
corporate property? If so, what do you specifically plan to do about this if elected?

10. Do you believe the public has the right to know the ingredients of food they eat or
that business corporations have “Free Speech” rights to not publicly release the
ingredients of the food they produce? If the former, what do you specifically plan to do
about this if elected?

If you receive any replies, please mail them by February 29 to Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), 2101 Front St., #111, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221, fax to 330-928-2628, or email to GColeridge@afsc.org. Thanks!