North Bridge chapter helps turn out a crowd in Concord to discuss constitutional amendments and corporate personhood

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people from Concord, Massachusetts, and surrounding towns, came out on Friday, March 19 to learn what the Citizens United decision means for election funding, and to start a discussion on what steps need to be taken locally and nationally to curb the Supreme Court's attack on democracy.

The talk was entitled "Democracy in the Balance: Corporate Power in Politics," and was modeled after the local "Life in the Balance" speakers series on environmental issues.

Planned speakers included Jeffrey Clements and John Bonifaz, of FreeSpeechforPeople.org, and Mary Zepernick, of WILPF and POCLAD, both part of the Campaign to Legalize Democracy/MoveToAmend.org coalition. Unfortunately, Mary couldn't attend in person, but sent a statement, which was read by a member of the Concord-Carlisle League of Women Voters, who sponsored the event along with AfD's North Bridge chapter, and the Concord and Carlisle climate action groups.

Although the audience was made up of people from a variety of local groups--including some supporters of the Citizens United decision--the general belief was that getting money out of politics was the necessary first step to achieving any substantial government action on any issue. Questions focused on ways to contain the behavior of corporations beyond their participation in politics, on various reforms proposed in Congress, and on the merits of an amendment to limit corporate First Amendment rights versus an amendment eliminating all personhood rights for corporations. FreeSpeechforPeople.org's approach, as explained by Jeff Clements, was to focus on taking away corporate First Amendment rights and overturning the legal definition of money as speech as the most harmful instance of corporate personhood because of its effect on campaign finance. Others in the audience felt that corporate personhood as a whole needed to be abolished.

Many in the audience signed up to be part of future events and action groups.