City of Marina California resolves to amend the Constitution to control corporate "free speech"

On Tuesday October 18, the Marina (CA) City Council became the first on the Monterey Peninsula to pass a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment in response to the Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission case. The resolution concludes:

Therefore, Be It Resolved that the Marina City Council calls for amending the U.S. Constitution to establish that:
1. Corporations should not be exempt from campaign finance restrictions on the basis of campaign contributions being the same as political speech protected by the First Amendment; and,
2. Corporations are not natural persons, and therefore are not entitled to the same First Amendment rights provided to individual persons.

You can read the full resolution here.

The Monterey County Alliance for Democracy chapter had been working on this since December of last year and are very happy that this finally came to a vote before the City Council and passed. Congratulations, Monterey County!

If you would like to learn more about passing a local resolution, check out resources on the Move to Amend site; and to build support in your town take a look at all the resources on our Tools for Organizing and street theater pages.