Mendocino petition drive meets signature goal, Massachusetts not far behind

Alliance members and supporters in Mendocino County, California, and eastern Massachusetts have reached signature goals to get voter referenda against corporate personhood before the voters.



In Mendocino, the Citizens Advisory measure is on the ballot, after 5661 signatures were turned in, 74% more than the 3240 needed! 



Next, the county Board of Supervisors will put the measure on the ballot. The initiative is on their July 24th agenda; supporters are urged to turn out and show support. 



Tom Wodetzki, AfD member and co-chair of the Mendocino County Move to Amend effort, writes: "Ours could be the first county in California to pass such a citizens initiative, and thereby join the growing number of counties, cities and states nationwide expressing a strong desire to restore real democracy. 


"Our federal and state representatives are not acting to end this outrageous corruption of our elections," he said, "since they benefit from the status quo. So only an ever-growing demand from the grassroots will get the legal change we need, which has to be in the form of a Constitutional amendment." 



“Bravo!" writes Nancy Price, AfD Co-chair and member of the Move to Amend National Organizing Team. "Significantly, the Mendocino initiative supports an amendment to abolish ALL [corporate] constitutional rights, including the First Amendment, and reversal of the doctrine that money is speech. We will only get one chance at a Constitutional amendment and it has to be one that will really set the country on the path to end corporate rule and restore real democracy.”



In Massachusetts, North Bridge Alliance Chapter members petitioned with  Common Cause, Greater Boston Move to Amend, and other groups to get a non-binding referendum question on the ballot in three eastern Massachusetts state senate districts and one representative district. Other groups worked on collecting signatures on Cape Cod and in western Massachusetts. Organizers will know in August whether a sufficient number of signatures are certified, but in most districts the number collected was well over the required number to get the measure before voters.
 


In both Massachusetts and California, resolutions in favor of an amendment to overturn Citizens United only were introduced in state legislatures. California recently passed theirs, becoming the sixth state in the country to do so.