Resolutions in favor of amending Constitution to ending corporate access to constitutional rights pass by wide margins on Election Day

America has declared loud and clear that it wants the Constitution amended. Every ballot resolution supporting amending the Constitution to end corporate access to constitutional rights passed, whether at the local, county, or state level, and in most cases at a rate above 70%. Voters in more than 150 cities, towns, counties and state weighed in, bringing us, by one count, 1/4 of the way toward amendment!

Some examples:
Both Colorado and Montana had statewide ballot measures on the ballot and while the language was different, both states approved their measures with at least 74% approval rates.  The Montana measure called for overturning Citizens United, abolition of corporate personhood and declared that money is property, not speech. (Demonstrating that you don't have to be a "liberal" to support ending corporate personhood, Montana voters also approved ballot measures which require parental notification to an abortion for a minor, deny certain government services to illegal immigrants and prohibit government from mandating the purchase of health insurance.)

Colorado's measure was narrower in scope. Amendment 65 called for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and to allow Congress and the states to limit campaign contributions and expenditures. It went on to instruct the Colorado legislature to approve such an amendment when Congress sends it to them. Pueblo County, Colorado, also had a resolution on the ballot declaring that artificial entities like corporations do not have constitutional rights, that money is not speech, and that limiting political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech. Despite the local paper editorializing against it, the resolution passed with 65% of the vote.

On the local level, a third of Massachusetts voters weighed in on a non-binding public policy question calling for amending the US Constitution to affirm that corporations do not have the constitutional rights of human beings and that Congress and the states have the right to limit political contributions and spending. The question passed with a 76% approval rate overall, including those towns carried by Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown. (AfD'ers were very active in this campaign through the North Bridge Alliance for Democracy chapter.)

In California, San Francisco voters approved Prop. G with 81% of the vote. In Richmond, voters approved Amend 2012 with 72% of the vote. Mendocino County, the first California county to place a Move to Amend citizen's initiative on the ballot, explicitly voted to "stand with the Move to Amend campaign" by a 73% margin. (Several Alliance for Democracy Mendocino Chapter members and supporters worked on this measure!)

Seventy-four percent of the voters in Chicago approved amending the US Constitution to Take Back Our Vote which called for allowing the federal government and the states to "regulate and limit political contributions from corporations."

Four ballot questions went to voters in Oregon. In Ashland, voters approved a measure stating: "Shall Ashland voters instruct Congress to amend U.S. Constitution to grant only natural persons constitutional rights and limit campaign spending?" It passed by 79.5%.

Corvallis voters approved a measure stating: "Shall the City urge elected representatives to support Constitutional Amendment denying artificial entities’ personhood and rejecting money as speech?" It passed by 75%.

Eugene voters approved a measure stating: "Shall Congress send to the States constitutional amendment reversing the negative impacts of the Citizens United case and limit independent campaign spending?" It passed by 73%.

Finally, Lincoln County voters approved a measure stating: "Should citizens urge Congress/Oregon Legislature to amend Constitution to clarify corporation/union political speech rights, allowing campaign finance regulation and limits?" This passed by 77%.

Read more:
Peter Schurman:  America on its way to overturning Citizens United http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/08/174102/america-on-its-way-to-overturning.html
Move to Amend: Election Roundup
Reclaim Democracy: State Initiatives to Revoke Corporate Personhood and Overturn Buckley v Valeo Win Big  

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Blockade and balloons protest secretive TPP negotiations in Virginia

From Op-Ed News:
Two people were detained this morning after a tense stand off with police while blockading international trade negotiators from entering the Lansdowne Resort, site of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations takingplace this week. Other activists greeted the arriving international negotiators with a 75-foot high banner suspended by weather balloons shaped like giant buttocks that read "Free Trade My Ass: Flush the TPP."

A rapidly growing movement is organizing to oppose the unprecedented lack of transparency surrounding the Obama Administrations handling of the TPP discussions. While 600 corporate lobbyists have been allowed access to and input on the draft texts from the beginning of negotiations three years ago, the public and even members of US Congress have not been allowed to see what is being proposed on their behalf.

"People need to know that the Trans Pacific Partnership is being negotiated in secret to hide the content. The TPP will redefine the terms of trade in ways that give corporations power over nations, makes them unaccountable and threatens the health of people and the future of the planet," said Baltimore native Dr. Margaret Flowers, co-director of ItsOurEconomy.us, as she dangled by a climbing harness 20 feet above the pavement and dozens of agitated police officers and sheriff's deputes. Flowers is a medical doctor and said she was moved to take action in particular because she is concerned about the likelihood that the TPP would increase drug prices by expanding corporate patent rights.

Police responded aggressively at first to the blockade, threatening to taze the metal poles suspending Flowers and to pepper spray the mother of three into compliance. Confused trade negotiators abandoned cars and attempted to walktowards the hotel complex. Stymied by how to safely remove her and open the roadway, police representatives eventually agreed to release Flowers if she lowered herself on her own accord.

Laurel Sutherlin of Rainforest Action Network, one of the organizations supporting this week's demonstrations, said "The TPP is called a 'trade agreement,' but in actuality it is a long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global corporate governance. It is outrageous that civil disobedience like this is necessary to ensure the public's voice is included in these discussions. The stakes are just too high for the world's environment as well as for farmers, workers and internet freedom for these decisions to be made behind closed doors."

Today's actions follow a colorful rally on Sunday at the same location that was  endorsed by dozens of regional and national environmental, labor and social justice organizations . Members of this diverse coalition, upset by the TPP's complete lack of transparency, have orchestrated a series of demonstrations throughout the week of negotiations.

In 2008, candidate Obama promised that as president he would renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico with new terms favorable to the United States. Now his administration is negotiating one of the largest corporate trade agreements in history, that would outsource jobs, lower wages and undermine environmental, consumer and labor laws.

Many predict the Trans-Pacific Partnership would do even more harm to U.S. employment than NAFTA. The TPP is being negotiated in secret by the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. It contains an  unusual provision, a docking agreement, which allows  other countries to join. This October, Canada and Mexico are expected join the TPP. Later, Japan and China will likely join but it will almost certainly not stop there. The TPP could set the standard for worldwide trade--a major reshuffling of our social contract with almost no public participation.

photo courtesy Rainforest Action Network

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David Cobb of Move to Amend on tour in New England this fall

Update: August 29, 2012

The dates and venues on the tour have been changed! New info coming soon!

Move to Amend spokesperson David Cobb will be traveling through New England next month to build connections, inspire activism, and reveal the origins of corporate power in America.



David will be barnstorming through Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont if Move to Amend can find folks on the ground who are willing to help out. Here's how the tour looks now—no link means that volunteers are needed to organize in that area. Volunteers are welcome to get involved with turning out a good crowd for the three talks already scheduled in Massachusetts, too! Follow those links for contact info and get involved!



• September 21 - North Shore Community College
• September 22 - Cape Cod WILPF conference
• September 23 - Boston, Massachusetts 

• September 24 - Portland, Maine 

• September 25 - Manchester, New Hampshire

• September 26 - Burlington, Vermont 

• September 27 - Rutland, Vermont 

• September 28 to 30 - Northeast Grassroots Democracy Convergence! (mark your calendar! You will want to go to this!) 



Can you volunteer? Move to Amend has media resources and other support materials to help you get started! Click here for details about how to be a Move to Amend Community Event Organizer. If you are interested please contact Alanna Stewart at barnstorming@movetoamend.org or (707) 269-0984.

David Cobb's presentations are part history lesson and part heart-felt call-to-action. "Challenging Corporate Rule & Creating Democracy" aims to help local folks understand how they can work to abolish corporate personhood and establish a government of, by, and for the people.

 If you can't pitch in beforehand, please forward this email to friends, fellow activists, or organizations that might be able to help out.



Help bring Move to Amend and the constitutional amendment campaign to your community to grow the movement in your state! PS... For a preview of what you'll hear, check out David Delk's interview with David Cobb on the AfD Portland show Populist Dialogues. (You can show this interview on your local community access cable station. Email us afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org for more information!)

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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.

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Details emerge on Trans-Pacific Partnership

Few details have emerged as to what might be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, currently in negotiation between the US and eight Pacific countries. Now a leaked draft agreement shows the US moving to contradict 2008 campaign promises on trade. The TPP would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal, and that body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling. On June 14, Democracy Now! interviewed Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a fair trade group that posted the leaked documents on its website. Wallach called the agreement "a 'one-percenter' power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights."

 

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Taking a stand against state-supported vote suppression

Former Marine Tim Thompson, in his first protest ever, refused to show a picture ID in order to vote in Tennessee's Super Tuesday primary. Even though he had the proper legal identification, he gave up his right to vote as a protest on behalf of the potentially millions of low-income, older, and college-age citizens who may lose their right to vote because of the new restrictive ID laws being enacted across the country. "Uncounted" filmmaker David Earnhardt, Thompson's brother-in-law, captured dramatic footage of Thompson's protest on his cell phone, and chronicled his journey on Super Tuesday in this short film, as Thompson's protest developed into a national story.

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Iowa is the future of post-Citizens United politics

Toward the end of this clip from today's edition of Democracy Now, John Nichols, blogger and writer for The Nation, totes up the spending by candidates and superPACs in Iowa and estimates that it works out to about $200 per vote cast, most of it going to broadcast last-minute negative ads. That's just one reason why anti-corporate personhood advocates will be attending both Democratic and Republican caucuses this evening in hopes of passing Move to Amend resolutions calling for an amendment overturning the Citizens United decision, and allowing for the re-regulation of campaign spending.

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Some good media on the "Corporations are People" front

Here's two articles in response to Mitt Romney's "corporations are people" statement--worth reading.

On TruthOut, Isaiah J. Poole gives the numbers that give the lie to Romney's claim that corporate activities fill "people's" pockets.

And on Aljazeera, Mark LeVine of UC Irvine talks about the (a)moral history of the corporation, with emphasis on what's going on in the developing world, as well as economic inequities here in the US.

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So now what?

Mitt Romney's "corporations are people" gaffe spotlights a pervasive political mindset based on expediency: candidates claim that corporations are people because the Supreme Court said so, but mostly because the people who own and manage certain very large corporations give certain candidates a great deal of money with which to campaign and win elected office. And, of course, with the Citizens United decision, a corporation can mount a campaign for a favored candidate on their own, although it's more discrete to funnel the money into a SuperPAC.

So what do real people do?

Why not a flashmob action? Get some friends together. Hold up a sign or pick a well-known local spot so people know where you are. Make noise and chant... "Who Are the People, We are the People, Move to Amend that corporations are not people!"

Post the video online and send us the link, and we'll post it here and on our Facebook page. Or see some of the other street theater action ideas here.

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Mitt Romney: "Corporations are people, my friend"

Open mouth, remove silver spoon, insert foot. Regardless of whether Mitt Romney was speaking from the heart or got jittery and shot from the hip, his Iowa State Fair quip that "corporations are people" set a lot of teeth on edge. For Romney, perhaps, it was a glib critique of tax increases. But it was also a sign of how closely political fortune is tied to corporate rule and corporate cash.

Romney might be correct in that the money corporations make eventually get paid out to some individuals--employees or stockholders. But to say that corporations are people, and especially to endow corporations with constitutional personhood rights, as court decisions have steadily done, endangers our nation and our democracy. Corporations have no loyalties to any concept other than making a profit. If the good of an individual, a family, a community, or even the nation gets in the way of a strong bottom line at the end of the quarter, there's no question that real people--you and me--will take a back seat to profit.

You don't have to look much further than Romney's own business career to see this concept in action, courtesy of leading political commentator (sadly, we're not being ironic) Stephen Colbert:

“You see, Romney made a Mittload of cash using what’s known as a leveraged buyout. He’d buy a company with ‘money borrowed against their assets, groomed them to be sold off and in the interim collect huge management fees.’ Once Mitt had control of the company, he’d cut frivolous spending like ‘jobs,’ ‘workers,’ ‘employees,’ and ‘jobs.’ […] “Because Mitt Romney knows just how to trim the fat. He rescued businesses like Dade Behring, Stage Stories, American Pad and Paper, and GS Industries, then his company sold them for a profit of $578 million after which all of those firms declared bankruptcy. Which sounds bad, but don’t worry, almost no one worked there anymore."

Romney's rep as a job killer led to his Senate campaign being bird-dogged by a "truth squad" ‘of striking workers from a Marion, Indiana, paper plant who had lost jobs, wages, health care, and pensions after Ampad, a Bain subsidiary, took control. Ampad eventually went bankrupt, but Bain walked away with $100 million for its $5 million investment.

The threat of profit-before-people corporate deeds are why in the early days of this country corporations were kept under tight legal restraint: chartered for a specific public purpose, dissolved when that purpose was accomplished, their books subject to inspection, and conglomerates of corporations owning other corporations forbidden. But thanks to a slew of court decisions, we've swung the other way, to where corporations are legally immortal, dedicated only to profit, and "human" enough to have the same free speech rights as individuals, although their "voice" is amplified a thousand-fold by the money they have on hand to buy, bribe, or influence the candidates of their choice.

So while the Democrats have jumped all over Romney's remark, don't believe their hype. For DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse, for instance, Romney's remarks amount to little more than a lack of sympathy: "There's a great message for people struggling to get by and trying to make ends meet. Don't complain -- corporations are people too!"

Here's news for both parties: it's not just the folks who are struggling who are mightily ticked off at the attitude that Romney's quip represents. It's everyone who questions whether our elected officials are more loyal to their funders than to their constituents. It's everyone who sees elections as a public good that should be publicly funded, just as our police, fire, and libraries are, to ensure every voice and every vote counts. It's everyone who sees the Citizens United decision as the ultimate auction of constitutional personhood rights to the highest bidders. We're the majority, we're the citizens, we're the voters, we're the people, and we want our democracy back.

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