News and photos from Portland OR AfD

Portland AfD brings an anti-corporate rule
 message to Portland's Gay Pride Parade

First, the good news: The Oregon House Rules Committee took a major step to end corporate domination by voting HJM6-3 out of their committee. HJM6-3 is the revised Joint Memorial calling on Oregon's congressional delegation to support a constitutional amendment to end the court-created doctrines that money is speech and that corporations are people.  The committee voted unanimously to send the resolution to a vote of the full House. Here's the text.

 Portland AfD is now calling on supporters to advocate for its passage by calling or emailing state reps to express support for HJM6-3 and inform legislators of their expectation that the House will approve it and move it on to the Senate. Calls to state senators are needed too. If you're an Oregonian who needs info on how to contact your state legislators, click here.

If Oregon passes HJM6-3, the state will join 15 others which have called on Congress to amend the constitution. And Oregon will join an elite group of states (Vermont and Illinois) in making clear that we need to do more than just overturn Citizens United or enact an amendment to allow limitations on campaign contributions--we need to eliminate the twin court-created doctrines that money is speech and that corporations are people with constitutional rights.

Now, the other good news: Alliance for Democracy and its Portland Move to Amend project joined the Portland Gay Pride parade on Sunday in downtown Portland.  Afd was one of a small number of marchers to bring a specific political agenda to the parade, and it was well received, thanks to chapter US Supreme "Corporate" Court justices and sign holders.  Check out the Portland website for pictures here.  Read the latest Portland AfD chapter e-newsletter here.

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Thom Hartmann on "Populist Dialogues"

This week's show features Thom Hartmann, progressive political commentator and author of many books, including Unequal Protection, Screwed: the Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It, and Rebooting the American Dream. Thom recently spoke at the First Unitarian Church in Portland, OR. In his talk, he addresses the need for a 28th constitutional amendment to end the legal fictions that artificial entities are people and that money is speech.  He calls America's governing structure a "constitutional monarchy," and relates how the US Supreme Court's use of judicial review undermines democracy, and how we can regain the power of the people from the court's and corporate dominance.

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Corporate personhood: don't regulate, eliminate!

Bonnie Preston, one of the Alliance's vice co-chairs, was one of the resource speakers at a recent teach-in at the University of Maine-Orono. Bonnie has been an active organizer for local food and self-governance ordinances in her part of Maine. She spoke alongside BJ McAllister, of Maine Clean Elections. Maine's governor is no fan of the state's clean election system, and has attempted to defund it. 

Here's what Bonnie said to the group:

Good afternoon! My name is Bonnie Preston, and I am a member of the Alliance for Democracy, which believes that the overarching task of our time is to get our democratic republic out of the hands of the mega-corporations and back into the hands of We the People.

Money in politics is not just about elections and how they are financed. More insidiously, it is about the two arms of the revolving door--lobbying and corporate capture of the agencies of government. It’s hard to pin down the number of lobbyists in Washington DC right now, but it is certainly dozens for each of our elected representatives in Congress. Many of these are former elected officials. For example, Billy Tauzin led the fight to pass a Medicare prescription drug plan that forbade negotiating prices with the drug manufacturers. After that signature achievement, he went to work for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing of America (PhRMA), the lobbying arm of the drug industry, where he became the highest paid health-law lobbyist in the country.

The flip side of people leaving government for lobbying is leaving the private sector to work for a government agency, temporarily of course. Exhibit A is Michael Taylor, who has moved back and forth from Monsanto to either the FDA or USDA for decades. He is now in charge of writing the regulations that will support the Food Safety Modernization Act, now in final draft form. If implemented, these rules could put an end to small farms in the US.

These two forces are driving the complete take-over of government by the private sector, and no campaign finance reform will touch this.

So what can we do to get the government back in our hands? The Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court galvanized people so dramatically that it has opened a door to a possibility that many of us who have worked for years on this issue have seen as a distant hope, if not a pipe dream. Since 1886, the Supreme Court has granted corporations more and more specific constitutional rights; corporations have used these to increase their political power.

The founders kept corporations under control. Corporate charters, required to show how the corporation would serve the public interest, had to be approved by state legislatures. They were limited in time and scope, had to be extended if desired by the legislatures, and could be revoked if the corporation failed to serve the public. A corporation could not buy another corporation, so they must stay small and competitive.

Today, monopolistic corporations, which include the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks, are preventing progress on everything we need to do if we are going to continue to live on this planet. The rights we have given them are even being enshrined in international law through the World Trade Organization and the NAFTA-style trade agreements. This trade regime is culminating in the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement with all the powers of NAFTA, but with a significant difference. Once in place, countries will not have to negotiate a trade deal; they will simply sign on to the TPP. The multi-national corporations, with the enforcement powers of the trade organizations backed by the military might of supposedly democratic governments, are growing into a force that will totally destroy our ability to govern ourselves in a humane and environmentally sound way.

We must directly confront corporations and the concept of corporate personhood. A Constitutional amendment that ends corporate personhood as well as the concept that money is not speech is necessary. Abraham Lincoln did not try to regulate slavery, or end it in steps, or disclose its evils. He backed the 13th amendment, which freed the slaves. We are still cleaning up the mess created by slavery, and we will have a lot of work to do to clean up the messes that corporations have made as well, but a Constitution that says that corporations are not persons with constitutional rights will provide the solid ground we can stand on as we do that work. AfD, a founding partner of the Move to Amend coalition, is committed to this type of systemic change.

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Pacific Grove (CA) City Council approves anti-corporate personhood resolution

Monterey County AfD rallies against
corporate personhood earlier this year

The day after voters had their say on corporate personhood, the Pacific Grove (CA) City Council passed a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment stating that corporations are not people and money is not speech at their council meeting. The resolution passed 6 to 1 at their Wednesday, November 7 meeting, according to Susan Hubbard, of the Monterey County Alliance for Democracy chapter, which pushed for the council vote. Monterey County AfD is also affiliated with the Move to Amend coalition.


With passage of the resolution, Pacific Grove has joined the nationwide citizens' movement against the overwhelming corporate influence in the U.S. government, as well as many communities in California where elected boards passed resolutions, or where voters supported them at the ballot box. Locally, the Marina City Council passed a similar resolution in 2011, while voters in San Francisco, Richmond, and Mendocino County approved them on Election Day.

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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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In New Zealand, a river gets legal standing

The Whanganui river, New Zealand's third longest, now has the legal standing of a person, thanks to a court case initiated by the Whanganui River iwi, an indigenous community with strong ties to the waterway. The river is a person “in the same way a company is, which will give it rights and interests” with representatives from both the iwi and the national government acting as legal custodians. More here.

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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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Anti-corporate crafting: a strong message on a cool medium!

Here's what the back of the shirt looks like!

Admit it. You've always wanted one of those t-shirts that say:

Slavery is the Legal Fiction that a Person is Property

__

Corporate Personhood is the Legal Fiction that Property is a Person

Well, now it can be yours, with a little work, a plain light-colored shirt (or tote bag or banner), and a couple of those iron-on transfer sheets that you can run through your printer at home. Just print out these two pdf files, t-shirt front, and t-shirt back for an Alliance for Democracy shirt. In order to transfer "right-side-to" onto a t-shirt, you'll have to print these two mirror-image files of the final artwork and slogan.

You can find the transfers online, or at local craft or office supply stores. Use an ink-jet printer to print, and a regular iron to transfer to your fabric. The transfer sheets also come with good instructions.

To get a better idea of the artwork or to print out "right-side-to" files for a poster, use these files: the famous quote by Bill Meyers, in the public domain, and the famous cartoon by Matt Wuerker, which was drawn and given by the artist to the original Women's International League for Peace and Freedom campaign to "Challenge Corporate Power--Assert the People's Rights" in 2001.  Thanks to Jan Edwards for updating this classic for the current campaign against corporate personhood, and thanks to you in advance for using a fair-trade or union-made shirt as you stay cool this summer and show your support for human persons. 

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Taking the message to the streets in Portland...

This past June, Portland OR Alliance for Democracy/Move to Amend joined the Portland gay pride parade as the Supreme Court "Corporate" Justices, bringing the message that we need to amend the Constitution to eliminate corporate access to the rights of human persons, and that money is not speech. Chapter president David Delk shot the video:

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Self-governance and rights-based organizing will be the focus of a talk in Burlington, WA

AfD water activist Sanda Spargo forwarded this notice of an upcoming event in Washington state:

If you're tired of the constant battle for a voice in governance, come hear a new and unified approach. On May 4, Kai Huschke of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund will speak at the Burlington, WA public library, 820 E. Washington Avenue. Kai will be discussing Democracy School and a Community Bill of Rights. Democracy School teaches the right to local, self-government that enables communities to reject unsustainable economic and environmental policies set by government and enables legal framework that charters sustainable energy production, sustainable land development and sustainable water, among others. A Community Bill of Rights tailors rights-based local laws according to a community's needs.

For more information, call 360-293-8128 or see CELDF's website.

Locally, volunteers Naomi Bunis, an artist, and Stoney Bird, an environmental attorney, are members of Living Democracy/Bellingham, and are helping Skagit County and Anacortes to form Living Democracy groups with an eye to establishing a chain of these groups along Highway 5 and the railway corridor. Naomi and Stoney are collaborating with CELDF, whose legal work is free to the public.

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"Corporate Personhood Has Got to Go"

The Citizens United decision didn't come out of thin air. This video is a terrific look at the history of corporate personhood and political bribery and how the expanding nature of "we the people" has been countered by an equally lengthy history of a US ruling class obtaining more rights and powers for corporations.

The good news is that from the national level, with the Move to Amend coalition, Free Speech for People, and other groups working on constitutional amendments to eliminate corporate access to constitutional personhood rights, to the local level with towns passing rights-based ordinances to protect local economies and ecosystems, "we the (real) people" are developing more ways to take back our government from corporate rule.

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Three California legislators introduce Constitutional Convention resolution to tackle Citizens United

Three California Assembly members have introduced a Joint Resolution in that state calling for a Constitutional Convention in order to nullify the Citizens United decision.

Assemblyman Michael Allen (D-Sonoma County), Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles), and Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) filed Assembly Joint Resolution 32, which bypasses Congress's role in ratifying amendments. The resolution calls for an amendment that limits corporate free speech rights and allows government to regulate campaign finance.AJR 32 calls for a convention that would be limited to consideration of the Citizens United decision. You can read the text here.

“I figured rather than just condemning the decision with a symbolic resolution, why not start the process to actually amend the Constitution?” said Assemblyman Gatto in a press release. “Voters are fed up with the notion that money is speech and that big money can drown out the speech of average citizens.”

To pass in California, AJR 32 requires consideration and adoption by the State Assembly and Senate. Upon approval, a copy of the Resolution will be delivered to the presiding officers of several state legislatures for consideration and to federal officials. The state-initiated process has been tried before, and has fallen short of success by one or two states a few times, with the earliest being in 1893 and the most recent being 1939.

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Timeline of Corporate Personhood

Here are three different sizes of a "Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers," as well as an article by Molly Morgan and Jan Edwards titled "Abolish Corporate Personhood" which helps explain the thinking behind the timeline and the movement to end corporate access to the rights of human persons as guaranteed by the Constitution.

The first two versions print out on wide-format machines; these are usually found in copy or print shops that specialize in making blueprint copies for architects, but other copy shops sometimes have them as well.

Click on this link to download a version designed to be printed at a commercial large-format copy shop on 24-inch paper. The final timeline should be approximately 11 feet long (24 x 130 inches).

Click on this link to download a version that will print on 36-inch paper and be approximately 17 feet long (36 x 200 inches).

Click on this link to download a version that can be printed on a home printer on eight letter-size sheets of paper set on "landscape." Tape the individual pages together to make a small timeline 8 1/2 x 88 inches long, or about 7 1/2 feet.

This timeline was compiled by Jan Edwards with much help from Doug Hammerstrom, Bill Meyers, Molly Morgan, Mary Zepernick, Virginia Rasmussen, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Thomas Linzey, Jane Anne Morris, and the late Richard Grossman. Thanks to Carl Mayer for his article "Personalizing the Impersonal". Early supporters of this work include Alliance for Democracy, POCLAD, and WILPF.

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"Corporate Personhood Cannot Withstand Organized Persons"

In "Corporate Personhood Cannot Withstand Organized Persons," David Swanson provides a rundown of congressional resolutions and proposed amendments designed to address the Citizens United decision and the power of big money in politics, and picks out the loopholes in some that would allow "business as usual" for deep-pocketed funders. Importantly, he also cites some additional "to-dos"--and the organizations that are working on them--that would make our government truly representative of the popular will. These include a variety of election reforms from same-day voter registration to hand-counted ballots, public funding, and establishing a legal right to vote. Worth reading!

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Activists help to strengthen and pass Portland OR city council resolution against corporate personhood

AfD'ers in Portland have helped the city pass a resolution against corporate personhood--here's their report:

On Friday, the Portland OR city council approved a resolution proposed by Mayor Sam Adams establishing as part of the city's Federal Legislative Agenda for the coming year that the city supports amending the constitutional to make clear that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.

Additionally they instructed the city attorney to research the requirements to refer a measure to the voters like that which Boulder, Madison and Missoula have already passed. Commissioner Fritz specifically indicated support for a referral.

The vote was 3 to 0 in favor with 2 commissioners absent. One of those was sick but had indicated his support for the resolution in emails to the public in advance of the hearing and vote.

The resolution text is available here.

Approximately a month ago the first version of the resolution was posted. That version needed work and modification. Members of Move to Amend, Alliance for Democracy, and Occupy Portland worked with the Mayor's staff to make the modifications needed to get the language right. While not all of our suggestions were accepted, most of them were and the Mayor acknowledged the work of our organizations, especially of Alliance for Democracy/Move to Amend members David Delk, Donna Noonan and Jeff Stookey.

Last Wednesday we had a rally at city hall prior to two of our members testifying before the council. Video of the three speakers at the rally is available here.

At the next meeting of Move to Amend we will discuss next steps. David Delk has already spoken with the Multnomah County Board Chair, Jeff Cogen, and he is interested in bringing a resolution to the county as well.

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Read it: Corporations Are Not People

Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It is a new, practical guide to dismantling corporate rule and building a working-for-the-people democracy. Jeffrey Clements, of Free Speech for People, presents the history of how some of the largest corporations in the world pushed a decades-long campaign to take over American politics and policy, most recently through the Citizens United decision. The website's here, with links to order the book (ideally from your local bookstore), info and reviews. This one is worth buying for you and for your local library!

Jeff will be a guest on the Portland AfD show Populist Dialogues in February. Check back for a link to the show, which can be rebroadcast on your own local community access station.

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Occupy the Courts: Videos to share

Post, tweet and get 'em viral for Friday's Occupy the Courts action and for building the movement.

Jawnzap7 of Occupy Philly demands Reasonable Solutions while providing some good background on Citizens United, political bribery, and how corporations legally masquerade as human beings.



David Swanson will be speaking in Charlottesville, VA, because he's been banned from speaking on Capitol Hill. Here's his take on how how getting rid of "the corporate right to speak by bribing people with money" will help dismantle the military-industrial complex and redirect some federal spending to what the people want.



Lastly, the Coffee Party introduces "Citizens United the Musical," and adds corporate personhood and speech-is-money to the great American song and dance book.

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LA City Council approves resolution against corporate constitutional rights

Congratulations to Move to Amend Los Angeles. Organizing paid off as hundreds of supporters packed the City Council's chambers to speak in favor of a resolution barring corporations from accessing constitutional personhood rights, and allowing the re-regulation of political spending. LA now becomes the first major US city to rule that corporations are not people and money is not speech.

The council's unanimous vote came before a standing room only crowd. The resolution was sponsored by City Council President Eric Garcetti and seconded by Council Members Bill Rosendahl and Paul Krekorian with passionate support by Council Members Richard Alarcon and Paul Koretz.

Mary Beth Fielder, Move To Amend-LA founder, spearheaded the effort to bring the resolution to the LA City Council. “It’s a great day for Los Angeles and it’s a great day for the United States of America," Fielder said. "I hope this is the vote heard around the world and that it will inspire other who want to reclaim our democracy to begin organizing in their communities. Together we can build the grassroots support we need to actually amend our constitution.”

“Every struggle to amend the constitution began as just a group of regular Americans who wanted to end slavery, who thought women should vote, who believed that if you’re old enough to be drafted, you should be old enough to vote,” said Council President Eric Garcetti. “These are how American amendments move forward from the grassroots when Americans say enough is enough. We’re very proud to come together and send a message but more than that, this becomes the official position of the City of Los Angeles, we will officially lobby for this.

"I also chair a group which oversees all the Democratic mayors and council members in the country and we’re going to share this with all our 3,000 members and we hope to see this start here in the west and sweep the nation until one day we do have a constitutional amendment which will return the power to the people. ”

“What we saw in that chamber today was the beginning of a sea change in the way people think about politics in America and I hope that this will be the first day of a long and sustained movement that changes the way we represent ourselves and the way we demand the kind of government that we deserve,” said Council Member Paul Krekorian.

“I could not believe the coalition of energy that filled the council chambers today,” said Council Member Bill Rosendahl. “It made a huge difference. It was democracy at its best! ”

Here's the video:

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Los Angeles may be the first major US city to call for an end to corporate personhood

Move to Amend LA and Move to Amend write:

Next week the Los Angeles City Council will vote on a resolution that calls on Congress to amend the Constitution to clearly establish that only living persons--not corporations--are endowed with constitutional rights and that money is not the same as free speech. If this resolution is passed, Los Angeles will be the first major city in the U.S. to call for an end to all corporate constitutional rights.

The campaign in Los Angeles is the latest grassroots effort by Move to Amend, a national coalition working to abolish corporate personhood. “Local resolution campaigns are an opportunity for citizens to speak up and let it be known that we won’t accept the corporate takeover of our government lying down," said Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, a national spokesperson for Move to Amend. "We urge communities across the country to join the Move to Amend campaign and raise your voices.”

Earlier this year voters in Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin overwhelmingly approved ballot measures calling for an end to corporate personhood and the legal status of money as speech by 84% and 78% respectively. In November voters in Boulder, Colorado and Missoula, Montana both passed similar initiatives with 75% support.

“We are experiencing overwhelming support for what may be a historic turning point in restoring a voice to the voters and setting an example for the rest of the country," stated Mary Beth Fielder, Coordinator of Move To Amend LA. "This action would provide the basis for overturning the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.”

Move to Amend volunteers in dozens of communities across the country are working to place similar measures on local ballots next year, including West Allis, WI, a conservative suburb of Milwaukee where last week local residents successfully qualified a measure for their spring ballot.

Move to Amend’s strategy is to pass community resolutions across the nation through city councils and through direct vote by ballot initiative. “Our plan is build a movement that will drive this issue into Congress from the grassroots. The American people are behind us on this and these campaigns help our federal representatives see that we mean business. Our very democracy is at stake,” stated Sopoci-Belknap.

The campaign in Los Angeles is endorsed by a growing list of organizations including Common Cause, Occupy LA, LA County Federation of Labor, Physicians for Social Responsibility, The Environmental Caucus of the CA Democratic Party, Southern California Americans for Democratic Action, MoveOn LA, Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains, Democracy for America, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, AFSCME 36, LA Green Machine and California Clean Money Campaign.

Here's a list of resolutions passed to date. You can read Move to Amend's proposed amendment here.

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