Occupy Rockford!

Occupy Rockford has taken up the challenge of bringing the Move to Amend effort before the people.  For months we have been circulating the Move to Amend petition both in paper and online forms; now we will be bringing the effort before town councils large and small in an effort to get local resolutions passed in support of a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United vs. The Federal Elections Commission ruling, a decision that declared that corporations are people endowed with the same Constitutional rights as natural born human beings and that money constitutes Constitutionally-protected speech.

To date, more than 280 cities and 6 states have approved similar resolutions, calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the controversial ruling. For details visit Move to Amend at www.movetoamend.org.

Just two weeks ago, Chicago joined that growing list when it passes resolution to oppose the Citizens Untied vs. the Federal Elections Commission ruling.

In its unanimous decision to oppose Citizens United, the Chicago City Council said:

“BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the Mayor and the members of the City Council of the City of Chicago respectfully but emphatically disagree with the majority opinion and decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and the members of the Chicago City Council of the City of Chicago, call upon the United States Congress to propose and send to the states for ratification a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission.”

Click here for the story on that vote:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/25/chicago-emphatically-disagrees-with-citizens-united-ruling/

On July 27, Chicago Alderman  Joe Moore introduced a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election.

Here is the text of that resolution:

RESOLUTION CALLING UPON THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
TO PROPOSE AND SEND TO THE STATES FOR RATIFICATION
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO OVERTURN
CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTIONS COMMISSION AND
RESTORE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND
FAIR ELECTIONS TO THE PEOPLE
WHEREAS, The free speech protections set forth in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution are fundamental to our democracy; and

WHEREAS, In adopting the First Amendment, our nation’s founders intended to protect the free speech rights of people, not corporations; and

WHEREAS, Corporations are not people but, instead, are artificial entities created by the laws of states and nations; and

WHEREAS, Fair and free elections are essential to democracy and effective self-governance; and

WHEREAS, Campaign finance laws, including limits on campaign contributions, are key tools to combating political corruption; and

WHEREAS, For the past three decades, a divided United States Supreme Court has transformed the First Amendment into a powerful tool for corporations seeking to evade and invalidate democratically enacted reforms; and

WHEREAS, This corporate misuse of the First Amendment and the United States Constitution reached an extreme conclusion in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010); and

WHEREAS, Justice John Paul Stevens, writing on behalf of the four dissenting justices in Citizens United, noted that “corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established;” and

WHEREAS, Justice Stevens further observed in his dissent that corporations have special advantages not enjoyed by natural persons, such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets, that allow them to spend prodigious sums on campaign messages that have little or no correlation with the beliefs held by natural persons; and
WHEREAS, Over thirty-five years earlier, the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo held that government cannot constitutionally limit the amount of money that individuals can spend to influence the electoral process; and

WHEREAS, The Supreme Court’s rulings in Citizens United and Buckley have posed a serious and direct threat to our democracy by unleashing a torrent of corporate and personal money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditures in United States history; and

WHEREAS, Restricting the ability of Congress and the States to impose legal limits on political contributions and spending allows corporations and wealthy individuals to unduly influence elections, candidate selection, and policy decisions, and drowns the voices of ordinary citizens; and

WHEREAS, The general public and political leaders in our nation have long recognized that the interests of corporations do not always correspond with the public interest and, therefore, the political influence of corporations should be limited; and

WHEREAS, Article V of the United States Constitution empowers and obligates the people and States of the United States of America to use the Constitutional amendment process to correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the heart of our democracy and republican form of self-government; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the Mayor and the members of the City Council of the City of Chicago respectfully but emphatically disagree with the majority opinion and decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and the members of the Chicago City Council of the City of Chicago, call upon the United States Congress to propose and send to the states for ratification a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That such a Constitutional amendment should make clear that the rights protected by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to corporations; that corporations are subject to regulation by the people through the legislative process so long as the regulations are consistent with the powers of Congress and the States and do not limit freedom of the press; and that Congress and the States shall have the power to regulate and set limits on all election contributions and expenditures, including political contributions and expenditures from individuals and corporations; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a suitable copy of this resolution be prepared and submitted to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, the Minority Leader of the United States Senate, and to each member of the Illinois Congressional delegation.

JOSEPH A. MOORE
Alderman, 49th Ward

Click here for more on the introduction:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Alderman-Introduces-Anti-Citizens-United-Resolution-163193656.html#ixzz25XB01CYb

Another example from earlier this year is Franklin Township NJ which passed its own resolution. The text of that resolution can be found here:

http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/20776/franklin-twp-passes-first-anticitizens-united-resolution-in-nj

If nearly 300 municipalities can do it, so can we.  That’s why we intend to approach as many local city and town councils as we can in the northern Illinois area to have similar resolutions passed.

Why go the local route?

Make no mistake, our local strategy does not mean that we’ve abandoned that national Move to Amend campaign.  We will continue to share the Move to Amend message and link, and we will continue to circulate the petitions.  However, by also focusing on local resolutions, we’ll make inroads into geographical areas that will become invaluable when broaching the Amendment language to county boards and the State Legislature.  It will be difficult for the state reps to ignore the concept in scores of towns in their districts have already passed resolutions.

But we can’t do this alone. We need people in every town to gather information about how to bring a resolution before their respective town boards and what it takes to get one passed. Then we’ll need people to present the resolution to the boards.

Meanwhile, we’ll be honing the language of our proposed resolution, hoping to have the same resolution go before every council for uniformity and ease of explanation.  It’s much easier to say “It’s the exact same resolution already passed by towns A, B, C, D, E…” than to have to reinvent the wheel every time.
We hope you will join us in making this happen. The more local and state governments we can convince to pass such legislation, the better our chance of obtaining the 2/3 of states necessary to pass a Constitutional Amendment.