Testimony at Cleveland Heights “Democracy Day” Public Hearing

January 25, 2017

Move to Amend’s proposed constitutional We the People Amendment has two components. One is much simpler to understand – ending the constitutional doctrine that money is equal to free speech – because the problems connecting big money to political lobbying and elections are so pervasive.

The other component – ending corporate constitutional rights – is more challenging to grasp. The fundamental problems with corporate constitutional rights transcend the influence of corporate money contributed or invested in political lobbying and elections. Corporate constitutional rights have their own set of components that have in many instances over a century corrupted and perverted authentic democracy.

Beyond corporate free speech rights preventing laws limiting corporate campaign donations, those same 1^st Amendment free speech rights have prevented communities from acquiring the right to know what ingredients (i.e, chemicals, GMOs) are in their food. That’s due to the acquired corporate 1^st Amendment right not to speak. Corporate religious rights, granted in the Hobby Lobby decision, have limited access to health care to employees. Corporate property rights, (via the 5^th Amendment takings clause) have limited laws protecting communities from environmental destruction. Corporate privacy rights (via the 4^th Amendment) have limited the health, safety and welfare at workplaces over decades. And corporate commerce rights (via the perversion of the Commerce Clause and 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause) have limited laws and regulations on pipelines, transportation of toxic waste, mining, and landfills.

Nearly 70 people attended the Democracy Day public hearing

Corporate anthropologist Jane Anne Morris in her book Gaveling Down the Rabble states that 100’s of democratically enacted laws and regulations protecting workers, consumers and the environment passed by Democratic and Republican state and local legislatures over decades have been overturned by the corporate perversion of the Commerce Clause and 14^th Amendment. Before the  1^st Amendment became the go-to democratically destructive hammer of corporate agents, it was the Commerce Clause and 14^th Amendment.

If all we do is overturn Citizens United or merely end money as speech, corporate agents will reach back into their anti-democratic tool kit and assault us like they did in the past – usurping democratically enacted laws. Amending the Constitution is damn hard. It rarely happens. It’s not like reaching a goal through passing a series of laws one piece at a time. We only have one chance. We better make the most of it. That’s why abolishing the legal doctrine of money defined as free speech and corporations defined as legal persons as reflected in the We the People Amendment is mandatory.

History shows that what seems impossible today becomes inevitable tomorrow based on the degree of internal preparedness and timing of external conditions.

Now’s the time to educate ourselves and others, pass resolutions, collect organizational endorsement, organize ballot initiatives, and encourage Congressional endorsers. The right time and conditions externally will inevitably arrive.