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This weekend is both the 3rd anniversary of the Citizens United decision and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We're working with a broad coalition of reform and civil rights organizations to sponsor memorial events highlighting the ongoing threats to our democracy both from big money and from organized voter suppression efforts.

We encourage you to find an event near you, and come to it: http://www.MoneyOut-VotersIn.org/

MassLive has an article that discusses in detail our forthcoming campaign to reform state corporate charter laws. Here's an excerpt, below.

Citizens United opponent 'Free Speech for People' wants states to ban companies from political expenditures
By Shira Schoenberg, Political Correspondent
on January 15, 2013 at 4:22 PM Print

CNN Money, an online outlet from CNN, Fortune, and Money, has a piece on Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher. Asked "How are you feeling about the political system these days?", Kelleher leads off with well-placed criticism of Citizens United:

Our co-founder and President, Jeff Clements, wrote the following on Orion magazine's blog, including a touching tribute to the recently deceased Executive Director at the Rainforest Action Network, Becky Tarbotton.

Louder Than a Dollar
January 11, 2013, by Jeff Clements

Here’s a number from the November elections: 0.5.

That’s not a victory margin; it’s a measure of how bad things have gotten in our democracy.

We've just launched a petition on the White House's official petition site asking President Obama to include a call for a constitutional amendment in his State of the Union address, which is coming up in just a couple of weeks.

Click here to sign the petition: http://wh.gov/P9j7

Here's the language:

We petition the Obama administration to:

Use the State of the Union to call for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics.

Here's a novel twist on the notion that corporations are people: a man in California is arguing in court that corporate papers in his car should count as a human passenger, qualifying him to drive in the carpool lane.

U.S. News / NBC News has the story. Here's an excerpt:

California man says he can drive in carpool lane with corporation papers

By Isolde Raftery, NBC News

Nicholas Confessore

New York Times

January 3, 2013

The New York State comptroller, seeking to force greater public disclosure of corporate political spending, has sued Qualcomm, demanding to view internal records of political expenditures by the company, one of the country’s largest makers of computer chips for mobile devices.

Joanne Boyer

Wisdom Voices

January 1, 2013

Excerpt: 

The New York Times has an editorial today castigating the National Rifle Association for doing the bidding of gun manufacturing companies, rather than its members. It cites NRA members' support for background checks before sales are made at gun shows, which the NRA has opposed, as an example.

The editorial also appropriately places the gun makers' efforts to sell more of their product, without regard to public preferences or safety, in the context of the fight we're leading to end the fiction that corporations have constitutional rights:

People are starting to take a close, critical look at the National Rifle Association, in the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT on Friday.

The website Legal Ethics Forum points out some salient statistices from OpenSecrets.org:

First Amendment Political Speech, the Second Amendment and the Best Gun Laws Money Can Buy