Latest Developments

Hey Chevron, Oil and Democracy Don’t Mix
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In 2014, Chevron dumped more than $3 million into municipal elections in a town of 107,000 in an attempt to select pro-industry candidates to the City Council and mayor’s office. Chevron’s efforts to “buy Richmond’s election” caught national media attention, while grassroots organizations quickly mobilized to counteract the spending, but there’s more to this story than just trying to
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Justice James Nelson on the Supreme Court and Williams-Yulee to Salon,”They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth”
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Salon published today an interview with Justice James Nelson, former Justice of the Montana Supreme Court and Free Speech For People Board member, on the recent Supreme Court decision in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar. Justice Nelson discusses the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of upholding the integrity of the judiciary, while the Citizens United decision “is allowing vast amounts of money to be poured into judicial races that does to the judiciary exactly what they said shouldn’t happen in Yulee.”
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Vermont Prevails In Defense of GMO Labeling Laws, Challenging Corporate First Amendment Claims
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Vermont has largely prevailed in its defense of Act 120, its recently-passed law requiring the labeling of food produced with genetic engineering. The law requires food sold in Vermont that was produced with genetic engineering to be labeled “produced with genetic engineering.” Major agribusiness and industrial food manufacturers and processors challenged the law in federal
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New York Times Article Shines Light On New Scholarship Challenging Claims Of Corporate Constitutional Rights
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This week, the New York Times featured research by John Coates, a professor at Harvard Law School and a longtime member of Free Speech For People’s Legal Advisory Committee, on “the corporate takeover of the First Amendment.” The research stems from Free Speech For People’s November 2014 symposium at Harvard Law School on “Advancing a New Jurisprudence for American Self-Government and Democracy” (which Professor Coates helped organize). Professor Coates’s paper will be published in the symposium issue for the journal Constitutional Commentary along with other papers from the conference.
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