Category: Democracy Amendments

Ralph Nader and Robert Weismann Make the Case Against Corporate Speech
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Democracy Amendments

The Case Against Corporate Speech
By Ralph Nader And Robert Weismann, the Wall Street Journal

Last month, by a vote of 5 to 4, the U.S. Supreme Court gave carte blanche to the world’s largest corporations to spend unlimited sums of money to support or oppose candidates for elected office. Big Business domination of Washington and state capitals will now intensify.

The case of Citizens United portends dire consequences for the nation’s constitutional premise of “we the people,” not we the corporations. Our constitution, at its origins and through all of its amendments, makes no mention of corporate entities, only human beings and their government.

For 120 years, it was not Congress but the Supreme Court that expanded the definition of “persons” to include for-profit corporations for the purposes of applying constitutional protections. For 30 years, the court has granted First Amendment speech protections to corporations as “artificial persons.”

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Legislation Expected in Alaska on Monday
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Democracy Amendments

On Monday, both the Alaska House and Senate will introduce legislation affirming that corporations are not people FOR THE PURPOSES OF ELECTIONS. One of the sponsors is Hollis French, a long time legislator and gubernatorial candidate in Alaska’s next election. There are several sponsors on each bill at this point.
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Draft Resolution for Local and State Governments and other Organizations
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Democracy Amendments

WHEREAS the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was designed to protect the free speech rights of people, not corporations;

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;

WHEREAS, this corporate takeover of the First Amendment has reached its extreme conclusion in the United States Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC;

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