Based on what facts? Corporations do not have children. They do not die in war. They do not breathe. In fact, corporations have state-based advantages that people do not have: Limited liability. Perpetual life. The ability to aggregate wealth and distribute wealth. Corporations are artificial entities created by the state. We allow them to exist via corporate charter laws. They are not people.

The danger here is that Mitt Romney is not alone in making this false assertion. In January 2010, five justices of the US Supreme Court, in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, equated corporations with people with political speech rights and overturned longstanding precedent barring corporate expenditures in our elections. This ruling presents a serious and direct threat to our democracy, unleashing a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in our history. The ruling also marks the most extreme extension yet of a corporate rights doctrine that has placed corporations over people. Corporations have used this fabricated doctrine in recent years to strike down democratically—enacted laws in the environmental, health care, consumer rights, and civil rights fields, among others. In doing so, they have threatened the fundamental promise of American government: of, for, and by the people.

The Court’s ruling in Citizens United demands that, once again, we the people use the constitutional amendment process to defend our democracy. We must press for a 28^th Amendment – a People’s Rights Amendment – to restore democracy to the people and to ensure that people, not corporations, govern in America.

We call on all 2012 presidential candidates to make clear that corporations are not people with constitutional rights and to support the People’s Rights Amendment.