While the public, investors and many leaders abroad exhaled in relief when Congress agreed to a 45-day temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, the shutdown of real democracy in our country endures.

Representative democracy decreasingly represents the public, particularly for people of color, women and other groups who have never possessed equal rights. 

Public trust in the government to solve problems is at a record low. More social, economic and policy decisions are outside the reach of elected officials.

Real democracy for the vast majority of people is shut down since We the People are effectively shut out of meaningful decisions affecting our lives, communities and natural world.

Gerrymandering and voter suppression are major legal causes for our inability to legitimately self-rule, but there’s other – more systemic – causes: the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions.

Among these are Supreme Court rulings declaring political money as free speech and a corporation as a legal person due to the tag teaming of corporate attorneys and the mega wealthy with supportive High Court Justices. Corporate and other property-related constitutional rights preempt human rights and the rights to ensure a natural world that sustains human and other life forms.

It’s true that the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker leaves a part of the U.S. government paralyzed until at least next week, making the country at the federal level ungovernable. But it’s a mistake to presume that when the government is humming along “efficiently” and “effectively,” it’s doing so in the interests of the majority of people.

This is simply not true. 

Many legislators have been captured by wealthy individual and corporate donors while at the same time legislators have less authority to govern as more corporate actions are shielded by the armor of Court-granted constitutional rights that preempt local, state and federal laws and regulations.

Different legislators, laws and regulations aren’t enough if the foundation upon which all this rests is fundamentally undemocratic, unjust and blinded to the fact that human beings are subordinate, not superior, to the natural world. 

That foundation is the U.S. Constitution. 

This is why Move to Amend focuses on constitutional renewal, particularly the We the People Amendment (HJR54) rather than on elections or trying to change laws or regulations.

Your understanding of -- and commitment to -- Constitutional system change that is just, environmentally sustainable and democratic is what allows us to continue. Thank you! 

A genuine democracy is more than the government being open and functioning. It must be inclusive, responsive, and accountable to everyone, especially those who’ve been historically disenfranchised and otherwise oppressed. 

Onward to the world we all deserve,