Move to Amend’s Law & Research Committee has over the past several years published articles, fact sheets, comparison charts and a “White Paper” detailing how never-intended corporate constitutional rights have hijacked our democracy and caused widespread individual, community and environmental harms. Popularly and inaccurately referred to as “corporate personhood,” corporate constitutional rights are rights the Supreme Court invented for corporations under constitutional amendments originally intended solely for human beings.
The research has particularly focused on how corporate constitutional rights include more than the First Amendment free speech rights which have produced a tsunami of corporate political spending. They also include fictional corporate constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments as well as non money as speech rights under the First Amendment and other parts of the constitution.
Below is a listing of our most recent publications addressing corporate constitutional rights – all of which have been used to educate, advocate and organize.
Introduction to Corporate Constitutional Rights
Researching Corporate Rule / Corporate Constitutional Rights - an introduction to our work
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THE CASE AGAINST CORPORATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: How Corporate Constitutional Rights Harm You, Your Family, Your Community, Your Environment, and Your Democracy
Part III: How Corporate Rule Fueled the Climate Crisis
Corporate "Hijack" series
Corporate Hijacking of the 1st Amendment - [political “free speech”]
Corporate Hijacking of the 1st Amendment - [excluding political free speech]
Corporate Hijacking of the 4th Amendment
Corporate Hijacking of the 5th Amendment
Corporate Hijacking of the 14th Amendment
Corporate Hijacking of the Contracts Clause
Corporate Hijacking of the Commerce Clause
The We the People Amendment: The Constitutional Amendment to Counter Political Corruption and the Corporate Hijacking of the Constitution - "white paper" provided to elected officials and organizational leaders when asking for co-sponsorship or endorsement - updated April 2023
Myths of Harmful Unintended Consequences of Abolishing Corporate Personhood
We the People Amendment comparison series - 118th Session of Congress
We the People Amendment comparison series - 117th Session of Congress
Comparing the For the People Act (HR1) to the We the People Amendment (HJR 48)
We the People Amendment comparison series - 116th Session of Congress
Do We Need a Constitutional Amendment Now that the Green New Deal Has Been Introduced?
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OTHER RESOURCES
Josh Hawley's Bill Masks the Real Sources of Corporate Rule (Nov 5, 2023 Common Dreams article by Greg Coleridge)
Why we need the We the People Amendment by Peter Coyote (4 1/2 min video)
The Corporate Weaponization of Government (Feb 15, 2023 Common Dreams article by Greg Coleridge)
The Progenitor of Inequalities—Corporate Personhood vs. Human Beings - Ralph Nader (02/05/2023)
Independence Day and the Imperial CEO (July 5, 2021 column by Daniel JH Greenwood, professor of law at Hofstra University)
Why Non Profit Corporations Do Not Need (or Have) Constitutional Rights
Big Tech Shouldn’t Be the Arbiter of Our Free Speech Rights: Corporations mustn’t be designated gatekeepers with the power to decide who gets to communicate and who doesn’t (February 26, 2021 Truthout article by Greg Coleridge)
PRESS RELEASE - Oct 21, 2020: Corporate Constitutional Rights Should Be Focus of Last Presidential Debate
PRESS RELEASE - Sept 30, 2020: Climate Crisis-Related Fires Fueled by Corporate Constitutional Rights
Corporate Constitutional Rights are Cancerous to Democracy (July 27, 2020 Common Dreams article by Judy Young and Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap)
VIDEO: Committee member Jan Rein virtual presentation to Sacramento WILPF, June 2020
Corporate Rule Transcends Citizens United - report published to mark the 10th Anniversary of Citizens United Supreme Court decision -- containing many of the above pieces
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Move to Amend's Model Corporate Code Working Group
Vision Statement
We seek to create model state and federal statutes, consistent with Move to Amend’s "We the People" Constitutional Amendment, that can replace existing corporate codes and related statutes. Our goal is to redefine the relationship between artificial entities (e.g. corporations) and human society. We will draft model statutes that protect artificial entities from improper governmental overreach. Concurrently, we will place public controls on the ability of those entities to influence our democratic institutions, public officials, elections, communities, and the constitutional rights of human beings.
