What’s new, short, informative and calls for immediate action?

It’s our new 4½ minute video on the need to enact the We the People Amendment!

click on image

There’s no single cause of inflation. Among the past and current factors are the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the war in Ukraine.

Corporate actions also contribute to inflation. These are four ways corporations and inflation are related – not all of which are economic.

The 2022-23 Supreme Court term began on October 3. 

Since John Roberts became Chief Justice in 2005, the “Roberts Court” has made numerous decisions undermining democracy and basic rights on voting, partisan gerrymandering and campaign finance, reversing decades of work by prior Courts. This includes Citizens United v. FEC in 2010.

Move to Amend launched publicly on January 21, 2010 upon the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United. The individuals listed below signed the original "Motion to Amend":

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

• Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
• Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
• Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.

Initial Signatories:

Adrienne Maree Brown, Ruckus Society
Alec Loorz, Kids vs Global Warming
Andrew Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment
Andy Gussert, National Trade Activist
Anne Feeney, musician
Baldemar Velasquez, President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Ben Manski, attorney, Exec. Director, Liberty Tree
Benno Friedman, photographer
Benson Scotch, former Staff Counsel to Sen. Leahy, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
Bill Fletcher, Exec. Editor, BlackCommentator.com
Bill McKibben, founder, 350.org and Third Act
Bill Moyer, Backbone Campaign
Brad Friedman, Publisher, The BRAD BLOG
Bill Scheurer, Editor of PeaceMajority Report
Brad Thacker, Be The Change USA
Brett Bursey, Exec. Director, South Carolina Progressive Network
Brett Kimberlin, Director, Justice Through Music
Brian McLaren, Christian activist & author
Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Carl Davidson, Progressive America Rising
Carolyn Oppenheim, Shays 2
Carolyn Raffensberger, Exec. Director, Science & Environmental Health Network
Charlie Cray, Center for Corporate Policy
Chris Kromm, Executive Director, Institute for Southern Studies
Dal LaMagna, founder, Tweezerman, Inc.
Dave Wells, formerly Board of Directors, Sierra Club
David Cobb, initiator of 2004 Ohio Recount
David Gespass, president, National Lawyers Guild
David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World
David Rovics, musician
David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org
David Wells, Jr., Nashville Urban Harvest
Dean Myerson, Executive Director, Green Institute
Deborah Mokma, Publisher of Sentient Times
Diane Wittner & Margaret Flowers, Chesapeake Citizens
Dr. Jill Stein, candidate for Governor of Massachusetts
Ed Garvey, attorney at law, editor, FightingBob.com
Emily Levy, Velvet Revolution
Fran Korten, Editor, YES! Magazine
Frank Arundel, activist
Gary Zuckett, WV Citizen Action
George Friday, National Coordinator, IPPN
George Martin, United for Peace & Justice
Georgia Kelly, Praxis Peace Institute
Glen Ford, Executive Editor, BlackAgendaReport.com
Greg Coleridge, NE OH American Friends Service Committee
Howard Zinn, historian
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation
James Gustave Speth, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos
Jan Edwards, writer
Jane Anne Morris, author, Gaveling Down The Rabble
Jeff Cohen, founder, FAIR
Jeff Milchen, founder, ReclaimDemocracy.org
Jeffrey Short, Ph.D., Pacific Science Director, OCEANA
Jerome Scott, League of Revolutionaries for a New America
James M. Cullen, editor of The Progressive Populist
Jill Bussiere & Sanda Everette, Co-Chairs, Green Party of the U.S.
Jim Hightower, author, columnist, and radio commentator
Joan Russow, PhD Global Compliance Research Project
Joel Bleifuss, Editor & Publisher, In These Times
John E. Peck, Executive Director, Family Farm Defenders
John Nichols, Washington Correspondent, The Nation
John Rensenbrink, President, Green Horizon Foundation
John Stauber, author, Weapons of Mass Deception
Jonathan Frieman, Co-founder, Center for Corporate Policy
Jonathan Tasini, candidate, U.S. Senate, NY
Josh Healey, Youth Speaks Josh Lerner, The New School for Social Research
Josh Silver, Executive Director, Free Press
Judith Pedersen-Benn, Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
Kai Huschke, Envision Spokane
Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
Karen Dolan, Cities for Progress
Katherine Forrest, MD; Co-Founder, Commonweal Institute
Ken Reiner, inventor and founder, Kaynar Corp.
Kevin Danaher, Executive Co-Producer, Green Festivals
Kevin Zeese, Executive Director, TrueVote.US
Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), Bring the Guard Home! It's the Law.
Lewis Pitts, Lawyer, Legal Aid of NC
Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy
Lori Price, Managing Editor, Citizens for Legitimate Government
Luis A. Cuevas, National Director, Progressive Push
Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project
Margo Baldwin, Publisher, Chelsea Green
Mark Crispin Miller, author, Fooled Again
Mary Zepernick, Program on Corporations Law and Democracy
Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Matt Nelson, Just Cause
Matt Rothschild, Editor, The Progressive
Maya Schenwar & Matt Renner, Truthout
Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Code Pink
Michael Albert, Z Communications
Michael Bonnano, OpEdNews
Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International
Michael Shuman, attorney, economic, author of "The Small-Mart Revolution"
Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace
Mike McCabe, Executive Director, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
Mimi Kennedy, actress, activist
Miriam Simos, Starhawk, activist and writer
Nancy Price, co-chair, Alliance for Democracy
Nick Pavloff, Jr., Gulf of Alaska Aleut from Kodiak Island
Norman Solomon, author, co-chair, Healthcare Not Warfare campaign
Patrick Reinsborough, SmartMeme
Paul Saginaw, founder, Zingerman's, Inc.
Prof. Peter Gabel, School of Law, New College of California
Prof. Victor Wallis, Managing Editor, Socialism & Democracy
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Rep. Michael Fisher, House of Representatives, Vermont
Rev. Edward Pinkney, Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President, Hip Hop Caucus
Richard Mazess, Prof. Medical Physics, UW-Madison, CEO of Lunar Corp & Bone Care Intl.
Riki Ott, Executive Director, Ultimate Civics
Robert McChesney, professor, co-author, The Death and Life of American Journalism
Ronnie Cummins, founder, Grassroots Netroots Alliance
Sally Castleman, Election Defense Alliance
Sam Smith, Editor, Progressive Review
Sarah Manski, CEO, PosiPair.com
Shahid Buttar, Rule of Law Institute
Ted Glick, climate change activist
Ted Nace, author, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power
Theo Yang Copey, activist
Thom Hartmann, nation's #1 nationally syndicated progressive talk show host
Tia Oros & Christopher Peters, Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
Tiffiniy Cheng, Executive Director, A New Way Forward
Tim Carpenter, Executive Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Tom Hayden, activist
Ward Morehouse, chair, National Lawyers Guild's Committee on Corporations

* organizations listed for identification purposes only

Did we get your attention? 

The title suggests that we’ve ended our support for the We the People Amendment (HJR48).

Nothing could be further from the truth!

We continue to educate, advocate and organize wholeheartedly to pass the We the People Amendment to end political corruption due to money spent in elections that’s protected constitutionally as “free speech” and to end all forms of corporate rule due to corporations that’s protected constitutionally as “persons.” Both constitutional doctrines are bizarre and need to be abolished as essential steps toward We the People having the power to create policies that benefit us all, our communities and to ensure a livable world. 

However, from this point forward, National Move to Amend will no longer refer to HJR48 as the “proposed 28th Amendment.” 

Why? 

Elections are not only about candidates and issues. They’re also, as always, about money. BIG money. 

It’s estimated that total spending on the November midterm elections will top $9.3 billion, which will surpass the midterm record of $7.1 billion in 2018. 

Political donations are made directly to candidate committees, organizations like political parties that donate to candidates, Political Action Committees (PACs), and Super PACS. They’re also made to “social welfare” organizations and trade associations, which by law don’t have to disclose individual or corporate/organizational donors. This “dark money” that shields donors is used to wage outside “independent” (i.e. not supposed to be coordinated with the candidates that they are supporting) campaigns –  most of which are used to fund distorting “issue” attack ads. Dark money spending is soaring in elections. Though difficult to compute, it’s estimated that dark money groups “received $2 billion to $4 billion during the 2008 to 2018 election cycles.”

Last week, Senate Republicans blocked efforts to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would have forced the disclosure of corporate and billionaire donors of dark money sources. Earlier this month, however, the Democratic National Committee panel refused to allow a vote on banning dark money in democratic primary campaigns – despite an onslaught on dark money that flooded into democratic primary campaigns targeting more progressive candidates. 

This comes on the heels of the massive $1.6 billion donation by a secretive Chicago industrialist to a non-profit run by Leonard Leo, the architect of the right-wing takeover of the federal courts – some of which will be spent on elections.

Passing the DISCLOSE Act in Congress and a DNC ban on dark money in primary elections were missed opportunities. Both should happen next year. 

The right to know the funding sources of political ads is a democratic necessity. But transparency by itself means little if mega wealthy individuals and corporate entities that don’t represent the interests of the vast majority of people are all the political voices we hear.

Yes, “dark” money is a big problem. But so is “light” money.

The never-ending increase in election spending – be it “dark” money or from sources we well know, is due to the decades-long constitutional ruling that political spending in elections by individuals and organizations is “free speech,” protected by the First Amendment. Abolishing “money is speech” is one part of HJR48, the We the People Amendment that with your help has secured, to date, 94 Congressional co-sponsors. 

Yet, democracy is more than elections. It’s also about governing – the right to decide policies, plans and programs. 

Abolishing “dark money” spending and even “money as speech” only impacts elections. Having more representative representatives by itself isn’t enough if they are limited or boxed in by constitutional limitations preventing them from improving people’s lives and communities.

Corporate rule would remain potent even without First Amendment “free speech” rights due to the corporate hijacking of Constitutional Amendments that were intended to apply exclusively to human beings.

Democratically enacted policies, plans and programs by representative representatives (or directly by individuals via ballot initiatives), for example, seeking to:

√ Label harmful ingredients on food packaging have been overturned in court as a violation of corporate First Amendment “right” not to speak

√ Ensure safe working conditions through regulatory inspections have been overturned in court as a violation of corporate Fourth Amendment search and seizure “rights.”

√ Favor local businesses over chain stores have been overturned in court as a violation of corporate Fourteenth Amendment equal protection “rights.” 

√ Saving the climate by forcing fossil fuels to be kept in the ground and not burned could be overturned in court as a violation of corporate Fifth Amendment takings “rights.”

For these reasons, ALL corporate constitutional rights – not just First Amendment free speech – must end, as stipulated in the #WeThePeopleAmendment. 

It’s not just dark money. It’s money as speech. 

It’s not just elections. It’s governing –  the right to decide – which is unattainable so long as corporations possess constitutional rights. 

Solidarity,

Shelly, George, Leila, Daniel, Saleem, Jessica, Joni, Milly, Keyan, Jason, Jennie, Tara, Alfonso & Greg

- Move to Amend National Team

Record Courier / Kent, Ohio / Sept 25, 2022 

https://www.record-courier.com/story/opinion/letters/2022/09/25/kent-public-hearing-to-focus-on-corporate-money-in-politics/69512581007/

Democracy Day public hearing

Our election system is broken because of the destructive influences of money in politics and the misguided notion that corporations may claim constitutional rights. With these rights, they are able to spend tremendous amounts of dark money through organizations and PACs to support the candidates who will serve their needs. And their primary need is profit. While profits are essential in a capitalist system, the needs of “we the people” should be primary since we are also a democracy.

Much will be said, remembered and commemorated on this day, the 21st anniversary of the tragedies on September 11, 2001.

While there are many lessons from what happened prior to, during and following that day, there’s one take-a-way that should never be forgotten: the political and economic power elite never lets a tragedy, catastrophe or crisis go to waste to further attempt to increase their political and/or economic dominance. 

In the case of September 11, a major success in this vein was the Patriot Act, passed soon afterwards to supposedly enhance “national security” to catch “terrorists,” specifically Middle Eastern Muslims inside the United States. While some of its provisions were intended to address problems that predated 9/11, most of the others allowed the government to more easily and effectively violate the privacy rights of innocent citizens and residents. These included tracking the activities of people on the Internet, compiling credit and bank records and expanding the monitoring of phone and email communications. September 11 was just a pretext by the government to enact unprecedented violations of civil rights and surveillance expansion that were labeled as “un-American” prior to 9/11.

FirstEnergy’s headquarters in Akron. Source: Google Maps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU9Gildl8mU&t=3s

August 23, 2022

Presentation by and discussion with Dennis Kucinich

Former Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio State Senator, U.S. Congressperson and Presidential Candidate

Author of The Division of Light and Power

Sponsored by Ohio Move to Amend

[email protected]

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Labor Day is a terrific opportunity for Move to Amenders to make personal and issue connections with working members of Labor Unions and other working people. Many fundamental rights and protections of working people (e.g. the weekend, 8-hour work day, collective bargaining, end of child labor, employer-based health coverage, workplace safety) came into being because working people organized powerful movements that created positive change.

It's happening again...

You may have received a recent mailing from a national group calling for reversing the 2010 Citizens United vs FEC Supreme Court decision. Enclosed was this U.S. map showing by state the number of communities that have passed resolutions, in this case, supporting a “Citizens United Amendment.” 

The number of resolutions totals more than 800.

The map is extremely misleading. It gives the impression that the resolutions primarily address Citizens United. 

Wrong. 

The reality is that the vast majority of the passed resolutions by municipal governments and citizens at the ballot box affirm that the rights protected under the U.S. Constitution are the rights of natural persons only or end corporate constitutional rights or corporate personhood and some variation that money spent in elections is not First Amendment-protected free speech. Most don’t directly mention Citizens United. 

Credit: iStock/kamilpetran

by Jasmin Enciu

The Supreme Court is set to decide one of the most consequential environmental cases it has heard in decades.  West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency will address whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shall continue to have the authority to regulate the levels of greenhouse gas emissions. This case puts the EPA in an extremely vulnerable position. VOX News reporter Ian Millhiser even stated, “West Virginia could wind up permanently hobbling the government’s ability to fight climate change.”

West Virginia threatens all government regulations that protect the public, not just the EPA. It is also concerning since the Supreme Court has recently taken an anti-agency regulation stance on many cases. The court has used the “major questions doctrine” in these instances to prevent agency actions from addressing important issues. For example, they recently struck down the CDC’s coronavirus eviction mortarium, which paused evictions for Americans who were suffering and not able to make rent due to the rise in COVID-19 cases. The Majority opinion stated: “It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant…but our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends…it is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here,”

This was part of the "testimony" presented at the Cleveland Heights Democracy Day Public Hearing on June 9, 2022

Ohio’s history is not just about “the mother of Presidents”, where and when its wartime battles took place, or which Ohioans flew into space. Its hidden part is the story of the struggles of the many people who sought to amake the basic decisions affecting their own lives free from external control. It’s also the story of the few who imposed control over Ohio’s majority of people and resources using the business corporation as their primary vehicle. These stories are enormously relevant today. The first seven questions and answers below are excerpted from Citizens over Corporations: A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future, available from [email protected]

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Patrick Bosold, Move to Amend activist, presents at the 1 hour, 36 minute mark.

Patrick Bosold – Move to Amend | Saturday, June 18, 2022 | Ames, IA

How did Iowa come to be so burdened with CAFOs? What do special interest money in our political process, and constitutional rights for corporations, have to do with the situation we find ourselves in today?

A report by the Environment Iowa Research & Policy Center in 2011 included an analysis of agribusiness campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures. The findings included:

• Over the 2000-2010 decade, ten large agribusiness interests gave $35 million to congressional candidates – led by the American Farm Bureau, which gave $16 million.
• Agribusiness interests gave more than $120 million to state-level candidates, party committees and ballot measures, including $250,000 in campaign contributions to Governor Terry Branstad in the last election of the 2000-2010 decade.
• From 2005 to 2010, the 10 leading agribusiness interests spent $127 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies, fielding 159 lobbyists in 2010.
• Monsanto and the American Farm Bureau led the pack, fielding 80 lobbyists in Washington, D.C., in 2010.

More recently, Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has received $300,000 in campaign contributions from Iowa Select, fought to keep meat packing plants open during the COVID pandemic, prioritizing agribusiness CAFO operators like Jeff Hansen and Iowa Select, who would lose millions if their CAFOs became overloaded with market-ready animals. At a 2019 gala for the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation, Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds contributed an afternoon’s tour of the capitol and governor’s mansion, led by Reynolds herself. Iowa Select requested her presence at the 2019 gala the day after Reynolds won her election — likely aided by the Hansens’ six-figure campaign contribution.

For Immediate Release: June 18, 2022

Contact: Phoebe Galt, Food & Water Watch, [email protected]

Experts Join Farmers, Advocates and Legislators For People’s Hearing on Urgent Need for Factory Farm Moratorium in Iowa

Speakers gave two hours of testimony on water quality, public health, market consolidation, and effects on farmers, agriculture, and rural communities

 AMES, IA — On Saturday, farmers, experts, advocates and legislators gathered at the Ames Public Library for a people’s hearing on the urgent need for a factory farm moratorium in Iowa. The event came on the heels of yet another legislative session without action in Des Moines on the state’s factory farm crisis, and one month after the release of a new Food & Water Watch report, “The Hog Bosses,” detailing the agricultural consolidation crisis in Iowa farm country.

Absent legislative action on the issue, advocates from the Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture, a coalition of more than 25 organizations united against factory farming in Iowa, hosted the two-hour people’s hearing to present constituent demands and expert perspectives on the necessity of a factory farm moratorium in Iowa. Hours of testimony reflected the diverse criticisms of the industrial factory farming model, and highlighted local impacts on the lives of Iowans from all corners of the state. Topics discussed included water quality, public health, market consolidation, and the impacts factory farms have on community members’ quality of life and on farmers’ ability to make a living.

A recent poll commissioned by Food & Water Action found that 95% of Iowa voters support rules that make it easier for small farmers to compete with large agricultural corporations, and a 2019 study found that 63% of Iowa voters support legislation to stop factory farm expansion and corporate monopolies in our food system.

Food & Water Watch Senior Iowa Organizer John Aspray, Chair of the Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture issued the following statement:

“The factory farm system is crushing Iowa. For decades, Iowans have seen independent family farms forced into bad contracts with corporate giants in order to survive, small businesses shutter their doors, and our waterways and drinking water devastated by this model of industrial agriculture. 

“Today, community members, farmers, and experts from all across Iowa came together to bear witness to the tremendous suffering our people, state, and environment are undergoing at the hands of corporate agribusiness and their legislative enablers. Our hearing underlined the criticisms of a model that many of our legislators have been too weak to confront.

“Iowa legislators must listen to us, their constituents, as we state loud and clear that it is high time to put an end to factory farms’ relentless growth in our state. We must pass a factory farm moratorium in Iowa and our federal representatives must pass the Farm System Reform Act.”

A full quote list from event participants is below. A recording of the event is available here.

Public Hearing hosted by Cleveland Heights City Council and also livestreamed on June 9, 2022

[click on image to watch the hearing]

It was announced that U.S. House Joint Resolution 48, “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only,” and also establishing that money is not speech, has attained 94 co-sponsors in 117^th Congress, an all-time high. Members of the Ohio Congressional delegation Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan are co-sponsors. Cleveland Heights and other 11^th district citizens who have been actively lobbying Rep. Shontel Brown to co-sponsor hope that she will do so soon.

May 29th, 2022 Show

The Ohio Advocate

Matt and Justin give an update on the redistricting battle in Ohio, and discuss Starbucks unionization efforts, police surveillance networks, the fight to get marijuana legalization on the ballot this year, and issues with Youngstown's water meters.

Kathleen Caffrey interviews Greg Coleridge from Move to Amend Ohio about their efforts to reduce the effect of money in politics, and their current fight to revoke FirstEnergy's corporate charter.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/may-29th-2022-show/id1615298248?i=1000564411534

There are two ways to create change: by having lots of organized money or lots of organized people. Since MTA isn’t flush with cash from billionaires or business corporations, our route to build power to help create real democracy is to recruit and organize people at the grassroots. 

That’s why we’re organizing Summer Signature Saturdays

We need to add more people to our base. Our goal is to recruit 10,000 more supporters by the end of the summer – which will get us to 500,000. 

How do we recruit more supporters? 

The major way over the next several months is to designate one Saturday each month for Move to Amend volunteer leaders (like you!) to spend at least 1 hour collecting signatures on our Motion to Amend petition. 

• The top 2 individuals who collect the most signatures that day will receive a cool MTA t-shirt to wear  – maybe for the next time they go out to petition!
• MTA affiliates who organize several individuals to petition and submit signatures all together will be recognized on our website and in our monthly newsletter.

Check out the Leaderboard here!

The next Summer Signature Saturday is this Saturday!

Can you commit to collecting signatures wherever you this Saturday? Feel free to recruit one or more friends!

If so, email [email protected]

Where to petition in your community

Public places to petition: farmers markets, festivals, parades, sidewalks in commercial districts, your neighborhood, libraries, post offices, bus stops, parks

Petition tips

• Place petitions on clipboard or sturdy piece of cardboard with a large clip
• Try to get 1 sheet of signatures from your family members, friends or neighbors – even if they’ve already signed – and place the full sheet on top. The first few signatures are always the hardest when the petition is blank. Having a full sheet from the start will make it more comfortable for people you approach to sign when they see several have already done so.
• Consider taking 2 sets of petitions. This saves time if you come across 2 or more people and they are more likely to sign
• Use only black or blue ink. No red ink or pencils. Take one or more extra pens
• Ask people to PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY
• Quickly check after each person has signed to make sure you can read all the information. If necessary, fill in for them what you can’t read
• Please encourage that at least name, city, zip code and email are filled in. Emails allow us to send educational and action updates – including how to get more involved.
• Don’t petition in the rain. Rain and paper are a bad combination.

Want to participate but cannot get out this weekend?

Another way to engage is by asking people to sign the petition via your personalized link. Everyone that signs the petition from your link will be credited to you.

You can find your personal recruiter link here: https://www.movetoamend.org/recruit

Email [email protected] if you plan to collect petition signatures . We’ll send further details before the date.

Thank you for helping Move to Amend grow and build power for helping create real democracy!

Introduction to Newburgh Heights Democracy Day

Carla Rautenberg, Cleveland Heights

Good evening. It’s a privilege to be here in Newburgh Heights for your 2022 Democracy Day public hearing. Thank you, Councilwoman Traore, City Council members and Mayor Elkins, for inviting members of Cleveland area Move to Amend chapters to attend tonight.

As some of you know, but others may not, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision of 2010 led to a national movement to take back the U.S. Constitution after it was usurped by the twin demons of corporate personhood and money being considered free speech. The national, non-partisan organization leading that movement is called Move to Amend. We have proposed, and convinced Congress members to co-sponsor, House Joint Resolution 48, which supports the We The People amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It essentially states that 1. Corporate entities are not people and therefore cannot have constitutional rights and 2. Money does not equal free speech. This message resonates with citizens across political boundaries and across the country.

Newburgh Heights joined this movement early on. In 2012, Brecksville and Newburgh Heights were the first two cities in Ohio whose citizens voted for ballot issues declaring support for such a constitutional amendment! The issue you and your fellow Newburgh Heights citizens passed—by a 73% yes vote! – is an ordinance declaring support for the We the People Amendment. It also established regular public hearings like this one, informally called Democracy Days, at which citizens can testify to the harms caused by corporations having never-intended constitutional rights, and by money being considered free speech.

As trend-setters, you should be very proud because since then, Ohio voters have passed ballot initiatives similar to yours in:

Defiance and Cleveland Heights, in 2013

Chagrin Falls and Mentor, in 2014

Kent, in 2015

Toledo, South Euclid and Shaker Heights, all in 2016

and Painesville, in 2020

In 2016, the City of Cleveland passed an ordinance supporting the We the People Amendment and establishing biannual Democracy Days for 10 years. In addition, 12 Ohio city governments have passed resolutions calling on Congress to introduce the We the People Amendment. Because of all this support in her Congressional district, we were able to persuade Rep. Marcia Fudge to co-sponsor HJR-48 in the 116^th and 117^th Congresses. We are lobbying Rep. Shontel Brown to follow in her mentor’s footsteps and do the same. 90 co-sponsors have now joined the lead sponsor, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

Meanwhile, we are wondering: how can First Energy be allowed to stay in business after it paid $60 million to Ohio legislators to directly defraud all of us – Ohio taxpayers? You might think the Ohio Constitution offers no remedy for this, but it specifically provides for revoking the charter of a corporation that acts beyond its authority. Bribery and money laundering certainly qualify. So Ohio Move to Amend is asking CAN WE PULL THE PLUG ON FIRST ENERGY? We will hold a virtual forum on this topic on Saturday, May 14 at 10:00 a.m. in order to explore:

• Could we do it? If so, how?
• Is it even a good idea?
• Without First Energy, where and how could we get our electricity?
• Any other implications?

We’ll pass around a sign-up sheet for those who would like more information about this, and/or our other activities.

You may have heard various politicians talk about passing legislation to deal with corporate power or money in politics. That won’t do it. Any laws attempting fundamental reform of the U.S. political system can and will be ruled unconstitutional. The Supreme Court precedents began way before Citizens United in 2010 and in fact date back to 1886!

Only passing a constitutional amendment like U.S. HJR-48 will allow us to reclaim our government from the control of multi-national corporations and wealthy individuals.

Now, my colleague David Berenson and I would like to share a little 5-minute skit about corporate personhood we hope you will enjoy.