Use this language to approach your City Council or organizations in your community to solicit support for the Move to Amend campaign. Whenever possible Move to Amend encourages activists to consider passing municipal resolutions by ballot initiative in order to reach many more people. In many cities citizens can collect signatures to place initiatives on the ballot. Contact your local elections department for more information or let us know if you need help.
Often if the citizens initiative process is not available in your community, a City Council can decide to place an initiative on the ballot instead. This provides an excellent opportunity to get this issue in front of voters in your town. If you have questions about which kind of resolution is best to pass in your community or how to get started, please contact us.
Click here for our shorter resolution text that is perfect for ballot initiatives or other instances when you want to be as concise as possible. The longer resolution below is good for City Councils and organizations that would like to provide background and rationale in the whereas clauses for their support. Feel free to edit the whereas clause language below by omitting some or adding additional locally relevant information.
Move to Amend Model Resolution for City Councils and Organizations
Whereas, government of, by, and for the people has long been a cherished American value, and We The People’s fundamental and inalienable right to self-govern, and thereby secure rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and;
Whereas, free and fair elections are essential to democracy and effective self-governance, and;
Whereas, persons are rightfully recognized as human beings whose essential needs include clean air, clean water, safe and secure food, and;
Whereas, corporations are entirely human-made legal fictions created by express permission of We The People and our government to do business as one entity; state statutes (called charters) originally created corporations as vehicles to accumulate capital for projects (such as building a bridge) deemed beneficial to the public; for an artificial creation that exists only under statutory law to be given constitutional rights that supersede those of humans is illogical., and;
Whereas, corporations can exist in perpetuity, can exist simultaneously in many nations at once, need only profit for survival, and exist solely through the legal charter imposed by the government of We The People, and;
Whereas, in addition to these advantages, the great wealth of large corporations allows them to wield coercive force of law to overpower human beings and communities, thus denying We The People’s exercise of our Constitutional rights, and;
Whereas, corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution, and The People have never granted constitutional rights to corporations, nor have We decreed that corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of We The People of the United States, and;
Whereas, state law already protects the legitimate functions of corporations: to act as one entity, to transact business, to own property, to sue and be sued in a court of law, and to enter into contracts. None of these functions require constitutional rights, and;
Whereas, interpretation of the US Constitution by appointed Supreme Court justices to include corporations in the term ‘persons’ has long denied We The Peoples’ exercise of self-governance by endowing corporations with Constitutional protections intended for We The People, and;
Whereas, the illegitimate judicial bestowal of civil and political rights upon corporations usurps basic human and Constitutional rights guaranteed to human persons, and also empowers corporations to sue municipal and state governments for adopting laws that violate ‘corporate rights’ even when those laws serve to protect and defend the rights of human persons and communities, and;
Whereas, corporations are not and have never been human beings, and therefore are rightfully subservient to human beings and governments as our legal creations, and;
Whereas, large corporations’ profits and survival are often in direct conflict with the essential needs and rights of human beings, and;
Whereas, the 2010 Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision that rolled back the legal limits on spending in the electoral process creates an unequal playing field and allows unlimited spending by wealthy individuals, corporations and other entities to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes, and forces elected officials to divert their attention from The Peoples’ business, or even vote against the interest of their human constituents, in order to ensure competitive campaign funds for their own re-election, and;
Whereas, the judicial interpretation to construe spending money in political campaigns as speech is contrary of the notion of one person, one vote and allows those with the most money to have an unfair advantage in a political system that should be about ensuring that all citizens have equal access to the political process and to influencing the outcome of elections, and;
Whereas, money is property, not speech, and;
Whereas, large corporations own most of America’s mass media and use that media as a megaphone to express loudly their political agenda and to convince Americans that their primary role is that of consumers, rather than sovereign citizens with rights and responsibilities within our democracy, and this forces citizens to toil to discern the truth behind headlines and election campaigning, and;
Whereas, harms resulting from corporate constitutional rights extend beyond simply 1st Amendment political "free speech" rights to spend money in politics and elections to include the 1st Amendment corporate right "not to speak," which have prevented local and state governments to adopt laws protecting the health, safety and welfare of residents; 4th Amendment corporate "search and seizure" rights, which have limited public workplace and environmental safety inspections; 5th Amendment corporate "takings" rights, which have defined environmental regulations as a "taking" of property; 14th Amendment due process and equal protection rights, which have given corporate entities the legal defense of "discrimination" if governments provides preferential treatment to local businesses over "chain stores," and;
Whereas, corporations have also gained greater economic and political power by using the shields of the U.S. Constitution's Contract and Commerce Clauses to invalidate local and state laws, defying the public's right to decide locally how best to protect and expand the health, safety and welfare of their communities, and;
Whereas, tens of thousands of people and municipalities across the nation are joining with the Move to Amend campaign to call for an Amendment to the US Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood and the doctrine of Money as Speech;
Therefore be it resolved that (the City of, County of, etc. or organization ) ___________ hereby calls on our (legislators, elected officials, mayor, commissioners, etc.) ___________ to join the tens of thousands of citizens, grassroots organizations and local governments across the country in the Move to Amend campaign to call for the We the People Constitutonal Amendment to Abolish Corporate Personhood and the doctrine of Money as Speech as a step toward empowering America’s human persons and to thus claim our sovereign right to self-governance.
Be it further resolved that the State of (City of, County of, etc.) ___________ calls on other communities and jurisdictions to join with us in this action by passing similar Resolutions. Be it further resolved that the State of (City of, County of, etc.) ___________ supports education to increase public awareness of the threats to our democracy posed by Corporate Personhood, and encourages lively discussion to build understanding and consensus to take appropriate community and municipal actions to democratically respond to these threats.
DATE: ___________
