Check here for local news about corporate rule, Move to Amend press coverage, and announcements from the grassroots leaders of Ohio Move to Amend!
Letter to the Editor
April 19, 2025
https://miamivalleytoday.com/democracy-begins-at-the-local-level/
To the editor:
Democracy begins at the local level. It’s where we discuss community problems and find solutions. It’s also where we explore questions of principle—in particular, principles that guide our country and affect each of us, regardless of our political affiliation. This has been true since our nation’s founding.
In Ohio, 26 communities have explored the question of corporate power and big money in politics. As a result, they have passed resolutions, ordinances, and/or citizen ballot initiatives supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that makes two things clear: (1) corporations and other artificial entities do not have constitutional rights and (2) money is not speech and campaign spending should be regulated.
Read moreHeather Sturgill, a volunteer with Move to Amend Miami County, writes to the Dayton Daily News to explain how Ohio House Bill 30 unfairly benefits the ultra wealthy.
Ohio HB 30 would implement a “flat tax,” meaning teachers, home health aides, nurses, and warehouse workers would pay the same tax rate as billionaires. At first glance, this might seem fair — but it’s not. Percentages matter — and they’re relative. A flat tax is only fair if everything else — housing, food, medicine — each costs a certain % of income. But they don’t.
Example: Ohio’s Education Dept. poverty rate = $27,180 vs Musk’s Tesla compensation = $46 billion.
A $.74 Walmart apple = 0.00272% of the annual income of someone in poverty.0.00272% of Musk’s income = $1.84M for that same apple. Children’s cough syrup costs $6.99. That’s 0.0257% for that person in poverty. 0.0257% for Musk makes that same cough syrup cost = $11.5M. The cheapest Miami County apartment on Zillow = $635/month or $7,620/year. That’s 28% of a poverty-level income.28% of Musk’s income for that same apartment = about $13 BILLION.
A flat tax ignores that no other required expenses are a % of our income, essentially making this a tax break for the wealthy…that don’t NEED the tax break.
When Musk/other millionaires pay the same % of their income for apples & cough syrup as us, then we can talk about him paying the same % income tax rate. Until then, NO to HB 30.
Contact your Ohio House Representative and tell them “NO to HB 30. NO flat tax that treats billionaires like broke workers!”
- Heather Sturgill, Cincinnati
Greg Coleridge, national co-director of Move to Amend, will discuss corporate money in politics at 6 p.m. March 26 at Birchard Public Library, according to an announcement.
Coleridge said a record $20 billion was spent on the 2024 presidential campaign, with much of it coming from billionaires and corporations.
“Proposed corporate regulatory cuts, billionaire tax cuts and cuts to federal programs relied on by middle and lower-income people are simply the predictable results of a rigged political system,” Coleridge said.
Read moreUpdated: Mar. 11, 2025, 11:26 a.m. | Published: Mar. 11, 2025, 9:34 a.m.
https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/03/a-more-than-capacity-crowd-attends-chagrin-falls-move-to-amend-day.html
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio -- In place of the usual Monday night Village Council meeting March 10, the village hosted “Move to Amend Day.”
Chagrin Falls hosts “Move to Amend Day” once every two years so that residents can speak their minds concerning government topics.
Specifically, the event looks at the impact on the village by political influence of corporate entities -- including unions and political action committees -- in regard to the most recent state and federal elections.
Miami Valley Today
March 1, 2025
By Deb Hogshead
Guest columnist
January 21 was the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, a ruling that opened the floodgates of big money into political campaigns. At the Troy City Council meeting that night, I made a statement explaining why we need to close those floodgates and end the misguided doctrine that a corporation is a person with the same inherent, inalienable constitutional rights as you and me.
Since then, we’ve seen two very significant things happen.
First, we’ve seen how $288 million can buy a seat in the White House and a platform to speak from the Oval Office.
Second, we’ve seen the We the People Amendment get re-introduced in Congress as House Joint Resolution 54. The proposed amendment requires the regulation of campaign spending and makes clear that constitutional rights belong to natural persons only.
Read moreCleveland.com | January 29, 2025
The Supreme Court decision of “money equals free speech” predates Citizens United by more than four decades (i.e., the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision) and “corporate constitutional rights” (i.e., the 1886 Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision) by more than a century.
There was no democratic paradise before Citizens United. Corporations and the super-rich had much greater political power than the average person prior to 2010. Think of the failed efforts to hold banking corporations accountable for making risky loans and misrepresenting the quality of loans that led to the 2007-09 Great Recession, the ongoing decades-long failure to convert to renewable energy sources to ensure a livable world in the face of political pressure from fossil fuel corporations, and the never-ending quest to counter the power of insurance corporations opposed to creating an affordable, comprehensive and universal health care system.
Dayton Daily News | January 21, 2025
January 21 marks 15 years since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which equated corporate political spending with free speech and reinforced the notion of “corporate personhood”. This ruling has had profound impacts, granting corporations outsized influence over our political landscape. Recent events underscore the dangers of equating corporate rights with individual rights, particularly when such actions undermine public welfare.
News articles about ByteDance, being forced to sell TikTok over national security issues underscores these risks. But TikTok isn’t the only foreign owned company in the US. According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, as of January 2023, 252 Chinese companies were listed on the top three U.S. stock exchanges. This figure excludes smaller private businesses and companies with over 50% foreign-owned stockholders.
Read more
Kent voters in 2015 approved a ballot initiative for City Council to schedule Democracy Day every election year. Nearly 30 cities in Ohio also have approved resolutions calling for “We the People” constitution amendments and public hearings, including Akron, Canton and Cleveland. Democracy Day is part of the national Move to Amend movement to approve the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.
Any person wishing to be heard on the subject matter of the political influence resulting from campaign contributions by corporate entities should plan to give a 3- to 5-minute talk and submit a copy of the talk to the Clerk of Council at the public hearing. People also can attend and listen to the speakers.
For details on the amendment, go to movetoamend.org.
By Deb Hogshead
Guest Columnist
June 22, 2024
“It cannot be right to manufacture billions of objects that are used for a matter of minutes, and then are with us for centuries.” – Roz Savage, environmental advocate
At a Troy City Council meeting this past spring, Rumpke representatives announced a collaboration with Hefty. The new alliance encourages us to buy more plastic so we can recycle more plastic when what we need in our environment is less plastic.
The ReNew program sounds like a good thing. For your convenience, you can spend $8 for a pack of 20, 13-gallon orange plastic bags. Fill a bag with hard-to-recycle items, then toss the bag into your regular recycling bin. At the recycling plant, Rumpke staff will pull the bag from the recycling stream and direct the contents to facilities that can recycle them. It’s better than sending that stuff to a landfill, but not much.
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Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests. We call for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns. Move to Amend © Move to Amend
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