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Toledo City Council celebrates annual Democracy Day


THE BLADE/ALICE MOMANY
ALICE MOMANY [email protected]
The Blade
MAR 27, 2025
https://www.toledoblade.com/local/city/2025/03/27/council-celebrates-annual-democracy-day-public-meeting-political-climate-ohio/stories/20250326136

About 50 people filed into Toledo City Council chambers in One Government Center to voice concerns about the current political climate, ask questions about the city, and watch a public meeting unfold during the city’s annual Democracy Day.

“Planning this event is like a tradition,” Dennis Slotnick said. “But it also allows us to be giving to the greatest values we have in this country.”

The event Thursday was organized by Mr. Slotnick and Tony Szilagye, members of Toledo Move to Amend.

Toledo Move to Amend is the local affiliate of the national, nonpartisan organization committed to advocating for a robust democracy without corporate interests or dark money.
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FREMONT, OH: How corporate money is shaping politics: Fremont talk by Greg Coleridge

Jane Imbody, Reporter assisted by AI
FREMONT NEWS MESSENGER
March 24, 2025
https://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/local/2025/03/14/join-greg-coleridges-fremont-talk-on-corporate-money-in-politics-move-to-amend-birchard-library/82310926007/

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.

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CHAGRIN FALLS, OH ‘Move to Amend Day’ in Chagrin Falls sparks discussions on school vouchers, housing and more

Updated: 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

On March 10, Chagrin Falls Village Council hosted "Move to Amend Day,"
giving residents a chance to speak on issues they are passionate about.
Matt Leavitt

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.

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Take a stand for a democratic republic

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.

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It’s not enough to reverse Citizens United. A constitutional amendment is needed: Greg Coleridge

Cleveland.com | January 29, 2025

FILE - The Supreme Court in Washington, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) AP

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.

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VOICES: On 15th anniversary of Citizens United, we must push back against unchecked power of corporations

Dayton Daily News | January 21, 2025

Heather Sturgill is a resident of Troy, OH and volunteers with the local “Move to Amend.” (CONTRIBUTED)

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.

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Democracy Day in Kent focuses on campaign contributions, corporations


Kent City Council's 2024 Democracy Day event will focus on the proposed 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Democracy Day will be at 6 p.m. Oct. 2 in City Council Chambers at the main fire station at 320 S. Depeyster St. The event will be broadcast on the city's YouTube channel.

The meeting will take place in conjunction with Kent City Council's meeting.

This is the ninth year the event has taken place. It allows area residents to express their views on the proposed amendment. According to Move to Amend, the amendment would include these provision

  • The rights and privileges outlined in the Constitution of the United States are for people only.
  • Entities such as a corporations or limited liability companies shall have no rights under the Constitution and are subject to regulation by the people.
  • Federal, state, and local government shall regulate contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process.


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.

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Plastic, convenience, and corporate power

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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FirstEnergy Dissolution Testimony

May 29, 2024 - Ohio State House


Greg Coleridge - FirstEnergy Accountability Coalition

Good morning. My name is Greg Coleridge. I’m Co-Director of the national Move to Amend Campaign. This event is sponsored by the FirstEnergy Accountability Coalition, representatives of environmental and democracy, good government organizations and consumers. We are calling today to metaphorically “unplug”, more specifically, dissolve, FirstEnergy Company. 

We believe it’s time to hold FirstEnergy corporation accountable in proportion to the scale of its historic admitted crime of a $61 million payment in 2021 to a nonprofit secretly operated by former GOP Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder (now in prison) and another $4.3 million payment to the state’s top utility regulator, Sam Randazzo, who was recently indicted and is now deceased. The bribes were intended to pass House Bill 6 (HB6), a $1.3 billion bailout of two FirstEnergy antiquated, failing nuclear power plants, which would have cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Today is  the fifth anniversary of passage of HB6 by the Ohio House of Representatives.=

Numerous individuals connected to FirstEnergy have been and are appropriately being prosecuted. But the admitted corporate criminal, FirstEnergy, has yet to be held legitimately accountable. Simply paying a fine to the federal government is nowhere near the equivalency in magnitude to FirstEnergy corporation’s admission of guilt in what’s been called the largest bribery scheme in the 221year old history of the State of Ohio. It’s time for the State to take action. Attorney General David Yost has the power and authority to call for the dissolution of the company. Yost has filed a civil suit that includes that possibility. FirstEnergy’s corporate charter or license should be revoked.

Corporations are legal creations of the state. Corporate charters or licenses were originally meant to define corporate actions to ensure that the state’s corporate creations obeyed all laws, served the common good and provided useful goods or services. When corporations failed to follow the provisions of their charter, including upholding the law, their charters were often revoked – less as a punishment to the company than to protect Ohioans and our direct and representative democracy.

There is a long and proud history of both the Ohio State Legislature and Ohio Supreme Court revoking corporate charters. 

In one instance, the Supreme Court in 1900 stated in revoking a corporate charter 

The time has not yet arrived when the created is greater than the creator, and it still remains the duty of the courts to perform their office in the enforcement of the laws, no matter how ingenious the pretexts for their violation may be, nor the power of the violators in the commercial world.

In the present case the acts of the defendant have been persistent, defiant and flagrant, and no other course is left to the court than to enter a judgment of ouster and to appoint trustees to wind up the business of the concern.

In 1892, the Ohio AG, David Watson, filed suit to revoke the charter of the Standard Oil Company, the most powerful U.S. corporation of the time, for forming a trust. Watson stated:

Where a corporation, either directly or indirectly, submits to the domination of an agency unknown to the statute, or identifies itself with and unites in carrying out an agreement whose performance is injurious to the public, it thereby offends against the law of its creation and forfeits all right to its franchises, and judgment of ouster should be entered against it.

It should be noted that David Watson was a Republican. 

Following the brief statements from several members of the FirstEnergy Accountability Coalition, we will march across the street to the office of Attorney General Yost. We have sent him a letter seeking a meeting to urge him to do his job to protect all Ohioans, as well as the environment and whatever amount of democracy we have in Ohio, by dissolving FirstEnergy Company. 

Read more

FirstEnergy Dissolution Media Coverage


Renee Fox / WOSU News

Coalition that wants the state to dissolve FirstEnergy to gather at Statehouse to apply pressure
WOSU 89.7 NPR News | By Renee Fox
Published May 28, 2024 at 5:00 AM EDT
https://www.wosu.org/politics-government/2024-05-24/coalition-that-wants-the-state-to-dissolve-firstenergy-to-gather-at-statehouse-to-apply-pressure

Coalition urges Ohio AG to dissolve FirstEnergy for bribery scandal
WOSU 89.7 NPR News | By Renee Fox
Published May 29, 2024 at 7:46 PM EDT
https://www.ideastream.org/2024-05-29/coalition-calling-for-an-end-to-firstenergy-left-in-the-cold-by-ohio-ag-yost

Calling on Attorney General Yost to dissolve FirstEnergy
https://columbusfreepress.com/article/calling-attorney-general-yost-dissolve-firstenergy

Group calls on Ohio attorney general to ‘unplug’ FirstEnergy
By Jenna Jordan Ohio
PUBLISHED 5:00 AM ET May 30, 2024
https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/05/29/ohio-firstenergy-bribery-scandal-

Activists ask Ohio's attorney general to scrap FirstEnergy's business license over HB 6 scandal
The Statehouse News Bureau | By Karen Kasler
Published May 31, 2024 at 2:00 PM EDT
https://www.statenews.org/government-politics/2024-05-31/activists-ask-ohios-attorney-general-to-scrap-firstenergys-business-license-over-hb-6-scandal

Activists ask Ohio’s attorney general to scrap FirstEnergy’s business license over HB 6 scandal
By: Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau
Posted on: Saturday, June 1, 2024
https://woub.org/2024/06/01/activists-ask-ohios-attorney-general-to-scrap-firstenergys-business-license-over-hb-6-scandal/

 

 

 


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