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Special Message from U.S. Rep Pramila Jayapal on the We the People Amendment H.J.R.54 - YouTube

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A new class of political kingmakers is emerging in the 2026 elections—and they are not voters.

Artificial-intelligence, cryptocurrency and online-gambling corporations have poured approximately $344 million into efforts to influence the 2026 federal elections. Overall, corporations contributed a record $646 million to Super PACs and other political committees during the 18 months ending in June 2026—already 40 percent more than the $461 million disclosed during the entire 2024 election cycle. These totals exclude undisclosed contributions to dark-money organizations, meaning the true level of corporate political spending is likely even higher.

Companies including Coinbase, Ripple, OpenAI, Anthropic and DraftKings are helping build political operations designed to shape congressional races and the regulations governing their industries

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no merri

4 26 In March, we welcomed two new Congressional cosponsors to the We the People Amendment (H.J.Res. 54): Rep. Mike Levin (CA-49) and Rep. Lori Trahan (MA-03)!

10 25 66 cosponsors, 2 new - Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-2) and  Adriano Espaillat (NY-13). Espaillat hasn’t been added to _Congress.gov_ list due to govt shutdown : SIGNATURES –> 525,150 = 929 new this month (goal: 600,000)

staff laid off wait for will 50K $ contractors no unemployment, no vol

87 co spon 90 last session

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523,842 SIGNATURES – 406 new

FB page 8 25 Move2Amend

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cole@movetoamend.org bennet sp

Katie Krasinski (she/her) to Everyone:I walked into Occupy and never left

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pledge2025 - 2026 - Move to Amend

new page

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wilpf iowa

Marybeth Gardam

Elijah Meason to Everyone:Next they start using the NSPM-7 task force against anyone who isn’t willing to tow the line. new mexico?

11 25 zoom on plan

sue kirchmeyer mont

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MTA GMAIL 8 26

The Trump regime is paying German energy giant RWE $1.22 billion not to build offshore wind farms. It is the fifth such deal this year, pushing the public cost of dismantling clean-power projects toward $4 billion.

This is not an isolated decision. This administration has attacked pollution limits for power plants, sought exemptions allowing industrial facilities to release more toxic chemicals, weakened methane controls, and moved to erase the scientific foundation for regulating greenhouse gases. Trump officials proudly call this the largest deregulatory campaign in American history.

They're not stopping there, the 2027 fiscal budget proposal, is signaling a catastrophic shift that would reduce National Park Service funding by over 25% percent. The proposal slashes $736 million from national park operations while simultaneously allocating $10 billion for “Presidential Capital Stewardship Program” focused on vanity projects in Washington, D.C. Compounding these cuts, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has introduced another deferred resignation program and voluntary early retirement to further decimate the workforce on our public lands.

The beneficiaries are no mystery: oil, gas, coal, and other corporate polluters and extractors. Neither is the political bargain. During his campaign, Trump reportedly told oil executives that if they raised $1 billion to return him to the White House, they would receive a lucrative policy payoff. Now our tax payer dollars are paying companies to abandon clean energy while major polluters receive weaker rules and fewer consequences.

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mike T from nat’l came to 925 scc socal regional nat’l bd? anne knows him

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lawrence ca clean money bill passed/ 8 25

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Move to Amend Statement onPersonhood for Artificial Intelligence

April 16, 2026

Every day we hear about how artificial intelligence systems (AI) are becoming more powerful: eliminating manufacturing jobs, guiding driverless cars, disapproving loan applications, making medical decisions, and writing legal briefs. Some academics and technologists even claim that AI systems could someday warrant constitutional rights (constitutional personhood for AI), arguing that AI is, or could become, sentient. Move to Amend rejects this idea in the strongest possible terms.

Constitutional rights are fundamental protections and liberties guaranteed exclusively to human persons by the U.S. Constitution, primarily through the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) and the 14th Amendment. They are also instruments of power. Constitutional rights limit government action and block regulation. Corporate entities are legal creations of government. The incremental attribution of constitutional rights to corporations by the Supreme Court has enabled corporations to expand their power until today corporations govern nearly every aspect of our lives.

All types of AI are products of corporations; created, trained and deployed by corporations for the sole purpose of increasing corporate profits. We don’t give constitutional rights to software, machines, tools, or any other products or tools made for profit. AI is simply an instrument of its corporate owners. Granting AI constitutional rights would protect and expand corporate power, not democracy.

AI must be regulated, and ultimately defined, democratically by our elected representatives, not by nine unelected Supreme Court justices applying 18th century concepts of rights to an entity that was literally unimaginable in 1787.

In fact, corporations already argue that regulating AI in some way violates the constitutional rights of the corporations. For example, corporations argue that regulating AI outputs violates the corporations’ First Amendment rights of free speech, or that transparency into how AI systems are “trained” to respond or not respond in certain ways, or to certain kinds of prompts, is an unconstitutional search. Even if AI is never declared a constitutional “person,” corporations will increasingly argue that regulating AI is unconstitutional.

The deregulation of AI, and corresponding increase in corporate power is already happening, and we must fight against it. In March 2026, the White House released its nationalframework for artificial intelligence, which urges Congress to preempt state laws, avoid any new regulatory body, and shield developers from liability. It was accompanied by a nearly 300-page draft bill from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and expected legislation from Rep. Jay Obernolte (R Calif.), chair of the House AI Task Force, who has said he is working on a bill on preemption.

This is about who has power in this country.Move to Amend stands for the proposition that all human beings, and human beings only, should have power. Not corporations. Not AI. And not expanded corporate power through AI.

The monthly series of articles explored the cultural take-a-ways from significant U.S. social movements over the last two and one-half centuries that are applicable for Move to Amend’s effort to enact the We the People Amendment.

jan 2025 greg

By Guest Columnist, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- January 21 was the 15th anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision. The ruling has resulted in a dramatic increase in the amount of money spent by corporations and the super-rich in political elections. Citizens United expanded the legal doctrines that “money equals free speech” and “a corporation is a person.”

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.

Money as free speech means those with most money have the most political influence and those with little money have the least influence. Citizens United only reduced some of the legal hurdles for the super wealthy and corporate entities to gain greater political influence.

Citizens United expanded only one corporate constitutional right – the corporate constitutional right to spend/invest money in elections. There are numerous other never-intended Court-granted rights to corporations that continue to threaten the health, safety, welfare and self-rule of people and communities. These include the First Amendment right not to speak, Fourth Amendment search and seizure, Fifth Amendment takings and 14th Amendment due process and equal protection rights.

Corporations are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. While imperfect on many other issues, the Founders understood that corporate entities were artificial legal creations of the state and needed to be publicly defined and controlled, originally at the state level. They were meant to be tools of We the People and our elected representatives to provide goods and services.

As the Ohio Supreme Court stated in a case dissolving a corporation for violating the terms of its charter, “The time has not yet arrived when the created is greater than their creator.”

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Why the We the People Amendment Matters: Greg Coleridge's Call to Action - YouTube

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) introduced an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would end corporate personhood, reverse Citizens United, put power back into the hands of people, and make it clear that money does not equal speech.

“Corporations are not people and money is not speech,” said Jayapal. “In every election cycle since the disastrous Citizens United decision, we have seen more and more special interest dark money poured into campaigns across the country — this year, with a billionaire paying millions to buy a seat as Shadow President. My We the People Amendment hands power back to the people by finally ending corporate constitutional rights, reversing Citizens United, and ensuring that our democracy is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people – not corporations.”

“We applaud Rep. Pramila Jayapal for her leadership in sponsoring HJR54, the We the People Amendment. Rep Jayapal clearly understands that the changes she and many of her colleagues support to advance health care, expand economic justice, ensure a livable world, and promote real democracy are incredibly difficult but necessary. This is especially true given the unjustifiable Supreme Court decisions declaring corporations as entities with many of the same constitutional rights as human persons and that money spent in elections is equivalent to First Amendment-protected free speech,”said Cole Bennett, Legislative Co-Director with Move to Amend. “The exponential growth of corporate power and corrupting political influence from huge sums of money flooding elections can only be solved with a systemic solution that is equivalent in scale to these systemic problems — the We the People Amendment, which will end all corporate constitutional rights and money as free speech.”

The We the People Amendment specifies that the rights provided by the Constitution are for people, not corporations and that artificial entities have no Constitutional rights, ending the 2010 Citizens United decision. The amendment also works to get big money out of politics after the most expensive campaign in American history. Additionally, the joint resolution mandates that Federal, state, and local governments require that all political contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

In the election cycle immediately following Citizens United decision, independent spending increased by more than 600 percent compared to the previous election cycle. This spending created an enormous imbalance in power, dramatically limiting the average American’s ability to influence elected officials. The ruling also enabled corporate personhood, granting the freedom of expression to corporations.

The We the People Amendment is co-sponsored by Alma Adams (NC-12), Shontel Brown (OH-11), Salud Carbajal (CA-24), Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Judy Chu (CA-28), Yvette Clarke (NY-9), Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Maxwell Frost (FL-10), Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-7), Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. (GA-4), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Summer Lee (PA-12), Seth Magaziner (RI-2), Betty McCollum (MN-4), Seth Moulton (MA-6), Jerrold Nadler (NY-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Jimmy Panetta (CA-19), Scott Peters (CA-50), Delia Ramirez (IL-3), Andrea Salinas (OR-6), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Paul Tonko (NY-20), Juan Vargas (CA-52), Nydia M. Velázquez (NY-7), and Nikema Williams (GA-5).

KATIE SOC MED

Katie Krasinski, Co-Director KATIEat

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We need to dramatically expand our Corporate Rule Stories

Move to Amend has begun collecting examples of literature, music, films and poems on our Creative Resistance page.

Cultural Change for the We the People Amendmenttenth in the***series***

The Populist movement of the late 19th century was the largest democratic mass movement in U.S. history. The movement included several parallel but independent organizations of farmers in the South, Midwest and High Plains. The movement later included urban working people across the country

Among the social movements covered in this series, the Populist movement is the least recognized (dare I say “popular”) and understood. Few can name any of its organizers, strategists or speakers (William Jennings Bryan doesn’t count, as explained below). There are no Populist movement holidays, postage stamps, detailed descriptions of its activities in high school history books, or even legitimate recognition of its lessons (positive or negative) incorporated in democratic activist organizations.

The movement’s relative invisibility can be explained by several factors. First, it was largely a rural movement that was the most active in a part of the country (i.e. the Midwest and South) not associated with the mass social movements. Second, it occurred during a period of U.S. history that was dominated by the rapid rise of industrialization and urbanization. And maybe, most significantly, its goals of creating an authentic bottom up democracy and bringing the corporate state under popular control through democratic politics, a democratic society grounded in mass dignity, was not going to see the light of day in our dominant corporate culture, which includes reformist non-profit democracy organizations.

Farmers were experiencing extremely hard times in the 1870’s. This was the age of growing economic and political power of corporations (railroads and banks in particular), trusts and capitalist Robber Barons. The ownership of both industrial and agricultural land was being increasingly centralized.

The dominant American cultural narrative of perpetual progress wasn’t being felt by millions of farmers, especially in the South, who were either in severe debt or foreclosed on their mortgages and became tenant farmers due to the furnishing merchants of the crop-lien system. When the “money power” (i.e. banks) successfully removed federal Greenbacks from federal circulation, deflation resulted in falling agricultural prices. Extreme drought and the poor quality of land for farming were additional factors.

The cultural message conveyed by the power elite to Farmers was that they were “lazy,” inherently inferior,” or in other ways at fault for their conditions. Ingraining indignity and inferiority was the deliberate aim to ensure passivity, resignation, deference, and social control; to erode any aspirations for significant democratic change; and to preserve the growing corporate culture that was projected as “democratic.”

Some farmers who had personally experienced or witnessed economic hard times and wanted to be politically active began to educate themselves and come together. A group gathered in 1877 in Texas and formed an organization that would a year later become the Grand State Farmer’s Alliance. Its county and state structure was to be a rural organization of self-help.

S.O. Daws, considered the “First Populist,” had developed a high degree of political self-respect. He believed the crop-lien system was oppressive and that those who experienced it had a right to speak out and seek change.

To attain a mass democratic “insurgent movement,” Daws, William Lamb and other leaders in what became the national Southern Farmer’s Alliance felt an “insurgent culture” must be created. To combat the demoralization of the hard times, individuals needed to acquire a new way of looking at themselves -- a personal self-respect and collective confidence and hope that fundamental chance was achievable. Cultural change was just as important as economic and political change.

Populist strategy and work attempted to proceed sequentially – that is, stages that occur in an order that maximized the chances of creating a powerful democratic mass movement.

The four stages for any democratic mass movement to be successful, as Lawrence Goodwyn in The Populist Moment describes, are:

“(1) the creation of an autonomous institution where new interpretations can materialize that run counter to those of prevailing authority -- a development which, for the sake of simplicity, we may describe as ‘the movement forming’; (2) the creation of a tactical means to attract masses of people -- ‘the movement recruiting’; (3) the achievement of a heretofore culturally unsanctioned level of social analysis -- ‘the movement educating’; and (4) the creation of an institutional means whereby the new ideas, shared now by the rank and file of the mass movement, can be expressed in an autonomous political way -- ‘the movement politicized.’”

The degree of success of each stage is directly tied to the success of the previous ones. The growth of the movement is severely limited if any single stage is not fully developed. Each of these stages create formal structures, programs and strategies seeking structural democratic change. For the Populists, each stage also provided the opportunity to create or affirm “insurgent culture.”

Here are examples of the accomplishments of each stage in the Populist’s effort to build a democratic mass movement, including how each contributed to an “insurgent culture.”

Movement formation - The initial Texas (Grand State) Farmers Alliance was the first of several southern and a few western state Alliances that made up the National Farmers Alliance and Cooperative Union (also known as the Southern Farmer’s Alliance) of white farmers. An equivalent Northern Alliance of white and black farmers existed in the upper Midwest and High Plains states. There was also a separate Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of black farmers of the South. National alliances, especially the Southern Alliance, organized state alliances, which organized town or county-based suballiances. These numbered in the thousands. The Movement involved 2.5 million people. The Alliancescreated separate organizations to address the economic needs, such as National Farmer’s Alliance Exchange Organization.

These organizations offered members who had always been told they were inferior and powerless the democratic infrastructure to talk, learn, plan, decide and build relationships, as well as to work in solidarity for democratic change. They provided the insulation from the dominant hierarchical culture to overcome deference and gain self-respect. They were acting individually, but collectively with others.

Movement recruitment - A mass movement needs masses of people. Sloganeering or pointing out problems is insufficient compared to meeting people’s immediate needs. The Populists produced programs and several radical plans to attract members.The Alliance created the world’s first large scale worker’s cooperatives, organizations to collectively buy supplies and market their crops. Cooperatives included retail stores, mills, and storehouses, which lowered costs and increased profits to members by cutting out middlemen. This attracted farmers by the millions who had previously had to negotiate on their own with bankers and companies they bought from and sold to.

Cooperatives were a way for farmers to gain more economic and political power through collective action. They believed they could become free individually by working together. Cooperatives allowed farmers to experience an autonomous democratic culture in their daily lives through their own direct involvement, in opposition to the dominant hierarchical structure of society. It also demonstrated who their enemies were when they negotiated with bankers and merchants.

The Alliances also supported the Greenback movement in calling for democratic money creation that would, if implemented, reduce their own debt, as well as the power of banking corporations. They also developed their own financial alternative, the Subtreasury Plan, which called for the federal government to build warehouses where farmers could store crops and receive low-interest loans against them. The goal was to help farmers hold onto their crops when prices were low after harvest, allowing them to wait for better market conditions and receive cash immediately to pay debts. The Plan was proposed by Charles Macune, a brilliant Southern Alliance leader. Subtreasury was an empowering idea that gave farmers a cultural sense that their movement was more capable of addressing poverty, indebtedness and the financial power of the financial system. It increased their confidence and self-identity.

Movement education – Establishing organizations from the national to local levels and using those structures to recruit people by addressing their immediate economic needs are important sequential steps, but by themselves do not dismantle economic and political structures of society that remain oppressing and undemocratic. The next step for the Populists, interconnected to some extent with recruitment, was internal economic and political education that went beyond the learnings of farmers within their cooperative about the corporate system of economic power and privilege.

This was achieved through traveling lecturers – individuals who either came into the movement with a high degree of self-respect and awareness/personal experience of the dominant economic and political system, or who were recruited from existing Alliance members and trained. Lecturers would speak on the backs of wagons or halls as they traveled from town to town. They large numbers of people who were inspired and gained confidence and a collective desire to seek political change not only from what they heard, but from being in the presence, often, of thousands of others who attended. There were 40,000 lecturers in the Alliance lecturing system.

Newspapers were published in all the branches of the Alliance – especially in the Northern Alliance. Examples included the American Nonconformist (Iowa) Kansas Farmer, Western Rural and Family Farm Paper (Chicago), Progressive Farmer (N. Carolina), and Alliance Vindicator (Texas). In addition, there was the National Economist, Washington, D.C. The National Reform Press Association united 1000 populist newspapers across the nation.

Traveling lecturers and newspapers served as critical internal communication methods for the movement to insulate and defend itself from the external propaganda of the corporate culture about what was possible and who was worthy to participate. This resulted in enhanced individual self-respect, collective self-confidence and a dramatic increase in political awareness, which helped crystallize the necessity to become directly involved in electoral politics. This included reaching out and forming alliances with working people and national labor organizations.

Movement politicized – The cooperative movement of the Alliance branches were aggressively opposed by corporations. Bankers, commodities brokers, and railroads retaliated by boycotting the Alliance. This eventually undermined the cooperatives' effectiveness. Farmers realized the current corporate-dominated economic system made their efforts impossible. It pushed farmers to form the People’s Party to pursue political solutions to their economic problems. They also developed political demands and statements.The most notable were the Ocala Platform and Omaha Platform. The latter, adopted by the People’s Party at their 1892 convention, called for a graduated income tax; the Subtreasury Plan; the direct election of senators, government ownership of railroads, telegraph lines and other key industries; the eight hour workday; postal savings banks; and the secret ballot.

Populists ran candidates at all levels of government, electing two U.S. Senators, 45 U.S. Representatives and numerous governors. However, following the defeat of their Presidential candidate, James Weaver, in 1892, they decided to “fuse” with the Democratic Party and support William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 Presidential election. This split the movement, since Bryan did not support many of the items of the Omaha Platform. The party and movement never recovered.

Some of its individual proposals were adopted by the new “Progressive” movement of the early 20th century and passed into law, including the graduated income tax, postal savings banks, and eventually the eight hour workday. The direct election of U.S. Senators became the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Populist Party served as a critical cultural “bridge” for farmers who had previously been loyal (yet ignored) by one or the other of the major parties: poor white farmers by Democrats and by poor black farmers by Republicans. It was an important awakening. They saw politics as a cultural struggle to create humane ways to relate to one another, to be ideologically free from the defined limitations of possibilities, and to aspire for a new democratic culture and democratic institutions.

Cultural Lessons for Move to Amend

  1. Every movement covered in this series has spotlighted the importance of individual self-respect, self-confidence and self-worth as a social psychological precondition for individual and collective action. In the case of the Populist movement, it was the poor rural farmers of the Midwest and South, white and black, who strived to affirm their own dignity and confidence. They believed in their right and power to define their own existence in the face of the growing industrial might of corporations, financial power of bankers, agricultural control by commodity brokers, propaganda of the dominant mainstream media; and political power of the two-party political duopoly.

Move to Amend supporters face many of the same forces today, but are more powerful, polished, well funded, and culturally ingrained. MTA leadership continuously reinforces the messages that citizens and residents have the right and duty to amend the U.S. Constitutiongiven its serious flaws and that the elements to be abolished in the We the People Amendment – “a corporation is a person” and “money equals speech” – are illogical and absurd. We emphasize that individuals who support us in any way – educating, advocating, organizing or contributing – are leaders who, when grounded in the knowledge of the history of corporate constitutional rights and money as speech, often know more on the subjects than the public officials, political aides, journalists and educators who they encounter. This helps build self-confidence and respect, as well as the commitment to educate and organize others.

  1. Move to Amend must face the reality that it’s nowhere near being a powerful democratic mass movement as outlined by the sequential four stages as defined by Goodwyn. In the end, the Populists weren’t successful either, although they understood the necessity of organizing internally sequentially. A mass exodus of members followed the decline of the Farmers cooperatives. This dramatically weakened their breadth and depth of their base of educated, empowered and committed individuals to work for political change and the People’s Party.

We’ve worked in our own way to build an “insurgent culture” of probably several thousand self-respecting and confident supporters over our history through our national, affiliate, and partner networks. We’ve produced an impressive array of educational materials on corporate constitutional rights, the We the People Amendment and social change in general – including our Movement Education Program, videos, on-line presentations, and printed material. We’re active on social media and even organized for many years our populist-branded “Barnstorm” speaking tours in cities and towns in almost every state. But it's not been sequential and its effectiveness has been limited by the incomplete efforts of building and maintaining local, state and regional organizations; as well as the inability to recruit masses of people by programmatically addressing their immediate felt needs. And of course, we don’t have a political party to independently drive our democratic goals through the electoral area.

A mass democratic movement is needed. It will have to be larger than any single organization – more like a coalition. Move to Amend and the We the People Amendment must be included. The coalition will need to include all four sequential stages. It will have to break free from the current dominant narrative that we live in an authentic democratic republic, which we’ve never had. It will need to be psychologically committed to fundamental change – legislative, but also constitutional. It will need to include a recruitment component – something that can help people who are increasingly hurting due to the growing economic crisis.

Times have changed. We need to change with them. This very well may need to include a new grassroots, democratically based political party that hasn’t been captured by billionaires and corporate entities or defers to the leadership of any single political candidate. It’s a big agenda, but like the Populists, there must be a new way to look at ourselves and a new way to envision the future.

  1. Move to Amend must continue to centralize anti-racism and gender justice because we believe that anti-oppression is key to building a democracy movement. Entrenched racism in the Southern Alliance severely weakened the movement, although there were sincere efforts made to form an interracial alliance. Nevertheless, black farmers were excluded from membership, a reflection of the white supremacy that existed in the post-Reconstruction period and the reality that some Populist farmers had been slaveowners. Black farmers organized their own independent group in response to their exclusion.

Racism was used by white Southern Democrats party officials to divide lower-class white farmers from black farmers to undermine the movement. Democrats in some cases divided farmers by supporting some Populist proposals while at the same time supporting plans to disenfranchise Blacks.

Move to Amend leaders need to continue to consciously and persistently declare and demonstrate through our actions that the attainment of an equitable democracy is unattainable if the power elite can effectively play the “race card.” Race and gender justice are not “side issues” or unrelated to the issues of corporate rule and the corruption of big money in political elections. We are currently witnessing the continued effectiveness of how race and nationality around immigration are being used to divide people from seeing their common interests to fundamentally challenge growing authoritarianism. We need to publicly condemn and oppose ongoing oppression of people of color and all those who are currently being exploited to justify authoritarian measures.

  1. Move to Amend must be vigilant to resist cooptation of its principles. Advocates inside the Populist Party who supported “fusing” with the Democratic Party in the 1896 Presidential election outnumbered those who advocated for maintaining its independence. The end of the Populist movement was the result. Its goal of creating an authentic bottom up democracy and bringing the corporate state under popular control through democratic politics was replaced by the Progressive movement, which accepted the reality of a corporate state and simply sought greater reforms to reduce corporate harms. Gone was the vision and commitment of structural transformation.

The same urge exists among many working on democracy issues currently to simply (1) elect more Democrats, (2) pass better democratic laws, and/or, if at all focused on constitutional change, to (3) simply overturn the Citizens United decision. Call it a brand new, same old story. Let corporate constitutional rights for the most part remain. Don’t touch the constitutional decision that equates money as free speech. Support an alternative loophole-laced amendment that isn’t as comprehensive as the We the People Amendment.

Nothing could be further from what’s needed. In reality, given the flagrant broken political system we’re facing in which the Trump Regime is exploiting, undermining or simply ignoring the Constitution, it’s clear that fundamental constitutional renewal is urgent. It requires more than what democratic improvements can be achieved through any single amendment. There must be an entire package. The We the People Amendment must be included.

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The most important take-a-way of the 19th century Populist Movement is the realization that the only means to create a genuinely equitable democracy society is to create a genuinely equitable democracy mass movement. Participants of that movement must not only support candidates and platforms calling for democratic change, but must actively and consistently be meaningfully engaged in the structures, plans and programs of that movement that provides direct assistance to those in need and works for fundamental structural political and economic change. This is how a democratic “insurgent culture” will be created and sustained.

In solidarity

Greg Coleridge

National Co-Director

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Across the country, sixteen states have passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Passed Resolutions

California

AJR 22. Assembly members Weickowski and Allen. Passed on July 7, 2012. Expresses disagreement with the Citizens United ruling and calls on the United States Congress to pass a constitutional amendment. Click here for the full text of the resolution.

Colorado

Amendment 65. On November 6, 2012, Colorado became one of the first two states to endorse an amendment through a statewide vote. I-82 was passed by over 74% of voters in Colorado. Click here to view the initiative text.

Connecticut

On May 1, 2012, Senator Slossberg and Representative Morin presented a letter signed by a majority of Connecticut House and Senate members calling on Congress to pass an amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and related decisions. Click here to read the letter.

Delaware

On June 10, 2013, a bipartisan majority of both houses of Delaware’s General Assembly Members signed a letter calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Click here to read the letter.

Hawaii

HCR 282. Representative Herkes. Resolution passed on April 28, 2010. Expresses disagreement with the Citizens United ruling and calls on the United States Congress to pass a constitutional amendment barring the use of “person” when defining “corporate entity.” Click here to read the text of the resolution.

Illinois

SJR 27. Senators McConnaughay and Althoff. Introduced March 13, 2013. Urges Congress to adopt a constitutional amendment reversing the Citizens United v. FEC ruling and related cases by clarifying that corporations and other artificial entities are not people with constitutional rights, and that money is property, not speech, and therefore can be regulated. Passed Senate on 5/14/2013. Placed on Calendar Order of Resolutions in House on 5/23/13. Passed the house on 5/31/13. Click here to read the text of the resolution.

Maine

SP 548. Senator Woodbury. Resolution passed on April 30, 2013. Joint resolution memorializing the United States Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Click here to read the press release.

Maryland

Senator Raskin presented a letter to the Maryland General Assembly on January 19, 2012. The letter expresses the Maryland legislature’s opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United and calls for a constitutional amendment. A majority of members in the House and Senate have signed the letter. Click here to read the letter.

Massachusetts

S 772. Senator Eldridge. Resolution passed on July 26, 2012. Free Speech For People resolution calling on the United States Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people. Click here to read the text of the resolution.

Montana

I-166. On November 6, 2012, Montana became one of the first two states to endorse an amendment through a statewide vote. I-166, the Prohibition on Corporate Contributions and Expenditures in Montana Elections Act, was passed by 75% of voters in Montana. Click here to view the initiative text.

New Jersey

SR 47. Senator Van Drew and Senator Stack. Resolution passed on October 4, 2012. Resolution expressing strong opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, and calling upon Congress to propose amending the U.S. Constitution. Click here to read the text of the resolution.

New Mexico

HM 4. Representative Stewart. Passed on January 13, 2012. House Memorial calling on the US Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and to restore republican democracy to the people. Click here to read the text of HM4.

SM 3. Senator Fischmann. Passed on February 11, 2012. Senate Memorial calling on the US Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and to restore republican democracy to the people. Click here to read the text of SM3.

Oregon

HJM 6. Representatives Clem and Holvey. Passed July 1, 2013. Joint memorial urging Congress to pass and send to the state a Constitutional amendment clarifying the distinction between the rights of natural persons and the rights of corporations and other legal entities; and clarifying that Congress and state legislatures may regulate all moneys raised and spent for political purposes. Click here to read the text of HJM6.

Rhode Island

S 2656. Senator Paiva Weed. Passed May 21, 2012. Joint resolution urging Congress to pass and send to the states a Constitutional amendment permitting state and federal regulation and restriction of independent political expenditures. Click here to read the text of S2656.

H 7899. Representative Fox. Passed in the House on May 30, 2012. Joint resolution urging Congress to pass and send to the states a Constitutional Amendment permitting state and federal regulation and restriction of independent political expenditures.Click here to read the text of H7899.

Vermont

JRS 11. Senator Lyons. Passed on April 19, 2012. Joint resolution urging the United States Congress to propose amendments to the United States Constitution for the states’ consideration relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections and relating to the rights of corporations. Click here for additional information, including the full text of the resolution.

West Virginia

SR 24. Senators Snyder and Kessler. Passed on April 13, 2013. Opposing the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission regarding the constitutional rights of corporations; supporting an amendment to the Constitution to provide that corporations are not entitled to the entirety of protections or rights of natural persons, specifically so that the expenditure of corporate money to influence the electoral process is no longer a form of constitutionally protected speech; and calling on Congress to begin the process of amending the Constitution. Click here to read the text of S.R. 24.

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Citizens United: People Power Pushes to Amend

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20 States, 800 Localities Vote to Roll Back ‘Citizens United’

Twenty states from coast to coast, reacting against the Citizens United decision, have gone on record in favor of a U.S. constitutional amendment to restore the power of Congress and the states to put some limits on campaign spending. At the local level, too, there’s a crescendo in the call for reform. Roughly 800 local governments from Sarasota, FL to Midway City, KY, and Conway, Arkansas to Salt Lake City, Utah and San Luis Obispo, California have also demanded constitutional action to reinstitute controls on campaign spending.

State actions have come either through popular referendums, legislative resolutions, or collective letters from state legislators to Congress. Among cities, the Los Angeles referendum in May 2013 is fairly typical. Passed by a 77% majority vote, it instructed elected officials to press for an amendment, stating that “there should be limits on political campaign spending and that corporations should not have the constitutional rights of human beings.”

Check our state-by-state rundown below to find out where your state stands or whether actions have been taken by major cities near you. The states that have taken action include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada. New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont Washington, and West Virginia, plus the District of Columbia. There have been other movements to join that list in Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota.

The Push for Reform Came Fast

Grassroots reaction came swiftly against the Supreme Court’s ruling in January 2010 in Citizens United that authorized unlimited spending by corporations and unions from their general treasuries.

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Just three months later, the state legislature in Hawaii passed a resolution calling on Congress to propose and send to the states a Constitutional Amendment restoring to Congress and the states the power to regulate corporate campaign donations.}:

In 2012, legislatures in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California, passed similar resolutions. In 2013, legislative action for a constitutional amendment was taken by Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon, and West Virginia.

As the movement spread, some states took a different approach. In Delaware and Maryland, a majority of the state’s Senate and House of Delegates signed a letter to Congress calling for a Constitutional amendment. In Connecticut, a majority of the state’s senators and representatives signed a similar letter. In New York, majorities of lawmakers in both houses of the state legislature signed five different letters from different party caucuses, all calling for a constitutional amendment to reverse the impact of the Citizens United ruling and restore legislative power to regulate campaign finance.

Groundswell from the Grass Roots

But the most striking show of popular discontent and the most visible popular groundswell for campaign reform came in in the November 2012 elections in the states of Colorado and Montana. The votes in those two states demonstrated that at the grassroots, the drive to control the rising tide of Mega Money in elections draws support from across the political spectrum – from Republicans, independents, and Democrats

In Colorado, every single county in the state had a majority in favor of reform – those that are predominantly Republican as well as those dominated by Democrats or counties that are a mix of D’s, R’s, and independents. The reform measure was backed by more than 1,650,000 voters or roughly 73% of the total vote. the margin of victory was similar in Montana.

In the November 2016 elections, ballot initiatives for an anti-Citizens United constitutional amendment won solid majorities in popular vote referendums in California and Washington State.

Congress Is Out of Step with Voters

Even so, Congress still resists what opinion polls show to be the demand of a large majority of voters for reform on campaign finance. In September 2014, a majority of U.S. Senators voted in favor of a constitutional amendment but their 54-42 majority fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the threat of an opposition filibuster. It was a partisan clash: All 42 “No” votes came from Republicans and all 54 “Yes” votes came from Democrats.

(CC) Joe Brusky

But solid Republican opposition to systemic reforms is splintering. During the 2016 presidential primary campaign,GOP presidential contenders. Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush came out in favor of a constitutional amendment. In various states, some Republican legislators support reforms to curb runaway campaign spending as does U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Tea Party Republican. “If we want to change Washington and return power to the citizens of this nation, we have to change the way campaigns are financed,” Jones asserts. “The status quo is dominated by deep-pocketed special interests, and that’s simply unacceptable to the American people.”

New Hampshire Towns Vote Yes

New Hampshire is typical of states where a constitutional amendment on MoneyPolitics has generated a clash between elected lawmakers and grassroots opinion. New Hampshire still uses traditional town meetings and local petitions to let voters take a stand on issues. Since 2014, voters in 69 towns have passed local ballot initiatives calling for a constitutional amendmentto reverse the Citizens United decision and to limit campaign spending.

In May 2014, heeding the town votes, a solid majority of the New Hampshire House of Representatives – 154 Democrats joined by 29 Republicans – voted in favor of a constitutional amendment resolution. But ten days later, the Republican majority in the state senate voted 12-11 to block the proposal.

In 2015, campaign reform was back on the legislature’s agenda, with Republicans controlling both houses. The Senate gave unanimous bipartisan approval to a bill “recognizing the need” for a U.S. constitutional amendment and tasking a study committee to analyze the options. But the house did a zig-zag dance. A strong resolution endorsing a constitutional amendment narrowly passed, but minutes later, with the electronic voting machines malfunctioning, that vote was reversed. Vote switching by 13 house Republicans killed the bill, setting up constitutional reform as a campaign issue in 2016.

Taking Voter Protest to the U.S.Capitol Steps

Even with all the popular backing already generated, any effort to amend the U.S. Constitution entails a sustained popular campaign for passage. As polls indicate, so many Americans are angry about skyrocketing campaign spending by corporations and the super-rich that the issue keeps gaining momentum around the country.

Protestors on U.S. Capitol steps demand MegaMoney out of politics. (Hedrick Smith)

Average Americans say they don’t want to see American democracy on the auction block, sold to the highest bidder. Popular grassroots pressures have caused hundreds of city councils, county commissions, and state legislators to endorse a constitutional amendment.

In April 2016, several thousand Americans took a week of protest marches to the U.S. Capitol steps to underscore public anger at Congress for ignoring popular demands for constitutional reforms to restore controls on campaign spending. In an echo of the civil rights protests of the 1960s, demonstrators who came from as far away as Guam and Presque Isle, Maine and some of whom marched by foot 140 miles from Philadelphia, engaged in civil disobedience, deliberately inviting arrest to try to force Congress to take notice.

In all, 1,300 people were arrested, including such leaders as Kai Newkirk of 99Rise, Robert Weissman of Public Citizen, Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America, Cornell Brooks of the NAACP, Rev. William Barber, leader of North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement, and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Several thousands more marchers and activists cheered those who dared arrest.

“I believe that courage is contagious,” said demonstrator Frances Moore Lappe of Boston.”If other people see us taking action, then I think they’ll have the courage to join in.” Newkirk said it was crucial to move beyond emails and tweeting to direct action to show politicians how strongly Americans feel about the money corrupting our democracy. Weissman asserted that the protest week organized by the Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening signaled that the reform movement is stepping up its militancy.

A Legal Move to Undercut SuperPAC Funding

Three months later, in July, a bipartisan group of six members and candidates for Congress made a direct challenge to the funding of SuperPACs in a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission. With a high profile bipartisan Legal team drawn from Harvard and the Bush Administration, they argued that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in theSpeechNow.org case, had stretched the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in a way that left a ceiling on contributions to candidates but no limits on funding for SuperPACs.

“The situation … is one that Congress never enacted and people would never support,” said Laurence Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard. “The law permits a very severe limit on the amount an individual can give to someone’s campaign, but at the same time that could be evaded by giving millions to SuperPACs….The Supreme Court never approved anything like that.”

But with the FEC paralyzed for years by a three-to-three Republican-Democratic split, analysts were dubious about the prospects for the complaint. In a comment to The Washington Post, conservative election law attorney James Bopp Jr. dismissed it as “a case going nowhere.”

Check Your State in Our 50-state Rundown:

Alabama:
Alaska:
Arizona:
California:
Colorado:

Connecticut:

Delaware:

District of Columbia:

Florida:

Georgia:

Hawaii:

Idaho:

Illinois:

Indiana:

Iowa:

Kansas:

Kentucky:

Louisiana:

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Maryland:

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Mississippi:

Missouri:

Volunteers gather signatures to put gerrymandering reform on Missouri’s 2018 ballot. image source CLEAN Missouri

May 19, 2017 – Defying the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” Decision, the Clean Missouri reform coalition launches petition drive to put on 2018 election ballot a measure to impose lower limits on contributions to legislature candidates. The Clean Missouri coalition, with financial backing from the Missouri teachers union, is also pushing for a popular vote on a constitutional amendment to achieve a non-partisan system for mapping state legislative districts by using a non-partisan expert to draw the maps and mandating the use of specific statistical data.

Montana:

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Issue BriefSuccess StoryAdditional ReadingsOrganizations

More Resources to Help You Amend the Constitution

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David Cobb - Move to Amend! - YouTube

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13-24 Thom Hartmann on Judicial Review and the 28th Constitutional Amendment - YouTube

13-24 Thom Hartmann on Judicial Review and the 28th Constitutional Amendment

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win every city scot wALKER , MONTANA 75% POLL

ECONOMIC ROYALISTS WE WANT OUR CTY BACK

DO GROVER POLS PLEDGE

NON VOL CIVIL DISOBEDIANCE

We the People Amendment - YouTube

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Cole Bennett, Co-Director cole-bennett-b09110199 acs russ f cop city

National Team and local affiliates also held meetings with the judiciary staff of Senators Whitehouse (RI), Ossoff (GA), and Smith (MN) regarding introduction into the Senate in the 119th Congress.

Lobbying for the WTP Amendment

Ben Manski is Assistant Professor of Public Sociology at George Mason University where he serves as director of Next System Studies and of the Democratizing NOVA project at Mason's Center for Social Science Research. He studies the participation of ordinary people in the deliberate constitution of their societies. His work takes in social movements, law, politics, climate and ecology, political economy and the corporation, focusing on democracy, democratization, and constitutionalism, and he has published widely on these themes. In the past, Manski practiced public interest law for eight years and managed national non-profit organizations, direct action campaigns, and political campaigns and parties for 25 years. He is an Institute for Policy Studies Associate Fellow, Next System Project Research Fellow, Liberty Tree Foundation Fellow, and a Critical Realism Network Associated Fellow. Manski is a University of Wisconsin JD (2005) and University of California Santa Barbara PhD (2000).

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Corporate Coup Report #4 - Move to Amend

musk geo gp vid 🌎 The Corporate Coup Report is back with an all-new episode tonight at 6pm CT! 🚨 - YouTube

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DC TRIP

We still have one of our national co-directors in DC, ready to meet with more offices and follow up with those we engaged last week. Now is the perfect time to amplify our voice. We had an initial meeting with Representative Schrier's office and are looking forward to an official meeting next week. It would be incredibly impactful if her constituents called this week to voice their support for HJR 54.

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brian says public citizen has signed on a supporter

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ab 83 foreign $

Bill Text: CA AB83 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced | LegiScan

NameTypeSponsorshipDistrictFinancialEncyclopediaBiography
Assemblymember Alex Lee [D]PrimarySponsored BillsHD-024FollowTheMoneyBallotpediaVoteSmart
Assemblymember Ash Kalra [D]CosponsorSponsored BillsHD-025HD-025HD-025HD-025

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There were two main reasons why Move to Amend held a vigil and rally at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce during our recent trip to Washington, D.C. to lobby for HJR54, the We the People Amendment.

The two reasons were to highlight what the Chamber represents and what the Chamber does.

What the U.S. Chamber represents

The Chamber typifies the political power of large business corporations. Despite its claim of “representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions,” a sizable majority of its board of directors are heads of larger corporate entities while its agenda overwhelmingly reflects the interests of large corporations, especially those of its major donors.

Only 18 donors contributed more than one-quarter of its 2021 revenue, 97% of its revenue came from just 1300 donations of at least $5000. The fact that the Chamber doesn’t legitimately represent small business interests and even local chambers of commerce led a decade ago to the "U.S. Chamber of Commerce Doesn't Speak for Me" campaign, supported by over 6,000 businesses signed on to the campaign and 32 local chambers of commerce.

Nevertheless, the Chamber is politically potent. They are the nation’s largest lobbying organization, having spent$1.85 billion between 1998 and 2023, $81 million alone in 2022. Their political campaign contributions in the 2022 election cycle totaled $3.5 million and outside spending on electioneering communication an additional 1.8 million. Their political investments have yielded significant returns, as the next section describes.

The Chamber also represents an aggressive promotion of big business as a political force to promote their legitimacy and interests over the last half-century, due to the Chamber’s role in implementing the “Powell memo.” Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer and a board member of Phillip Morris Corporation, wrote a confidential memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in response to the “American economic system [being] under broad attack.” coming from, among others, “perfectly respectable elements of society,” including “college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.”

Lewis called for a corporate coordinated and well-funded campaign to influence the public on behalf of the role of corporate America by assertively opposing regulations, but also by infiltrating societal institutions (i.e. publishers, TV networks, universities, event courts). “The role of the National Chamber of Commerce is therefore vital,” Powell wrote.

The Chamber remains part of a broad pro-corporate institutional movement that seeks to change the culture, law and constitution that began in the early 1970’s with the Powell memo.

FYI, Powell was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1972 by Richard Nixon and ruled in favor of both the First National Bank v. Bellotti(that permitted corporations for the first time to donate to political campaigns) and Buckley v. Valeo (that equated money as free speech) decisions.

What the U.S. Chamber does

The Chamber promotes major corporate interests. If the interests of individuals, communities, smaller businesses, larger businesses that don’t donate to the Chamber or the environment get in the way, so be it.

A selection of many examples:

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What does the proposed 28th amendment have to do with Climate Change?

Drawing Down to reverse global warming requires leaving lots of oil, gas and coal in the ground. This will be met with corporate pushback, led by the fossil fuel industry and its funded think tanks and corporate-connected environmental groups.

The political power of fossil fuel corporations is rooted in their Supreme Court-granted constitutional First Amendment "free speech" rights that has defined corporations as "persons" for purposes of spending money to influence elections. Corporations have also been granted First Amendment "commercial speech" rights by the courts. One can only imagine the millions, if not billions, of dollars fossil fuel corporations will spend "educating" the public on the pitfalls of the virtually eliminating the use of fossil fuels by 2030. So long as corporations continue to have First Amendment "corporate personhood" rights, they will continue to disproportionately influence legislators and legislation.

The political power from their First Amendment "free speech" and "commercial speech" granted rights is only one of several ways fossil fuel corporations can oppose the massive energy and behavioral changes we need to put in place by 2030. If, despite this enormous political influence, laws are passed to (for example) tax carbon, fossil fuel corporations can also run to the courts claiming that these laws violate other Supreme Court granted constitutional rights.

Corporations could conceivably try to claim, for example, that government subsidies of renewable energy corporations or any number of prohibitions of fossil fuel companies “discriminates" against fossil fuel corporations under the 14th Amendment, which was intended solely to protect freed slaves from racial discrimination. (Don't laugh - they've made the same argument and won for government support to small businesses over chain stores).

More likely, fossil fuel corporations will assert that by forcing the end of carbon-producing, climate-destroying fossil fuels, their claims on coal and oil in the ground or at sea -- worth tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars -- are "takings" without just compensation under the 5th Amendment -- a constitutional "right" intended solely for human beings but granted to corporations nearly a century ago. This, too, is not theoretical. Corporations have deterred the passage of laws preventing the extraction of natural resources based on the threats of lawsuits under the 5th Amendment.

Ending the use of fossil fuels can only happen by ending the abuse of “fossil” constitutional rules -- rules that have permitted corporate entities to hijack the constitution to protect their property rights over human rights...and the right to a sustainable environment.

A parallel path to ending the use of fossil fuels is promotion of the trans-partisan We the People Amendment (H.J.R. 48), a Constitutional Amendment that would end all forms of corporate constitutional rights and the constitutional doctrine that money is equal to First Amendment-protected "free speech."

Hundreds of communities have passed either municipal resolutions or passed citizen-driven ballot initiatives calling for such an amendment. Hundreds of organizations have endorsed *Move to Amend*, the organization behind the Amendment -- believing that whatever different issues these organizations work on, the same, identical strategy of legalizing democracy by ending “corporate personhood” and “money as speech” will make it easier for all of these organization to achieve their respective goals.

Return to Homepage

Move to Amend highlighted the political power of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce while in D.C. and even more now to underline the reality that organized vast economic power that has the legal and constitutional right to be converted to vast political power to influence public policies does not serve the common good. It’s unaccountable. It serves their interests, rather than those of individuals without political money to invest in the political system, of communities and of a natural world that is livable.

The only way to hold corporate entities like the Chamber accountable is constitutionally – to ensure that we have laws and regulations to protest people, communities and the natural world from private corporate decisions.

That’s why HJR54, the We the People Amendment, is so important. And that’s why we were in D.C. to lobby for it and why we protested at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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particularly productive conversations with the offices of Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, Nikema Williams, Marilyn Strickland, and Veronica Escobar

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today marks the 14th Anniversary of the Citizens United v. Federal Election CommissionSupreme Court decision. The ruling permitted corporations and labor unions to make unlimited “independent” political contributions (i.e. spending for or against candidates that are not made in consultation or cooperation with them, their campaigns or any political party).

The super rich could also shield their political “donations” (more like political “investments”) in “dark money” organizations, nonprofits not required to disclose their donors.

The political voices of the super rich and corporate entities were further heard and heeded following Citizens United, while the political voices of those without money who didn’t or couldn’t afford to make political contributions were further drowned out. Citizens United further corrupted our “democracy.”

Further is the key word.

The “corruption of democracy” goes way beyond Citizens United and political elections.

Citizens United needs to be reversed, no doubt about it.

But it’s a constitutional myth to believe that the following originated with Citizens United:

If nine of us for a day became Supreme Court Justices and (following the return from various junkets around the world) were able to simply reverse Citizens United, _none of the above would change. _

If we don’t correctly understand the problem, we’ll never correctly solve it.

Ask yourself as you think back to 2009 before Citizens United. Did you feel your voices were politically heard? That the political influence of the super rich was the same as yours? That major corporations were unable to steer laws, regulations, tax breaks, bailouts, etc in their favor?

The day Citizens United was decided was the day Move to Amend was launched. For the past 14 years, we have been educating, advocating and organizing to correct the myth that Citizens United birthed “money is speech” and “corporate personhood.”

Spend a few minutes reviewing any of the items on our Corporate Constitutional Rights Resources webpage to learn how corporate entities have hijacked existing Constitutional Amendments, using them as both shields from democratic accountability and swords to overturn democratically passed laws protecting the health, safety and welfare of people, communities and the natural world.

There is no question that “simply” reversing Citizens United, as some national groups promote, is much easier than enacting the We the People Amendment (HJR54) that calls for the abolition of money as speech and all forms of corporate constitutional rights. Who doesn’t want to take an easier path?

But we must be honest and accurate with ourselves and others. It’s fine to rail against Citizens United for its role in the “corruption of democracy” as far as it goes. The anti-democratic train of the corruption of big money in elections and corporate rule, however, left the station decades and a century ago, respectfully. If we don’t derail it and all we do is “End Citizens United,” we’ll still be democratically crushed.

We must end all forms of corporate constitutional rights and money as free speech, as the We the People Amendment demands.

Thank you for being part of this challenging, but essential ride to take on the growing multiple crises we face and can overcome.

Onwards for the democracy and world we all deserve,

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9/21

H.J.Res.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.
Rep. Barragan, Nanette Diaz [D-CA-44]*05/20/2021
Rep. Blumenauer, Earl [D-OR-3]*05/20/2021
Rep. Bonamici, Suzanne [D-OR-1]*05/20/2021
Rep. Boyle, Brendan F. [D-PA-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. Bush, Cori [D-MO-1]*05/20/2021
Rep. Carbajal, Salud O. [D-CA-24]*05/20/2021
Rep. Cartwright, Matt [D-PA-8]*05/20/2021
Rep. Chu, Judy [D-CA-27]*05/20/2021
Rep. Cicilline, David N. [D-RI-1]*05/20/2021
Rep. Craig, Angie [D-MN-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. DeFazio, Peter A. [D-OR-4]*05/20/2021
Rep. DelBene, Suzan K. [D-WA-1]*05/20/2021
Rep. Eshoo, Anna G. [D-CA-18]*05/20/2021
Rep. Garcia, Jesus G. "Chuy" [D-IL-4]*05/20/2021
Rep. Grijalva, Raul M. [D-AZ-3]*05/20/2021
Rep. Higgins, Brian [D-NY-26]*05/20/2021
Rep. Huffman, Jared [D-CA-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. Johnson, Henry C. "Hank," Jr. [D-GA-4]*05/20/2021
Rep. Kaptur, Marcy [D-OH-9]*05/20/2021
Rep. Khanna, Ro [D-CA-17]*05/20/2021
Rep. Kilmer, Derek [D-WA-6]*05/20/2021
Rep. Lee, Barbara [D-CA-13]*05/20/2021
Rep. Lynch, Stephen F. [D-MA-8]*05/20/2021
Rep. McCollum, Betty [D-MN-4]*05/20/2021
Rep. McGovern, James P. [D-MA-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. McNerney, Jerry [D-CA-9]*05/20/2021
Rep. Moulton, Seth [D-MA-6]*05/20/2021
Rep. Nadler, Jerrold [D-NY-10]*05/20/2021
Rep. Napolitano, Grace F. [D-CA-32]*05/20/2021
Rep. Neguse, Joe [D-CO-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. Newman, Marie [D-IL-3]*05/20/2021
Del. Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC-At Large]*05/20/2021
Rep. Omar, Ilhan [D-MN-5]*05/20/2021
Rep. Perlmutter, Ed [D-CO-7]*05/20/2021
Rep. Phillips, Dean [D-MN-3]*05/20/2021
Rep. Pingree, Chellie [D-ME-1]*05/20/2021
Rep. Pocan, Mark [D-WI-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. Pressley, Ayanna [D-MA-7]*05/20/2021
Rep. Raskin, Jamie [D-MD-8]*05/20/2021
Rep. Sanchez, Linda T. [D-CA-38]*05/20/2021
Rep. Schakowsky, Janice D. [D-IL-9]*05/20/2021
Rep. Smith, Adam [D-WA-9]*05/20/2021
Rep. Speier, Jackie [D-CA-14]*05/20/2021
Rep. Takano, Mark [D-CA-41]*05/20/2021
Rep. Thompson, Mike [D-CA-5]*05/20/2021
Rep. Tlaib, Rashida [D-MI-13]*05/20/2021
Rep. Tonko, Paul [D-NY-20]*05/20/2021
Rep. Trahan, Lori [D-MA-3]*05/20/2021
Rep. Welch, Peter [D-VT-At Large]*05/20/2021
Rep. Davis, Danny K. [D-IL-7]*05/20/2021
Rep. Beyer, Donald S., Jr. [D-VA-8]*05/20/2021
Rep. Espaillat, Adriano [D-NY-13]*05/20/2021
Rep. Matsui, Doris O. [D-CA-6]*05/20/2021
Rep. Ryan, Tim [D-OH-13]*05/20/2021
Rep. Kuster, Ann M. [D-NH-2]*05/20/2021
Rep. Manning, Kathy E. [D-NC-6]*05/20/2021
Rep. Panetta, Jimmy [D-CA-20]05/28/2021
Rep. Doggett, Lloyd [D-TX-35]06/08/2021
Rep. Velazquez, Nydia M. [D-NY-7]06/08/2021
Rep. DeLauro, Rosa L. [D-CT-3]06/15/2021
Rep. Lawson, Al, Jr. [D-FL-5]06/15/2021
Rep. Peters, Scott H. [D-CA-52]06/15/2021
Rep. Waters, Maxine [D-CA-43]06/15/2021
Rep. Evans, Dwight [D-PA-3]06/23/2021
Rep. DeSaulnier, Mark [D-CA-11]06/30/2021
Rep. Leger Fernandez, Teresa [D-NM-3]06/30/2021
Rep. Lofgren, Zoe [D-CA-19]07/09/2021
Rep. Keating, William R. [D-MA-9]08/03/2021
Rep. Vargas, Juan [D-CA-51]08/10/2021
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria [D-NY-14]08/13/2021
Rep. Castro, Joaquin [D-TX-20]08/20/2021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_to_Amend

Move to Amend is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization that seeks to blunt corporate power by amending the United States Constitution to end corporate personhood and state that money is not speech.[1] The group was created in response to the Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which held that corporations have a First Amendment right to make expenditures from their general treasuries supporting or opposing candidates for political office, arguing that the Court's decision disrupts the democratic process by granting disproportionate influence to the wealthy.[2] Move to Amend advocates for the "We the People" Amendment, currently in Congress as H.J.Res. 48, to establish that constitutional rights are reserved for natural persons only and require the regulation and disclosure of spending in U.S. elections.[3]

Background

In 2009, several national organizations including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Program on Corporations, and Democracy (POCLAD) and Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC) submitted an amicus curiae authored by former Massachusetts assistant attorney general Jeff Clements to the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a U.S. constitutional law case concerning the regulation of independent political expenditures by corporations, which the non-profit organization Citizens United challenged on the grounds of violating the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. The brief argued against Citizens United and called for the court to reverse its precedents on corporate personhood, citing the 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. that preceded the extension of constitutional protections to corporations under the Fourteenth Amendment.[4]

When the Court ruled to allow for corporations to make political expenditures from their general treasuries under the First Amendment's free speech rights in January 2010, several organizers and attorneys from those organizations behind the brief launched Move to Amend as a national campaign to overturn the Citizens United ruling, arguing that the Court’s decision disrupts the democratic process by granting disproportionate influence to the wealthy with the intent of promoting corporate power at the expense of ordinary citizens.[5][6][7][8]

Resolutions and Ballot Campaigns

Move to Amend's strategy has included grassroots organizing to lobby elected officials and candidates to pass local resolutions and ordinances through municipalities, which call on state and federal representatives to support a 28th Amendment and may include holding a "Democracy Day" public hearing. As of July 2019, over 800 local governments and 20 states have passed resolutions and ordinances supporting a constitutional amendment to address the Citizens United ruling.[9] Over 300 resolutions were passed by voters via ballot initiatives, including statewide initiatives in Colorado, Montana, California and Washington.[10][11][12]

Local affiliates of Move to Amend have helped pass many such resolutions supporting the language of the We the People Amendment, including the Los Angeles City Council which voted unanimously to end constitutional rights for corporations in 2011.[13] In Ohio, local ordinances supporting the amendment and creating a "Democracy Day" public hearing to examine the local impact of political influence by corporations have been passed by municipal governments and voters via ballot initiatives, including Cleveland and Toledo.[14][15][16] In Wisconsin, over 100 municipalities have passed resolutions, comprising 55% of Wisconsin residents.[17][18]

Leadership

The group has included organizers and attorneys from several national organizations among its leadership, including:

https://www.movetoamend.org/staff

Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap is National Director of Move to Amend, President of the Board of Directors of Democracy Unlimited, and a Local Democracy Fellow for the Liberty Tree Foundation. 

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Greg Coleridge is Outreach Director of Move to Amend.  He previously worked for more than three decades with the American Friends Service Committee in Ohio where he educated, advocated and organized on a range of justice, peace, environmental and democracy issues -- including helping coordinate Move to Amend activities in the Buckeye state.

He is the author of Citizens over Corporations: A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future (2003), writer of the documentary CorpOrNation: The Story of Citizens and Corporations in Ohio (2003)inspire by richard grossman poclad] and contributed several articles to the anthology Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy - A Book of History and Strategy (2001).He currently maintains and distributes via email a weekly REAL Democracy History Calendar and Monetary History Calendar.

Greg is a Principal with the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) and Board Member of the Alliance for Just Money (AFJM). He previously served an elected term on the national governing board of Common Cause.

He loves camping, hiking, walking and swimming – especially with his wife, daughter and son-in-law -- and almost everything else outdoors!

Keyan Bliss is Move to Amend's Grassroots Director. He currently serves on the Media & Communications, Grassroots Movement, and Political Organizing Committees.

Inspired to join Move to Amend by his brother’s participation within the Occupy movement and student power movement, Keyan first joined Move to Amend in 2013 as an Intern.

The Case Against Corporate Constitutional Rights three-part series is at

https://www.movetoamend.org/corporate-constitutional-rights

Move to Amend is the main organizational catalyst of the We the People Amendment (H.J.R. 48),

richard hobbs on wolff

https://kpfa.org/episode/economic-update-november-1-2019/

Ben Field labor Tahiya labor caucus mta

Search Results

Web results

www.southbaylabor.org › board_and_staff

Board and Staff - South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council

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1.

:{:{Ben Field:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Executive Officer ben@:{southbaylabor:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:.org. :{Ben Field:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: was elected to the post of ... The SBLC represents 94 local :{unions:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, which constitute most of the :{Labor:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ... constitutional law, judicial :{politics:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, law and society, and :{political:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: history.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

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IRATE 5/19

http://scc-mta.org/sites/default/files/MTA_IRATE_Doc_Version_02_04_13.pdf

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHOy9hni3ZE

tedx humboldt

David Keith Cobbis an American attorney, liberal political activist, campaign manager, and politician. He was the Green Party presidential candidate for the 2004 presidential general election. David is the co-founder of Move to Amend. He later became the campaign manager for fellow Green Party candidate Jill Stein during her presidential run in 2016. This talk submits a new idea for communities to work together for success. David Keith Cobb is an American attorney, liberal political activist, campaign manager, and politician. He was the Green Party presidential candidate for the 2004 presidential general election. David is the co-founder of Move to Amend. He later became the campaign manager for fellow Green Party candidate Jill Stein during her presidential run in 2016. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community

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revol crisis, close to collapse, chinese; imagine restuct soc so all have enough; radical honesty, looking for other revo; def is those who can envision different way

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dff narrative: patriarchy...... repeated stories become narrative: selfish, exploitive, dominate power over...bio says no; chalice and blade bk; bad behaviors are incentivized to act that way; exploitation, commodification, love...mama's boy; argue bro over toy car; lots of toys, all you have to share to create a new world; transition solidarity economics model w/o explot or oppress, eco sustainable = cooperatin humbolt .org ID and inventory art culture, child care etc already happening: amplify v compete w/ that; tell others about it; but many gaps eg food CSA, co-op, no food forest;

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metaphor of butterfly; caterpillar: in dna is a new recipe, imaginal cell; find each other, cohere, wing cells over there; birthright stolen by wht supreme capitalists;

share power with, make decisions together

https://vimeo.com/40726161

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https://vimeo.com/40726161

A teach-in was held in Burlington with David Cobb, lawyer and spokes person for Move To Amend. "Move To Amend" says Cobb, "is the multiracial, multiethnic coalition of over several hundred groups that have come together, representing several hundred thousand people who are calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish in its entirety the ridiculous judicial created legal doctrine that says a corporation is a person with inherent constitutional rights and the equally ridiculous court created doctrine that money equals speech; This therefore it makes it virtually impossible for local, state, and federal governments to regulate campaign financing. These two legal doctrines put together are part of the linchpin for how the ruling elite has hijacked our country and the decision making process in this country." | movetoamend.org | Burlington Vermont Fletcher Free Library | March 15 2012

16 min

corp ceo make law/decisions unelected

doc

chart: Am Pol Theory) we should try it sometime]

all power resides in ppl          GOV'T depends on ppl

FREE AND SOVEREIGN (authority to rule)  GOV'T subordinate

free b/c we have  RIGHTS (0 req permission)    V GOV'T HAS DUTIES

if law infringes on ppl rights, it is unconstitutional

MTG of all citizens unwieldy, so we delegate power to make law/decisions

PRIVATE REALM  V PUBLIC (LAWS in our interests)

PROBLEM IS IMPLEMENTATION: founding flaw: violence to nat am, AA, women = property

zinn: hist req a lens to look back

our history is struggle for these gps to be defined as persons w/ rights protected by const; most white men oppressed as workers;

how form corp: file doc, 25$, rubber stamp, issue charter; last forever; do anything [VT]"all lawful things"; why do they have so much power; 1st 75 yrs: ID need not met by govt or biz; lower house maj, senate by maj, governor signed; 3-5 yrs, no longer than 20; lim liability dissolved; if do anything other than state purpose, revoked; if violate public interest, revoke; revoke keeps it subordinate and accountable; but corp person is ct-created (not in const); if state, local or fed law oppose corp const rights

worker, public health, ecol; camp finance law; we don't need a good policy/law, we need democ movement that asserts our sovereignty, exercise the right to protect, elections, ... protect from a ruling elite, hijacked our constitution to abuse us, using the legal system to do it; so we need 28th corp not ppl, $ not speech;

states, cities stats of resolutions

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history of oppression/ political/social change

https://movetoamend.org/social-change-study-group

And Hundreds of Other Organizations...

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