The “Great Vermont Uprising” Wins
Today, the citizens and elected officials of the Green Mountain State can take immense pride in their leadership in the nationwide pro-democracy uprising sparked by the Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Vermont’s legislature has now become the third in the nation to approve a resolution demanding a constitutional amendment that ensures the rights of We the People. The Vermont House’s overwhelming, tri-partisan vote ( 92-40, including 5 Republicans) came on the heels of a similar wide margin (26-3) in the Senate last week, and follows the passage of resolutions in Hawaii and New Mexico.
A majority of Maryland’s legislature has also signed onto a letter to the state’s congressional delegation calling on it to support an amendment.
The resolution, authored by State Senator Ginny Lyons, is a rebuke of the judicially-invented ideas that corporations have the same constitutional rights as living, breathing human beings and that money equals speech. Organizing around those principles, Public Citizen joined with scores of organizations and grassroots activists in Vermont to simultaneously pass measures demanding a constitutional amendment at 65 town meetings on March 6.
The resolution passed today specifically cites the mandate conveyed by that statewide burst of direct democracy, which The Nation’s John Nichols dubbed “The Great Vermont Uprising Against Corporate Personhood.”
The vote also came just one day after Vermont activist Georgina Forbes, one of the local organizers behind the Town Meeting Day effort in March, told her story to a packed congressional summit on overturning Citizens United held at the U.S. Capitol. She described how hundreds of people from all walks of life, Democrats and Republicans alike, “stood at the dump, outside of the post office, in front of the general store and spoke with our neighbors and gathered names on petitions to get this article on the ballot” and then to build toward success both last month and in the state legislature.
Yesterday, members of Congress hailed Georgina and the other members of the Vermonters Say Corporations Are Not People coalition, along with state and local elected officials from Maine and New Mexico, as a national model for this essential movement. Today, their hard work continued to pay off, as the state of Vermont is now official in declaring its readiness to ratify a strong constitutional amendment.
American patriots around the country are gearing up to follow suit. Similar resolutions have been introduced in 20 other states, and have passed at least one chamber in Alaska, California and Iowa. In June, Resolutions Week will see even more cities and towns nationwide join the Vermont 65, New York City, Los Angeles and over 100 others that have demanded a constitutional amendment.
Vermont’s citizens, meanwhile, have every reason to take a deep breath and celebrate their tremendous string of victories. And then, of course, they’ll roll up their sleeves and get back to work in making sure that the rest of the country follows suit in the months and years to come.
Sean Siperstein is a Legal Fellow with Public Citizen’s Democracy is For People campaign. Follow the campaign on Twitter @RuleByUs, as well as the hashtag #Democracy4 Sale, for the latest on the money and politics and the campaign for a constitutional amendment!
April 28, 2012 @ 2:22 pm
May I offer this proposal for an amendment for the consideration and comment of your readers?
Commentary in {..}, not part of proposed Amendment}
No candidate for the Presidency or either house of Congress shall accept contributions in cash or in kind from any organization or group of persons for expenses incurred in a campaign for that office. All such contributions shall be made only by individual citizens who shall attest that the funds or other items of value are from their own resources and that they have not received, nor have they been promised, offsetting items of value from any other party in exchange for their contribution. The identity and extent of contributors to such campaigns shall be made public for a period of thirty days from receipt before being employed or used as collateral for a loan by such campaigns. Organizations of any type, {i.e. corporations, unions, gun rights advocates, environmental protection groups, even “Susie’s Flower Shop”, a theoretical small business cited in the Citizen’s United Case,} may, without restriction, expend money to advocate a position on any issue before or likely to come before the electorate insofar as no candidate’s name or description is included in their expressions of advocacy.
{The intent of the above is to bring “transparency” to campaign financing by removing any group from the process whereby that group may conceal the identity of an individual contributor as well as limiting the influence of such groups or “special interests”. It further prevents an organization from making such contributions when an individual within that organization, such as a union member or corporation stockholder, may oppose the candidate. Considering the large equity position in certain corporations that the federal government has recently taken in response to the economic crises, this is particularly important in excluding such influence. The money from “special interest” groups will then go to promote that for which they exist, their “special interest”. The media will be directed to expositions on the issues facing the electorate, thus enhancing discussion and hopefully understanding of issues, bereft of personalities. To those advocating public financing I would suggest that with money comes control. Do we want government control of the electoral process?}
April 29, 2012 @ 6:21 pm
The response is underwhelming. Consider this my revolt against personhood for any but persons. what a concept. Anybody out there, or is this not really a blog?
May 2, 2012 @ 10:40 am
SCOTUS based this obscene ruling on the basis that corporations are bound to contracts (Dartmouth college v. Woodward) and on a fiction compounded by a legal fiction (Southern Pacific v. Santa Clara). There is behind this decision the stink of special interest influence and the appearance of the corruption of judicial ethics (Supreme Court justices wined and dined by Koch Industries and right-wing extremists immediately before the ruling).