#occupypdx

#OccupyPDX - #Portland Gets Smart About #ALEC -- #F29 Day of Action (by bmediacollective)

The following statement is from the Solutions Committee, supporting the General Assembly resolution stating that Occupy Portland wishes to help end corporate personhood. If you are familiar with the proposal, you can skip the background information and click here to sign this petition, now.

Background:

On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to spend unregulated and undisclosed sums of money on election campaigns. The Citizens United decision has led to unprecedented campaign spending on the part of multi-billion dollar corporations, drowning out the voices of We the People. When corporations have constitutional rights, peoples’ rights become meaningless. How can one human being’s power to speak compare to a massive corporation’s ability to speak?

Mayor Sam Adams has issued a proposed resolution of the Portland City Council supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that makes clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech.

We need to thank the Mayor for introducing the resolution and request two primary revisions:

make clear that corporations are not entitled to ANY constitutional rights (currently the resolution says corporations are not entitled to the SAME rights as people)

remove reference to the proposed amendments currently sponsored by Oregon’s Congressional representatives as these amendments deal only with the issue of money as speech and not the issue of corporate personhood (i.e. these proposals need to be strengthened)

Click here to sign this petition and send a strong message to Portland City officials and Congress that we need a U.S. constitutional amendment that makes clear that only peopleare entitled to the rights of the U.S. constitution and money is not speech! An email will be sent with your message to Mayor Adams and the City Commissioners.