Take back Constitution from corporations

By Judith Pedersen-Benn

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Most people are familiar with the recent “Citizens United” U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the rights of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence political campaigns. However, corporations have been undermining our democracy since the Court's May 1886 decision declaring that corporations were legal “people” and gave them the same rights as human beings.

It is historically preposterous to think that our nation's Founders considered corporations to be sovereign like human beings, much less that corporations were eligible for protections under our Bill of Rights.

Only a constitutional amendment can reverse this undemocratic decision, and “We the People” have the right and the duty to demand an amendment that removes corporate influence from our elections. Move To Amend and other national groups are organizing public support for a constitutional amendment to end this travesty. When the amendment is written the key points will include:

l Corporations are not people.

l Money is not speech

l Only people can vote and run our government.

It takes three-quarters of the states to pass a constitutional amendment, and for good reason. If an issue does not unite across party lines, it is not worthy of becoming an amendment. This means we humans will have to go head-to-head with corporate political power. And you can be sure that Big Business will try to break us into factions, left versus right, Democrat vs. Republican, small business owners vs. consumers.

Don't be hoodwinked. This issue is about top versus bottom. Corporations have vast amounts of money and power. They do not grow old, so time is always on their side. Corporations are soulless.They have liability protections we do not. They can outspend us in courts. They cannot be put in jail. They own all the popular media (you won't hear much about this on CNN or Fox News).

Corporations know they cannot defeat our ideas, but they don't have to. All they have to do is break us into factions and outlast us, then we will defeat ourselves and lose our democratic voices. We have the “democratic muscle” to fight this. Our Constitution has been amended 27 times, and seven of those 27 took one year or less to become law. These amendments passed quickly, because the people demanded them.

Move to Amend is a long-term campaign that spans the country. Every individual and non-profit organization who signs onto the Motion to Amend is a part of this movement. We are a coalition of ten of thousands of every persuasion dedicated to ending the illegitimate legal doctrines that prevent the American people from governing themselves.

If you ever wanted to do something meaningful for your country, your community, and your children, now is the time. Human liberty and the core values of American democracy are at stake.

Judith Pedersen-Benn is a Cedar Rapids community activist and chair of the Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community committee. Comment: jpedersen@imonmail.com