Proposed Resolution: Olympia City Council (July 17, 2012)
WHEREAS, government of, by, and for the People has been a long cherished American value and legal foundation and corporations are not human beings and therefore, as our legal creations, are rightfully subservient to human beings and governments;
WHEREAS, free and fair elections are essential to democracy and effective self-governance, and the Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission decision supersedes state and local efforts to regulate corporate activity in their elections;
WHEREAS, it is the inherent right of the residents of the City of Olympia to govern their own community, including, without limitation, the Declaration of Independence’s provision that governments are instituted to secure the rights of people and the Washington State Constitution’s recognition that “all political power is inherent in the people”; and
WHEREAS, the Olympia City Council believes that local legislation which embodies the fundamental interests of the community is mandated by the doctrine of the consent of the governed;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the City of Olympia affirms and upholds the principle that the rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.
Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.
The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Federal, State, and local government may regulate all political contributions and expenditures made for the purpose of influencing in any way the electoral process and shall mandate that all political contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that nothing contained in this resolution shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that by the adoption of this Resolution, with the concurrence of the Mayor, the City of Olympia hereby indicates its SUPPORT for Legislative actions ensuring corporations are not entitled to the protections or "rights" of human beings, but only to the legal standing as defined in their charters which created them as legal entities, and specifically that the expenditure of corporate money to influence the electoral process is no longer a form of constitutionally protected speech.
July 17, 2012 - Move to Amend Olympia and Occupy Olympia Political Action Working Group:
Citizen's Request to the City of Olympia for a Resolution to Deny Corporate Personhood
2. Costs are in(un)supportable
Elections are purchased:
Citizens United had an immediate impact in the 2010 elections when $30.6 million, most from anonymous sources, was spent to influence elections by outside organizations unaffiliated with political parties. Counting party-related organizations, $210 million was spent by independent groups in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
SUPER-PAC spending this year will reach a projected $8 billion.
Costs to local government:
1. Climate change
· Total for One Foot Sea Level Rise Berm $8.5 M
· Total for 4-Foot 2-Inches Berm $13.6 M
· Pump Station Indian/Moxlie Creeks $25 M
· Other miscellaneous pump stations $12 M
· Consolidating Stormwater Pipes:
· Major system $1,500/FT
· Minor system $500/FT
· 500 cfs Pump Station $30M
· 50 cfs Pump Station $7M
· Total for West Bay Outfall Consolidation $4.1M
Grand Total >$100 M
2. Increasing Need for Social Services
· Increasing Population
· Decreasing number of state jobs including teachers
· Decrease in funding sources from state and federal government
· Current 14.9% population living below poverty level in Olympia
· Increasing rate of foreclosures
Twelve percent of local workforce are state employees. There are 23,835 state employees and 5,400 K-12 employees in Thurston County. With the 3% salary cut, increased health insurance costs, and increased retirement deductions, the average state employee will take home $3,690 less in each year of the new biennium. That is a loss of $92.7 million per year to local families and the local economy.
Source: Rep. Sam Hunt report.
3. Coal Trains (see Coal Terminals tab on this website for more details)
Railroads have “claimed personhood” since the Civil War years. What is happening in many PNW towns will be coming here making it imperative to create a legal case through binding legal action. Clean air, water and human health are at stake. Bellingham, Hoquiam and many towns along the Columbia River are fighting for their health and the environment.
· Increase in heavy coal train traffic will affect local communities.
· Due to increased coal exports, coal transport could exceed 75 million tons annually by
2017 and 170 million tons annually by 2022 at six terminals on PNW coast.
· In 2010, trains unloaded about 80 million tons of freight in OR and WA according to a
June 30, 2012 article in The Oregonian.
· Payment for needed overpasses, underpasses and upgrades will be paid by local
taxpayers. Upgrades (to deal with interrupted traffic flows) will not be covered by the
corporations; local governments pick up the tab, which is estimated to be in the billions
over a four state area.
Source: The Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) on July 11, 2012, discussed a new report entitled Heavy Traffic Ahead: Rail Impacts of Powder River Basin Coal to Asia. The report, prepared by Whiteside & Associates and G. W. & Associates for WORC, details the expected increase in coal transport and identifies impacts to communities along the transport routes.
Additional Coal Train Sources:
http://www.movetoamendolympia.org/ (see July 16 post on home page, and interview with Arnie Martin, Director of Grays Harbor Audubon Society, fall 2011; and transcript from teleconference call last week on the Coal Terminal tab).
· Significant costs to local communities. Significant costs to local cities.
· 15 trains per day thru our community means noise, fouled air and one grade crossing receives 5,000 stalled vehicles daily
· Lobbying Corps of Engineers [to produce] EIS
· Mining and shippers must be held accountable for any environmental, economic and social justice impacts
· This is truly a social justice issue, and certainly affects local citizens. Air pollution most affects low-income neighborhoods.
Source: Dave Strohmaier
Title: Ward 1 Council Member
Phone: (406) 327-8911
dstrohmaier@ci.missoula.mt.us
Local Employment, the Economy
The county has more than one-third of the state’s general-government, legislative and judicial jobs.
As of Jan 2011, head counts show that the number of Thurston County workers in those categories shrank by 4.9 percent – to 22,227 full- and part-time positions from a high of 23,373 in June 2008. That is a loss of about 1,146 jobs from the peak.
The local economy continues to be driven by government employment as 36 percent of all nonfarm employment can be attributed to state and local government jobs. During the recession, the loss of tax revenues earlier driven by a robust construction sector began to eat into state revenues. The result has been a period of budget constraints and cuts.
The recession caught up to the government sector as budget woes led to the loss of 800 jobs between December 2010 and December 2011. Most of the losses were in state government. By December 2011, preliminary estimates showed 35,600 government employees, down from 37,400 a year earlier.
Source: RECESSION: Work force still suffering from down economy, budget shortfall
BRAD SHANNON; Staff writer • Published January 10, 2011
Read
more here:
“I’m thinking it is going to look like it did in the early ’80s when we had some pretty significant drops in total employment. We are going to experience that again. … We won’t necessarily experience a drop in population,’’ Pete Swensson, a senior planner with Thurston Regional Planning Council,
Swensson has tracked demographic and economic trends in the community for several decades and says the recession in the early 1990s did not lead to a reduction in local government jobs.
This time, Swensson predicts a loss of 135 private sector jobs for each 100 state positions eliminated. The hit will be significant for restaurants, shops and retail trade. The state Department of Personnel estimates there are 21,700 state agency jobs in Thurston County, paying an average annual salary of $58,600.
Box Stores Impact on Small Businesses
Money in Elections
Data compiled by OpenSecrets.org a website run by the Center for Representative Politics, to track money in American politics, shows that the amount of money spent by non-party Committees during the 2010 elections was over $300 million, more than four times the amount spent during the 2006 Congressional elections.
As of March 1, in the 2012 election cycle outside organizations have spent $71,382,728 of which $61,418,351 was spent by 342 Super PACs. Once the general election expenditures are folded in, the total projection is expected to exceed $8 billion for the 2012 cycle.
Additional Supporting Documentation
WHEREAS, free and fair elections are essential to democracy and effective self-governance, and the Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission decision supersedes state and local efforts to regulate corporate activity in their elections;
WHEREAS, it is the inherent right of the residents of the City of Olympia to govern their own community, including, without limitation, the Declaration of Independence’s provision that governments are instituted to secure the rights of people and the Washington State Constitution’s recognition that “all political power is inherent in the people”; and
WHEREAS, the Olympia City Council believes that local legislation which embodies the fundamental interests of the community is mandated by the doctrine of the consent of the governed;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the City of Olympia affirms and upholds the principle that the rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.
Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.
The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Federal, State, and local government may regulate all political contributions and expenditures made for the purpose of influencing in any way the electoral process and shall mandate that all political contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that nothing contained in this resolution shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that by the adoption of this Resolution, with the concurrence of the Mayor, the City of Olympia hereby indicates its SUPPORT for Legislative actions ensuring corporations are not entitled to the protections or "rights" of human beings, but only to the legal standing as defined in their charters which created them as legal entities, and specifically that the expenditure of corporate money to influence the electoral process is no longer a form of constitutionally protected speech.
July 17, 2012 - Move to Amend Olympia and Occupy Olympia Political Action Working Group:
Citizen's Request to the City of Olympia for a Resolution to Deny Corporate Personhood
Why should the City of Olympia pass a resolution against corporate personhood?
1. Elections are purchased2. Costs are in(un)supportable
Elections are purchased:
Citizens United had an immediate impact in the 2010 elections when $30.6 million, most from anonymous sources, was spent to influence elections by outside organizations unaffiliated with political parties. Counting party-related organizations, $210 million was spent by independent groups in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
SUPER-PAC spending this year will reach a projected $8 billion.
Costs to local government:
1. Climate change
· Total for One Foot Sea Level Rise Berm $8.5 M
· Total for 4-Foot 2-Inches Berm $13.6 M
· Pump Station Indian/Moxlie Creeks $25 M
· Other miscellaneous pump stations $12 M
· Consolidating Stormwater Pipes:
· Major system $1,500/FT
· Minor system $500/FT
· 500 cfs Pump Station $30M
· 50 cfs Pump Station $7M
· Total for West Bay Outfall Consolidation $4.1M
Grand Total >$100 M
2. Increasing Need for Social Services
· Increasing Population
· Decreasing number of state jobs including teachers
· Decrease in funding sources from state and federal government
· Current 14.9% population living below poverty level in Olympia
· Increasing rate of foreclosures
Twelve percent of local workforce are state employees. There are 23,835 state employees and 5,400 K-12 employees in Thurston County. With the 3% salary cut, increased health insurance costs, and increased retirement deductions, the average state employee will take home $3,690 less in each year of the new biennium. That is a loss of $92.7 million per year to local families and the local economy.
Source: Rep. Sam Hunt report.
3. Coal Trains (see Coal Terminals tab on this website for more details)
Railroads have “claimed personhood” since the Civil War years. What is happening in many PNW towns will be coming here making it imperative to create a legal case through binding legal action. Clean air, water and human health are at stake. Bellingham, Hoquiam and many towns along the Columbia River are fighting for their health and the environment.
· Increase in heavy coal train traffic will affect local communities.
· Due to increased coal exports, coal transport could exceed 75 million tons annually by
2017 and 170 million tons annually by 2022 at six terminals on PNW coast.
· In 2010, trains unloaded about 80 million tons of freight in OR and WA according to a
June 30, 2012 article in The Oregonian.
· Payment for needed overpasses, underpasses and upgrades will be paid by local
taxpayers. Upgrades (to deal with interrupted traffic flows) will not be covered by the
corporations; local governments pick up the tab, which is estimated to be in the billions
over a four state area.
Source: The Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) on July 11, 2012, discussed a new report entitled Heavy Traffic Ahead: Rail Impacts of Powder River Basin Coal to Asia. The report, prepared by Whiteside & Associates and G. W. & Associates for WORC, details the expected increase in coal transport and identifies impacts to communities along the transport routes.
Additional Coal Train Sources:
Missoula Ward 1 City Councilman on Coal Impact
· Significant costs to local communities. Significant costs to local cities.
· 15 trains per day thru our community means noise, fouled air and one grade crossing receives 5,000 stalled vehicles daily
· Lobbying Corps of Engineers [to produce] EIS
· Mining and shippers must be held accountable for any environmental, economic and social justice impacts
· This is truly a social justice issue, and certainly affects local citizens. Air pollution most affects low-income neighborhoods.
Source: Dave Strohmaier
Title: Ward 1 Council Member
Phone: (406) 327-8911
dstrohmaier@ci.missoula.mt.us
The county has more than one-third of the state’s general-government, legislative and judicial jobs.
As of Jan 2011, head counts show that the number of Thurston County workers in those categories shrank by 4.9 percent – to 22,227 full- and part-time positions from a high of 23,373 in June 2008. That is a loss of about 1,146 jobs from the peak.
The local economy continues to be driven by government employment as 36 percent of all nonfarm employment can be attributed to state and local government jobs. During the recession, the loss of tax revenues earlier driven by a robust construction sector began to eat into state revenues. The result has been a period of budget constraints and cuts.
The recession caught up to the government sector as budget woes led to the loss of 800 jobs between December 2010 and December 2011. Most of the losses were in state government. By December 2011, preliminary estimates showed 35,600 government employees, down from 37,400 a year earlier.
Source: RECESSION: Work force still suffering from down economy, budget shortfall
BRAD SHANNON; Staff writer • Published January 10, 2011
“I’m thinking it is going to look like it did in the early ’80s when we had some pretty significant drops in total employment. We are going to experience that again. … We won’t necessarily experience a drop in population,’’ Pete Swensson, a senior planner with Thurston Regional Planning Council,
Swensson has tracked demographic and economic trends in the community for several decades and says the recession in the early 1990s did not lead to a reduction in local government jobs.
This time, Swensson predicts a loss of 135 private sector jobs for each 100 state positions eliminated. The hit will be significant for restaurants, shops and retail trade. The state Department of Personnel estimates there are 21,700 state agency jobs in Thurston County, paying an average annual salary of $58,600.
http://www.theolympian.com/2009/06/27/893890/reciprocal-relationship-links.html
- storylink=misearch
In an interview this spring, with the Olympia Supply Manager, his comment
summarized a widely-held concern for Olympia small businesses:
“With the influx of box stores, I see even stores like Safeway carrying patio furniture. This stress on small businesses means it is harder and harder to hold onto a market ‘niche.’ I think this has a huge impact on small Olympia business survival.”
Numbers of small businesses having closed in recent years was not available through the Department of Revenue, nor Department of Licensing.
Number of “box stores” in Olympia area, based on estimates of those in excess of 50,000 square feet: 16. A Community Values Ordinance that received national recognition as a “potential model” for the country, which detailed a survey that cities could implement in deciding whether or not to permit businesses entering the community, was voted down by two local cities. Statistics verifying the exact number of small business closures in Olympia over past years is unavailable.
summarized a widely-held concern for Olympia small businesses:
“With the influx of box stores, I see even stores like Safeway carrying patio furniture. This stress on small businesses means it is harder and harder to hold onto a market ‘niche.’ I think this has a huge impact on small Olympia business survival.”
Numbers of small businesses having closed in recent years was not available through the Department of Revenue, nor Department of Licensing.
Number of “box stores” in Olympia area, based on estimates of those in excess of 50,000 square feet: 16. A Community Values Ordinance that received national recognition as a “potential model” for the country, which detailed a survey that cities could implement in deciding whether or not to permit businesses entering the community, was voted down by two local cities. Statistics verifying the exact number of small business closures in Olympia over past years is unavailable.
Money in Elections
As of March 1, in the 2012 election cycle outside organizations have spent $71,382,728 of which $61,418,351 was spent by 342 Super PACs. Once the general election expenditures are folded in, the total projection is expected to exceed $8 billion for the 2012 cycle.
Additional Supporting Documentation
Recommended highly. Discusses how city officials in Seattle, Auburn, Tukwila, Bremerton have misused the law; and how it has been effectively used in cities requiring remediation, including Everett with the Asarco smelter contamination, and in Vancouver. See:
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Nov.%202009%20CRL.pdf
_____________________
Objections Raised by Lawyer (Vincent Todd) with Answers from Colorado MTA Ken Roberts -- to Jefferson County Resolution Calling for Abolition of Corporate Personhood and Declaration that Money is Not Speech
[Note: Against Resolution Font: Times New Roman 12 (Black) For the Resolution Font: Arial 12 Bold (Blue); Micheal Melio comments bracketed [mdm: ...]
Arguments Against Adopting the Specific Resolution to Abolish Corporate Personhood (Vincent Todd, lawyer)
The problem with the criticism of the Supreme Court's rational in Citizen's United is that partnerships, associations and corporations are so deeply ingrained in our society that the First Amendment would be meaningless if left guaranteeing only the rights of assembly, association and expression in natural persons.
It would not be meaningless at all because these rights are already guaranteed to the individuals who comprise, in aggregate, partnerships, associations, and corporations. Granting them again to these aggregates counts these individuals, and only these individuals, twice, which is a violation of the most fundamental principle of political democracy: one person, one vote.
Churches, Trade Unions, Political Parties, Newspapers and Television Networks all have found protection under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The individuals who comprise these aggregates already have protection under the First Amendment. They don’t need to be protected twice.
A Union Organizer may have First Amendment rights as a natural person, but if the Union has no First Amendment Right to employ the Organizer or to provide materials or sustenance to assist the Organizer, the Union would not be able to function.
[Note: this is a divide and conquer tactic. We may want to give thought to this tactic ourselves.] The individuals who comprise the Union have every right to provide materials and sustenance to the Organizer, and union function is in no way impeded. On the other hand, unions are vastly outspent by the wealthy CEOs who arrogate to themselves the right to allocate the resources of corporations politically, when that right properly belongs only to the individual shareholders who are the proper owners of the corporation.
The reporter may have the scoop of the century, but if no one exists to print it, who learns of the story.The proposed amendment in no way impedes the existence of a press. Indeed, by reducing the political clout of the largest media conglomerates, the door is opened to a much greater diversity of smaller and more local publications.
[mdm: It is important to frame this debate upon this foundation: that Freedom of the Press is founded upon Freedom of Speech; and that Press Freedom is therefore an extension of our Human Right to Free Speech, with the addition that we “also have the right to publish our words and ideas.”]
How many hubs in the Internet, necessary to the distribution of any of the world wide web, are owned by individuals and not corporations?
More divide and conquer. Ownership of the hubs of the internet will not be affected in any way by the proposed amendment.
If your minister has the right to free speech from his pulpit, but the Church has no right to have the pulpit in a structure where people can assemble to worship and hear from the minister, how is his pulpit protected?
The minister’s right to free speech is already guaranteed to him. However, the reach of the minister, and indeed the reach of all of us, is largely impeded by the existence of huge media conglomerates.
Without the First Amendment the minister can preach from a soapbox in a public park or street corner, but no association or other "corporate" entity has a guarantee that the state cannot prevent them from buying a taller or larger soapbox or even property upon which to install pews for those who wish to listen.
For the reasons previously identified, our amendment does far more to secure the First Amendment than does the enshrinement of fictional corporate persons, whose “rights” are counted twice, and then counted again through massive political corruption. The state doesn’t buy larger soapboxes, but corporations most assuredly do.
If your criteria is personhood, then the millionaires and billionaires may spend as much of their wealth individually to battle our message as they want, but the law could prevent us from pooling our wealth (political parties, PACs or Non-profits) to fight their agenda.
Number of US billionaires: 412 Number of US millionaires: 3 million Number of US corporations: 7 million (with another 25 million companies)
If the millionaires and billionaires are limited in their contributions to the same levels that the rest of us can afford, the playing field would be greatly leveled, and nothing says that this can’t be done separately from this amendment.
[mdm: acknowledgement: Nothing in the MTA 28th Amendment addresses the personal financial contributions of individuals, wealthy, middle-class or poor. This remains an area in need of further exploration. But corporations would be denied a role in the political process under our Amendment.]
If you are employed by a corporation, it is that corporation's First Amendment Rights that prevent them from being excluded from the political process and prevented from bidding on government jobs, or barred government licenses necessary to continue your employment.
It is unlikely that issues of this nature would ever arise. However, if they did, corporations could still bid on government jobs and could still obtain government licenses even if they weren’t legally persons. They would simply do so instead as corporations.
[mdm: Bidding on a government contract does not imply that they are persons; the Accountants and Representatives of the corporation can still bid on its behalf without having to grant that entity the same Constitutional Rights that humans alone possess.]
A movement which strips individuals of the right to pool their resources to act through partnerships, associations or corporations only empowers the rich and holds down the middle class.
This charge merits serious ridicule.
It is CEO pooling of resources (that don’t belong to them) that only empowers the rich, a social class which is largely comprised of those same CEOs. It is these CEOs who are holding down the middle class through corruption of the political process [mdm: buying favorable laws through a presumed ‘personhood’ right to ‘petition government for a redress of grievances’]. Citizens United was a judicial coup by corrupt activist judges, nothing less, and had as its specific objective the empowering of the rich and the elimination of the middle class by legitimating bribes as corporate “free speech.”
If you wanted to, you could also bring up the little-known Business Roundtable and/or ALEC. The BR, in addition to advocating for bloated CEO pay, is the organization primarily responsible for the offshore-outsourcing of millions of American jobs. And they’ve done that outsourcing because compensation is a zero-sum game. The higher the salaries for employees, the lower the salaries of corporate executives.
The amendment still permits individuals to pool their resources and act through partnerships, associations, and corporations for business purposes. It simply insists that their political rights not be counted twice (or, in actuality far more than once through immense bribes).
_______________________
Moyers: Six Banks Control 60% of Gross National Product -- Is the U.S. at the Mercy of an Unstoppable Oligarchy?
Moyers and economists James Kwak and Simon Johnson wonder whether the financial powers are more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever.
April 23, 2010 |
The following is a transcript taken from Bill Moyers' recent interview with Simon Johnson and James Kwak on Bill Moyers Journal. SEE http://www.alternet.org/story/146528/
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Americans Don't Realize Just How Badly We're Getting Screwed by the Top 0.1 Percent Hoarding the Country's Wealth ... By David DeGraw.
o With an unprecedented sum of wealth held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the most severe inequality of wealth in US history. http://tinyurl.com/WorstInequalityInUSHistory
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Very interesting statements on banking regulation and internal silent agreements from PA Representative Kanjorski.
http://2012indyinfo.com/2011/08/24/former-rep-decries-corporate-control-of-government-the-2012-scenario/
