Petition to Revoke Corporate Charters

This letter was sent yesterday...

Ohio State Senator Mike Skindell

Ohio State Senator Shirley Smith

Ohio State Representative Bob Hagan

Ohio State Representative Mike Foley

Ohio State Representative Nickie Antonio

Ohio State Representative Zack Milkovich

Greetings!

Attached please find a petition being delivered today, March 6, to the office of Attorney General Mike DeWine. It calls on him to initiate charter revocation (called "quo warranto") proceedings against the corporations owned by Ben Lupo.

You may know that Mr. Lupo, d/b/a one or more of as many as 20 corporate fronts, apparently instructed his employees to dump as much as 250,000 gallons of waste materials from unconventional horizontal hydraulic fracturing into the City of Youngstown's storm sewer system, knowing or having reason to know that the system was connected ultimately and directly to the Mahoning River.

The attached petition calls on Attorney General DeWine to respond not with a fine or revocation of a permit, but a revocation of his corporate charter(s) -- a common response used by our forebears in Ohio in response to corporations acting beyond their authority as defined in their corporate charters. Quo warranto proceedings were once used routinely  as a democratic tool by Ohio legislatures and courts to affirm the sovereign power of We the People over corporate, which are, after all, creations of government. 

The petition to Attorney General Mike DeWine is offered in the spirit of affirming that We the People and our elected representatives possess and should utilize this democratic tool to ensure that corporations are ultimately subordinate to us. It is also a legal means for elected officials and the courts to protect the health, safety and welfare of citizens. Please consider urging the AG to initiate such proceedings. 

Ohio Revised Code (Chapter 2733) describes quo warranto. It identifies the Ohio General Assembly as another state entity which can commence a quo warranto proceeding. This may be an option you may wish to consider if the Attorney General fails to fulfill his duty.

Thank you kindly for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Greg Coleridge

Director

Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee

[a Quaker social action organization]

Address: 2101 Front St., #111, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221

Phone: 330-928-2301

Fax: 330-928-2628

Email: gcoleridge@afsc.org

Here's news coverage of it...
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/petitioners-seek-to-have-ben-lupo-s-corporate-charters-revoked-1.378918

URGENT: Ohio Senate Vote TODAY on Limiting Citizens Initiative and Referendum

Our Constitutional Rights to "Do Democracy Directly" via citizen initiatives and referendums is under assault in Ohio. A vote is scheduled at 4:00 pm TODAY by the Ohio Senate Government Oversight Committee. Please don't put it off. Please ACT RIGHT NOW. The link below allows you to quickly find and send an email to your State Senator.

If we ever reach the point of initiating a Move to Amend citizens initiative campaign in Ohio, we must protect these 101 year old rules empowering citizens the right to "Do Democracy Directly."
 
http://statevoices.salsalabs.com/o/62/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=525

Democracy Day Testimony

This was testimony provided last night during the first "Democracy Day" in Brecksville, stipulated as part of their citizens initiative passed by voters last November. The community forum lasted 4 hours. Dozens of people testified. Pictures of the event are HERE

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Good evening. My name is Greg Coleridge. I’m the director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee and Coordinator of Move to Amend Ohio. Both groups have Brecksville supporters concerned about the issues explored tonight.

I want to thank Brecksville citizens who in November voted to  “keep democracy alive by voting YES on issue 25.”

Sadly, a growing number of Americans, including those in Brecksville, feel what’s left of our democracy is in peril.

People who believe our country isn’t broken, but fixed…as in rigged…to benefit the super rich, corporations, and/or unions.

People who believe that We the People is more myth than reality.

Your prophetic law calls on the city to ask Congress to pass a constitutional amendment declaring that only human beings, not corporations, possess inalienable constitutional rights and that political money is not equivalent to political speech. Corporations here includes for-profit, not-for-profit and union entities.

Inalienable constitutional rights were intended by our nation’s founders to apply solely to human beings. Corporations are government creations. They were originally subordinate to We the People. They didn’t possess constitutional rights, only publicly granted protections and privileges.

Since corporations are our creations, we have the democratic duty to set their limits. This constitutional amendment would reassert our original democratic authority to define corporate political boundaries – through the democratic process of councils, assemblies and congresses.

Nor is money speech – the second part of the proposed constitutional amendment. If money is speech, then those who have the most money have the most speech. That’s not a definition of democracy, but of plutocracy – a pretty accurate description of our current political condition.

Money from corporations and the wealthy few harms democracy and the citizens of Brecksville in 5 ways:

First, it limits viable candidates. Individuals with good ideas, significant experiences, and/or strong personal integrity who desire to run for public office to represent Brecksville residents are deterred if they don’t have money or unable to raise the money it takes to be viable.

Second, it distorts political agendas. The requirement to attract major dollars to be viable means candidates will only address issues major political contributors or investors approve. This means Brecksville voters didn’t hear the positions of federal candidates last November on a host of issues. It also means those without money in Brecksville and elsewhere have a tough time having their political views heard.

Third, it corrupts public policy. "The best return on assets is always a political contribution," says economist William Black. This includes actual financial benefits (such as tax cuts for the wealthy or bailing out Wall Street banks). It includes laws shielding certain people (such as incompetent union employees). And it includes what government actions are not taken (such as criminal prosecutions of Wall Street bankers for the financial collapse) – all of which affects citizens here. The political pay-to-play system of legalized bribery results in higher taxes for most citizens, less competition, more inefficiencies, and encouragement of those who profit from their political investments to politically invest even more.

Fourth, it distorts political news. As more political money is raised, more is spent. Much of it is on media advertising, which is very profitable. News organizations have less incentive to provide real news coverage of elections to citizens in Brecksville and elsewhere if they know huge dollars will be spent on their stations for Super PAC-funded one-sided ads. 

Finally, big money from the wealthy and corporations furthers depoliticalization. Has an explosion in political money resulted in an explosion of participatory democracy? No. People are turned off by the increasing negativity of political messages, the evolution of elections into political spectator events, and the inability of citizens to meaningfully engage in public policy formation.

Brecksville has taken a powerful stand in support of a real democratic fix to our broken and rigged political system.

Thank you Brecksville.

Happy Democracy Day!

Move to Amend's Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution

Here's the Amendment. It was introduced today.

WE THE PEOPLE AMENDMENT

Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.

Artificial 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.

Section 2. [Money is Not Free Speech]

Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

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To read the press release, click here

We the People Amendment

Penta Reasons to Cut the Pentagon

This is an expanded version of remarks provided at the "No Cuts" rally on January 30 on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, sponsored by the "No Cuts Coalition," a Faith-based/Labor/Community coalition 

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Those in Congress and the public focusing on saving earned benefit (i.e. Social Security and Medicare) and domestic (i.e. education, food assistance, housing, etc.) programs from budget cuts need to focus on the Pentagon for finding money to reduce our nation’s debt. Additional tax increases on the rich are one source. Closing tax loopholes for corporations are another. Cutting the bloated Pentagon military budget is certainly a third source.

As the Pentagon is the five sided headquarters of the U.S. military, here’s penta (Greek for the number five) reasons for cutting the Pentagon – expressed in five different numbers:

0: Number of full audits of the Pentagon. The Pentagon is the only U.S. agency not subject to regular audits. Their mammoth and decentralized bureaucracy injected each year with hundreds of billions of tax dollars has been virtually impossible to track. Documented levels of waste have in some cases exceeded entire budgets of several human needs programs. Anyone with any semblance of fiscal responsibility should be both shocked and outraged at the “defense” (definitely no pun intended) that the Pentagon is simply “too big to audit” (where have we heard that kind of language before?). No person in his or her right mind would perceive any private company or non-profit charitable organization as reputable, which wasn’t subjected to annual audits. The result of Congress forcing a recent audit of the Federal Reserve system (for the first time in its history) was the discovery of $16 trillion that were made available to “too big to fail” US and international banks -- at the very time homeowners and communities were struggling following the 2007-8 financial collapse. A full Pentagon audit will undoubtedly reveal billions upon billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse.

2: As is 2 times or double. Pentagon spending has doubled since 1998—and that doesn’t include the $1.4 trillion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Pentagon doesn’t spend all the money it’s allocated each year. At the end of the 2012 Fiscal Year ending last September 30, $100 billion was sitting in its bank waiting to be spent.

60: As in nearly 60% of all spending Congress votes on directly (called discretionary spending) last year went to the Pentagon. Congress has in the past allocated more to the Pentagon than what they’ve requested. The 2012 budget is about six times larger the military budget of China. It’s also greater than the next twenty largest military spenders on earth – combined.

1000: Number of military bases and installations outside the United States of America. Many call the US global military expansion an Empire – with a presence on every continent in scores of nations. It’s estimated that $170 billion per year is spent to maintain US bases and troops around the world. Since the start of the 2001 so-called “war on terror,” estimates to maintain this global military Empire is around $2 trillion…and counting. Does the U.S. really need multiple military bases and installations in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Japan and many other nations? The economies of many of these nations are better than ours.

51: As in 51% percent increase over the last year in political lobbying by Northrup Grumman corporation, a major military contractor. Another major contractor, Lockheed Martin corporation, increased their lobbying last year by 25%. Such lobbying buys access and influence – resulting in ever more military contracts to produce ever more weapon systems we don’t need and certainly can’t afford.

The number 51, however, also happens to be the percent of Americans who want Pentagon cuts to reduce the deficit, according to a recent poll by the conservative Economist magazine. This compares to 31% who want cuts to Medicaid, 21% to Medicare, and 19% to Social Security. If our nation is anything approaching a representative democracy, these poll numbers should mean our federal elected officials would look first and not last at the Pentagon for places to find money to reduce the deficit. We know, though, that political influence from corporation and the very wealthy trumps the voice of the rest of our nation’s citizens. It’s up to the vast majority of people who want to see earned benefit and domestic programs preserved to join with vast numbers of others to create a political force to collectively demand cuts in the Pentagon.  Such initiatives won’t come from the top down. They must come from us.

Citizens United rally

By: Ryan Clark
The Columbus Dispatch - January 18, 2013 4:01 PM
http://dispatchpolitics.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2013/01/11813-citizens-united-rally.html

Citizens United opponents likened the rights of corporations to a national scandal this week: Manti Te’o’s hoax girlfriend.

“If you think about this notion of a ‘catfish relationship’ of an online, supposedly hoax of a person who was relating to another person that didn’t even exist,” said Greg Coleridge, of Move to Amend. “The media has jumped on that, meanwhile the ultimate Moby Dick … of a hoax is that we have defined corporations as persons.”

Coleridge spoke to about 20 people during a press conference today on the danger of giving rights to corporations. Later, about 30 people marched to the Ohio Statehouse with signs and a megaphone to spread their message.

Citizens United is a controversial Supreme Court decision that expanded the rights of corporations to donate funds in the political arena.

Tabitha Woodruff, of the Ohio PIRG Education Fund, released what she said is troubling data the organization collected about fundraising during the 2012 election season, specifically from Super PAC and outside organizations. Outside groups – those not officially collaborating with candidates – spent more than $41 million on Ohio’s federal Senate and House races last year. Of that, super-PACs spent $18.8 million, according to the organization’s report.

The report also stated that more than 40 percent of outside funding came from groups that are not required to publicly disclose their donors.

In all, super-PACs spent $634 million this election and often-affiliated 501(c) groups spent $300 million, according to the Sunlight Foundation. The figures include House, Senate and presidential races.

Woodruff and others said the large amount of outside and hidden spending alters the election process.
“When you talk about one person, one vote, that’s not happening anymore,” Woodruff said.

Citizens United opponents are fighting to eventually pass a constitutional amendment to remove the rights of corporations completely, allowing legislators to regulate campaign fundraising and spending.
The movement has not received high levels of media attention, but is gaining members and momentum, said Michael Greenman, co-founder of the Central Ohio Move to Amend organization.

As opponents spread the word, more people will get on board, which is important because of the suppression of democracy has become like the suppression of the colonists by the pre-revolutionary British, Greenman said.

“We can’t even talk about gun control because of the influence of corporations,” he said. “This movement has got to come from the people.”

The problem, Greenman said, is that there is not enough attention and motivation yet. Achieving the goal of a constitutional amendment is still decades off, he said.

Opponents have made progress, however, with city councils in cities like Athens and Oberlin passing official resolutions, Greenman said.

“I don’t think anyone is saying it’s going to be quick,” Greenman said. “I’d love to be optimistic, but it may not even happen within my lifetime – and I’ll keep fighting until then.”