We the People of Essex Town, Vermont say “corporations are not people.”
Our democracy has been corrupted because the United States Supreme Court decided wrongly on January 21, 2010 in a court case called “Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission” that corporations are people entitled by our U.S constitution to the same rights as “We the People.” A 5-4 decision under John Roberts, The Supreme Court voted in favor of Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, had the right to air a movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primary.
With the “Citizens United” decision, The Supreme Court opened Pandora’s Box. Corporations now have the right to contribute unlimited sums of money to influence elections. Money is not speech and the Supreme Court should not be in the business of limiting or granting freedom of speech. Free speech, is free.
In the spirit of direct democracy, we circulate this petition which acknowledges that the Citizen United decision without campaign finance reform enables our inalienable rights to be denied. Corporate control of our federal government places profits over people, self interest over justice, and oppression over equality. We the people lose our right to self govern.
A constitutional amendment can overturn the Citizens United case. There are two ways to propose a constitutional amendment. Either two-thirds of Congress can agree to an amendment or there can be a constitutional amendment called by two-thirds of state legislatures (this path has never been taken.) In order to ratify an amendment, three-quarters of state legislatures must agree or three-quarters of states must have individual constitutional conventions that agree.
With this petition, we the people are asking our local citizens and governing leadership to restore democracy by supporting a constitutional amendment that will overturn the Citizens United case. Vermonters say corporations are not people!
How we got into this mess
