Abolishing Corporate Personhood

author: Brian

Move to Amend is a nationwide movement based on the clear goal of abolishing corporate personhood. We've just begun organizing in Portland. This is a short report from our booth at the Mississippi Street Fair on Saturday.

Through a series of court decisions over the past 150 years, corporations have been given the same rights as human beings despite being a legal creation. Because this occurred via court decisions, neither the legislative nor executive branches of government can do anything to overturn these rulings. Our only hope to limit corporate domination would be a series of Supreme Court reversals (Highly unlikely) or, through a Constitutional Amendment.

We are working on a LT plan to amend the Constitution.

Our shorter-term goal would be a public referendum here in Portland on the issue of corporate personhood. The earliest this would be on the ballot is 2012. For now, we are just beginning to organize, spread the word, and move forward.

You can register your support by signing the Motion to Amend at www.MoveToAmend.org

Saturday we had a booth at the Mississippi Street Fair. It was my first opportunity to do public outreach and the community support was fantastic. I have ample experience gathering signatures and I've never felt so much support. Support ranged from rabid to the newly recruited, but we often had a line at our booth with people patiently waiting a few minutes to sign. We had so much support that we actually ran out of petition sheets and had to get more printed in the late afternoon.

I can't tell you how many signatures we actually got but the number was significant. The Move to Amend Facebook page had 1,850 new "likes" last week.

... Or the U.S. Government can just regulate corporations like under Carter.  [Boy, oh Boy - Reagan would spin and do summersaults in his grave if we do this!]