If you are interested in joining our mailing list, please submit your email below.
Ending Corporate Personhood
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to spend unregulated and disclosed sums of money on elections. The Citizens United decision has led to unprecedented campaign spending on the part of multi-billion dollar corporations, drowning out the voices of We the People. When corporations have constitutional rights, peoples’ rights become meaningless. How can one human being’s power to speak compare to a massive corporation’s ability to speak?
Jan. 20th – Day of Action – Occupy The Courts
Sign the Occupy Portland Petition – Why This Is Important
Sign this petition to send a strong message to Portland City officials and Congress that we need a U.S. constitutional amendment that makes clear that only PEOPLE are entitled to the rights of the U.S. constitution and money IS NOT speech!
Mayor Sam Adams has issued a proposed resolution of the Portland City Council supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that makes clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech.
We need to thank the Mayor for introducing the resolution and request two primary revisions:
(1) make clear that corporations are not entitled to ANY constitutional rights (currently the resolution says corporations are not entitled to the SAME rights as people)
(2) remove reference to the proposed amendments currently sponsored by Oregon’s Congressional representatives as these amendments deal only with the issue of money as speech and not the issue of corporate personhood (i.e., these proposals need to be strengthened).
In addition, we need the City to refer an initiative to Portland voters so that we can make our voices heard on this critical issue.
More national info available here.
- Corporate Personhood Talking Points
- Action-in-a-Box Toolkit
Instant Runoff Voting
The initiative: Ranked Choice Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for Portland City Elections, with county and state to follow.
Timeframe: Working with the City of Portland’s Charter Review Commission have an IRV proposal cemented for a vote by the Commission to put on the November 2012 General Election ballot as a charter amendment. The goal would be for implimentation during the 2014 election for Portland and on the 2014 ballot have IRV for Multnomah county, other cities and possibly for the State of Oregon.
Why: IRV is a better election method then what we have now. It is part of package of fixes needed for us to have a functioning effective democracy.
For example for local elections now candidates can be elected outright in the primary election with turn out around 30 percent. That means candidates are be elected with 16% of registered voters. IRV eliminates primaries from local elections so candidates can only be elected at a general election which has twice the turn out.
Similar candidates spoiling elections plagues our democracy, IRV eliminates that with the ranked choice method that ensures your vote can matter even if you vote for Nader. It also results in candidates wining with a higher percentage of votes cast, and so have a stronger mandate moving forward.
Negative campaigning is a waste of time, money, and drains the goodwill of the public. We have a lot of problems. We should be focusing on solutions rather than tearing each other down. IRV rewards candidates that focus on the issues and punishes campaigns that attack rival bases of support.
Take action!: We need help. The nose to the grindstone kind.
Join the IRV workgroup. This is our google group: http://groups.google.com/
Try to become a member of the Charter Review Commission. A number of empty slots have opened up. Email if you’d like to join the commission.
Work on the IRV campaign. Email if you’d like to help out.