HomeMy WebLinkAboutRES 263 Draft 01 2010-2012 .!-:tr. ........
COUNTY OF HAWAII - _ STATE OF HAWAII
RESOLUTION NO. 263 12
A RESOLUTION URGING THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS TO PASS AND SEND
TO THE STATES FOR RATIFICATION OF A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO
REVERSE CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION(2010).
WHEREAS,the protections afforded by the First Amendment to the United States
Constitution to the people of our nation are fundamental to our democracy; and
WHEREAS, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was designed to
protect the free speech rights of individual human beings ("natural persons"), not corporations;
and
WHEREAS, corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution and We The People
have never recognized the extension of fundamental constitutional rights to corporations, nor
have We decreed that corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of We the People;
and
WHEREAS, corporate misuse of the First Amendment and the Constitution reached an
extreme conclusion in the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission (2010); and
WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission (2010) represents a serious and direct threat to our democracy; and
WHEREAS, the Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
(2010) overturned longstanding precedent prohibiting corporations from spending their general
treasury funds in our elections; and
WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) overturned the
Court's earlier decision in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), which recognized
the threat to a republican form of government posed by "the corrosive and distorting effects of
immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and
that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas;" and
WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) also overturned
aspects of the Court's more recent decision in McConnell v. FEC(2005), which by contrast had
upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), an act whose modest reforms
were being challenged in Citizens United; and
WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) erroneously
equated the desire of large corporations to influence political decision-making through massive
electoral expenditures with the speech of individuals and groups seeking to make their voices
heard; and
WHEREAS, contrary to the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)
majority's assumption that disclosure would allow for public accountability, half of the
drastically increased spending during the 2010 elections was by political committees not required
to disclose their donors; and
WHEREAS, the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) four dissenting
justices observed that, "Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings,
to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not
themselves members of'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was
established;" and
WHEREAS, the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) dissenters
correctly observed that money spent on behalf of candidates is a means of amplifying speech and
not a form of political speech itself, and restrictions on corporate spending are more properly
viewed as restrictions on the time, place and manner of speech; and
WHEREAS, in his dissenting opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission (2010), Justice John Paul Stevens observed that "At bottom, the Court's opinion
is...a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to
prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have
fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of
Theodore Roosevelt....While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this
Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics;" and
WHEREAS, spending in the 2012 elections is projected to total at least $8 billion, and
spending by "Super PACs" has played a dominant and deleterious role in shaping the
presidential election thus far; and
WHEREAS, In 1816, former President Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I hope we shall crush
in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our
government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country;" and
WHEREAS, In his 1910 "New Nationalism" speech, former President Theodore
Roosevelt stated that, "It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate
funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should
be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes...have supplied one of the
principal sources of corruption in our political affairs;" and
WHEREAS, Article V of the United States Constitution empowers and obligates the
people and states of the United States of America to use the constitutional amendment process to
2
correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the
heart of our democracy and republican self - government; and
WHEREAS, notwithstanding the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission (2010), legislators have a duty to protect democracy and guard against the
potentially detrimental effects of corporate spending in local, state, and federal elections; now,
therefore
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE COUNTY OF HAWAII, calls
upon the United States Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional
amendment to reverse Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010); and to clarify
that: Corporations are not entitled to the Constitutional protections or "rights" of natural persons.
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the County Clerk shall forward copies of this
resolution to Senator Daniel Inouye, Senator Daniel Akaka, Representative Mazie Hirono, and
Representative Colleen Hanabusa.
Dated at Hilo , Hawai`i, this 3rd day of
INTRODUCED._ BY:
July
, 2012.
ER, COUNTY OF HAWAII
COUNTY COUNCIL
County of Hawaii
Hilo, Hawai`i
I hereby certify that the foregoing RESOLUTION was by
the vote indicated to the right hereof adopted by the COUNCIL of the
County of Hawaii on July 3, 2012
ATTEST:
ii21/111*
OUNTY CLERK CHAIRPERSON & PRESIDIN
3
ROLL CALL VOTE
Reference: C- 735 /GRC -16
RESOLUTION NO. 263 12
AYES
NOES
ABS
EX
BLAS
X
FORD
X
HOFFMANN
X
IKEDA
X
ONISHI
X
PILAGO
X
SMART
X
YAGONG
X
YOSHIMOTO
X
8
0
1
0
Reference: C- 735 /GRC -16
RESOLUTION NO. 263 12