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COUNTY OF HAWAII -���" % • <br /> STATE OF HAWAII <br /> t�os•M►'p: <br /> RESOLUTION NO. 267 15 <br /> A RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE HAWAII STATE ASSOCIATION OF <br /> COUNTIES TO INCLUDE IN ITS 2016 LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE A RESOLUTION <br /> URGING HAWAI'I'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TO PROPOSE AND PASS <br /> AN AMENDMENT CLARIFYING THAT CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE WITH <br /> CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, AND THAT UNLIMITED CAMPAIGN SPENDING IS <br /> NOT FREE SPEECH. <br /> WHEREAS, the United States Constitution was written and approved with the intention <br /> of protecting the rights of individual human beings ("natural persons"); and <br /> WHEREAS, corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution, and the people of the <br /> Unites States ("The People") have never granted constitutional rights to corporations, nor <br /> decreed that corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of The People; and <br /> WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court, in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of <br /> commerce (1990), recognized as a threat to a republican form of government "the corrosive and <br /> distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the <br /> corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's <br /> political ideas"; and <br /> WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election <br /> Commission (2010) ("Citizens United") reversed the decision in Austin by rolling back legal <br /> limits on corporate spending in the electoral process and allowing unlimited corporate spending <br /> to sway votes and influence elections, candidate selection, and policy decisions; and <br /> WHEREAS, the majority decision in Citizens United was recognized as a serious threat <br /> to self-government by the four dissenting justices. Corporations have special advantages not <br /> enjoyed by natural persons, such as limited liability,perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the <br /> accumulation and distribution of assets. These advantages allow them to amass and spend <br /> prodigious sums on campaign messages that often have far greater reach and influence than <br /> messages from individuals; and <br /> WHEREAS, federal courts in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and in SpeechNow.org v. FED <br /> (2010) overturned limits on independent expenditures because the "corruption or perception of <br /> corruption" rationale was only applicable to direct contributions to candidates; and <br /> WHEREAS, Unites States Supreme Court in Justice Stevens observed in Nixon v. <br /> Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) that"money is property, it is not speech"; and <br />