Plumas Citizens United R

Plumas County Board of Supervisors Passes Resolution Against Citizens United 051612

 

The Plumas County Board of Supervisors yesterday passed a resolution against the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.  The 2010 SCOTUS 5-4 decision favored Citizens United, a right wing reactionary and nationalistic group fighting “one world governments” and other inevitable features of the 21st century.   The group wanted to advertise Hillary; the movie which portrays then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as the middle class schoolmarm she is.  

 

 

Hillary: she’ll keep you after school

The Federal Election Commission determined that the expenditure would be illegal.  CU argued before the Supreme Court that it constituted a “person” under the 14th Amendment, a court tradition since 1819, stated in clerk’s notes in 1886.  The intention, it seems, of the early interpretations is that corporations are aggregates of persons, and in the interest of court consistency, they would generally be afforded those rights of individual persons.  It was a convenient legal fiction, as most legal fiction is convenient.  The intention doesn’t seem to be to give corporations all the rights of humans.  But the five right wing members of the Supreme Court decided to grant these legal fictions the right of free speech, as though a super political action committee had been endowed by the Creator with a will and a tongue. 

But corporations are people in the same way that Campbell's soup is made from Campbells, not at all, and real people have been pretty pissed about giving corporations unbridled power in the political arena.  To some, Citizens United is closing the loop of complete corporate power.  By “corporation” we don’t refer to family businesses or even small businesses, we refer to huge corporations like the prison guards union.  These groups already have a disproportionate share of power.

The Plumas County Board of Supervisors took a bold step in speaking out against the Citizens United decision.  Supervisor Lori Simpson responded to a Prospect query with this remark:

"Concerned citizens brought us this resolution to vote on as their local government reps, we studied it, listened, discussed and debated and voted to support it in the end.  I personally feel that our federal and state reps spend too much time campaigning (as soon as they get elected they start campaigning and fundraising for the next election) when they should be addressing the many critical issues and problems this country has and start getting problems solved for the good of the people, (that is what the taxpayers expect!) Corporate and union money would be better spent creating more jobs in the USA instead of putting politicans in office.  I am tired of big money controlling our election process and diminishing the votes of the common people."

Plumas County joined a long list of cities, counties and states to legislate or at least complain about the CU decision. 

Here is a link to the resolution

Here is a link to a list of efforts to reverse Citizens United

 

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