Move to Amend Salt Lake is gathering registered voters’ signatures in a city-wide referendum on what’s been called “corporate personhood.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Jan. 2010 in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission that money is a form of political speech — a ruling which allows special interest groups and wealthy individuals to influence partisan elections with sizeable donations. The ruling also gave way for international corporations to donate to candidates or political groups with domestic funds.
The court also grants transnational corporations the ability to influence partisan elections using funds from domestic and foreign sources. This ruling allowed special interest groups such as corporations, unions and other organizations to count as legal people. Special interest groups such as these buy elections, run government and influence the voice of voters.
To garner local support, U alumna Rita Kelly is organizing with Move to Amend to mail proposition ballots to every registered voter in Salt Lake City, which were sent out on Sept. 9.
The ballots are dubbed the “City Opinion Question” and offer recipients a choice of answering “yes” or “no” on two questions. First, the ballot asks if recipients agree that, “Only human beings, not corporations, are endowed with constitutional rights.” The second question asks if they agree that, “Money is not speech and therefore regulating political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech.”
“The citizens’ participation is important now,” Kelly said.
Voters can submit their votes by mail until Sept. 26.
“I think corporations should not be people,” said Tim Winchester, a senior in computer science. “If a company steals your money, they don’t go to jail. Companies cannot have the death sentence. They cannot adopt, marry or vote. So they can’t be people.”
If successful, Salt Lake City would join 350 other cities who have passed the referendum.