City says no to corporate personhood

Athens City Council adopted a resolution Monday night officially opposing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on corporate personhood.

The resolution, introduced by Second Ward member Jeff Risner, advocates reversal of the high court's decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission.

In that case, the court ruled that the First Amendment protects as free speech corporate, union and political action committee funding of independent political broadcasts and advertising, as well as in candidate elections, as long as they're not coordinated with a campaign or candidate.

As a result of the ruling, so-called Super-PACs backing particular candidates are investing heavily in the ongoing Republican presidential primaries.

A press release from Risner said that the ruling grants "human rights expressed in the First Amendment to non-living corporations."

The resolution, Risner wrote, urges the U.S. Congress to pass the proposed amendment of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, to strip corporations of their "person-hood" under the law.

"The city of Athens is now the first city in Ohio to pass this type of resolution," he wrote, "and thereby joined the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Boulder, Colo., and other communities across the United States."

Risner has told other council members that the decision stating that a corporation has the same rights as a human being to donate as much money as they want is just wrong.

"Corporations are not human beings," he declared. "People are human beings. People have rights. Corporations shouldn't."

A number of Athens residents have been attending City Council meetings discussing the matter, including a group formed locally in opposition to the ruling called Democracy Over Corporations.

Supporters of the Citizens United decision argue that it's hypocritical for liberals to rail against "more free speech," and that the main beneficiaries of the ruling are advocacy groups, ranging from the NRA to the Sierra Club, who now are not constrained in how much money they can contribute on behalf of candidates who support their issues.

In a January 2010 column, the Washington Post's George Will, a strong supporter of the Citizens United decision, wrote, "Extending the logic of a 1976 decision, the (Supreme) court has now held that the dissemination of political speech requires money, so restricting money restricts speech. Bringing law into conformity with this 1976 precedent, the court has struck down only federal and state laws that forbid independent expenditures (those not made directly to, or coordinated with, candidates' campaigns) by corporations and labor unions."

He continues later in the column, "Even if it were Congress's business to decide that there is 'too much' money in politics, that decision would be odd: In the 2007-08 election cycle, spending in all campaigns, for city council members up to the presidency, was $8.6 billion, about what Americans spend annually on potato chips."