The City Council passed Resolution 1172 yesterday opposing the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which declared corporations have the same first amendment rights as individuals, a concept that has come to be known as corporate personhood. This decision, which was made just shy of a year ago, prohibited the government from placing limits on individual contributions and has become a favored target of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Protesters affiliated with Occupy Wall Street supported the passage of the Council’s anti-corporate personhood resolution and approximately twenty of them packed the observation balcony during the stated meeting yesterday where they applauded for the bill and booed dissenting members. In addition to expressing opposition for the Supreme Court decision, the resolution called for a Constitutional amendment “to provide that corporations are not entitled to the entirety of protections or ‘rights’ of natural persons, specifically so that the expenditure of corporate money to influence the electoral process is no longer a form of constitutionally protected speech.” Read More
