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Constitution

ALEC Watchdog: Jane Carter Trying To Rewrite The Constitution

August 12, 2015 Bill Raden, www.capitalandmain.com , , , ,
By Bill Raden in Capital and Main - As lobbyists and state legislators gathered at San Diego’s Grand Hyatt resort last week for the three-day annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the delegates seemed to barely glance at the several dozen exhibitor tables that made up a sort of carnival sideshow of right-wing groups outside the hotel’s second-floor warren of meeting rooms. Convention attendees had more pressing concerns. Namely, turning this year’s corporate wish list into the infamous boilerplate bills known as “model laws” that would aspire to undermine things like health and environmental standards, worker rights, campaign-spending limits and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) across the 50 states. Many of the exhibitor booths were occupied by familiar ALEC friends, such as the collection of extreme-right think tanks known as the State Policy Network, which churns out studies designed to grease the model laws’ passage out of statehouse committees.

Court Ruling May Allow Litigation Over Mass Round-Ups After 9-11

June 20, 2015 Center For Constitutional Rights, www.ccrjustice.org , , ,
By Center For Constitutional Rights - Today, in a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) thirteen years ago, in April 2002, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated claims against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI director Robert Mueller, and former INS Commissioner James Ziglar for their roles in the post-9/11 immigration detentions, abuse, and religious profiling of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian men. It is exceedingly rare for a court to allow claims against such high-level officials to proceed. “We are thrilled with the court’s ruling.The court took this opportunity to remind the nation that the rule of law and the rights of human beings, whether citizens or not, must not be sacrificed in the face of national security hysteria,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Rachel Meeropol.

We The People Amendment (HJR48) Introduced In 114th Congress

May 1, 2015 Move To Amend, www.movetoamend.org , , ,
The movement for constitutional reforms that would end what organizers call “corporate rule” has arrived in the chambers of Congress. This morning, members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined Move to Amend by announcing their sponsorship of the “We the People Amendment” (House Joint Resolution 48), which clearly and unequivocally states that: Rights recognized under the Constitution belong to human beings only, and not to government-created artificial legal entities such as corporations and limited liability companies; and Political campaign spending is not a form of speech protected under the First Amendment. Leesa "George" Friday, a spokesperson for Move to Amend, agreed, saying: "Today, members of Congress join a movement that insists on the fundamental equality of all Americans, and that rejects the idea that the corporate class should have special protections against We the People.”

Lessons From Iceland’s Failed Open Source Constitution

October 5, 2014 Helene Landemore, www.slate.com , ,
Who should write the constitution of a democratic country and, indeed, any country? The answer seems obvious: its people. Yet the constitutions of existing states, including democratic ones, have usually been written by small, rather unrepresentative subsets of individuals. Solon is supposed to have single-handedly laid out the foundations of democratic Athens. The U.S. Constitution was penned by a few dozen white men. More recent examples of constitutional processes involve the usual elites: professional politicians and state bureaucrats. But even elected or otherwise democratically authorized constitutional drafters are at best metaphorically, “We, the People.” Not only are typical constitutional processes rather exclusionary and elitist, but they also tend to be characterized by an utter lack of transparency.

Why Millennials Don’t Vote and What To Do About It {aTV 007)

June 9, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
On Acronym TV this week, two individuals working to fix our Democracy in crisis. Christina Tobin is the founder and chair of Free & Equal. She has a long history of supporting ballot access, having gathered and defended over 1 million signatures for the Green Party, Constitution Party, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Libertarian Party, Socialist Equality Party and independents. Free & Equal Elections Foundation is a non-partisan grassroots organization, whose mission is to shift the power back to the individual voter through education. Their motto, “More Voices, More Choices.” Daniel Lee is a lifelong activist. He serves on the national leadership team for the group Move to Amend, which is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy; Move To Amend is calling for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.
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