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We have curated a collection of resources for study of the U.S. Constitution within a historical and global context, as well as a brief study of rights, including corporate constitutional rights. This list will be regularly updated and edited. Please contact us if you have a resource you'd like to contribute or suggest. 

U.S. Constitution

  • U.S. Constitution (12 pages)
  • Bill of Rights (5 pages)
  • The U. S. Constitution: Pull the Curtain (5 pages) - Greg Coleridge and Virginia Rasmussen, 2007

    • The Federalist "Fathers" were men of their time. How could they be expected to design a government that would warm the heart of today's true democrat? This question is often raised when the Constitution is exposed to a harsher critique.

    • In fact, the Founders lived amidst a fertile context of competing visions and ideas. Thus, the Federalist "winners" chose from a rich field of possibility those arguments that served their own priorities. They put their trust in the few rather than the many, in the individual rather than the community, in autonomy rather than connection. Their central theme was private rights as opposed to a larger public virtue. And above all, they sought stability and security through property and its protection, not through the capacities and possibilities of all the people.

Historical Context

  • The Articles of Confederation, July 9, 1778: An Overview (1 page) - Community Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF)
    • Created a decentralized league of independent sovereign states
    • Departed from English precedent and established a revolutionary system
    • State and local control preserved and protected from preemption
    • Revolutionary radicals succeeded in institutionalizing key elements of their democratic cause
  • The Second Constitution of the United States 1789: An Overview (1 page) - Community Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF)
    • Created a centralized national government
    • Established a national government after England’s aristocratic model
    • Erected three new branches of government, each with ability to check the representative branch
    • State and local autonomy extinguished 
  • The Case Against Judicial Review (3 pages) - David Cobb, 2007
    • In a nutshell, judicial review is the power of a court to review the actions of executive or legislative bodies to determine whether the action is consistent with a statute, a treaty or the U.S. Constitution. In its most basic expression, it is the authority of the unelected Supreme Court to declare acts of elected members of Congress or the elected President unconstitutional. (Of course, the current occupant of the White House was never elected, but rather installed in what can only be described as a judicial coup d'etat).
    • It is important to recognize that there is absolutely no explicit reference to the concept of judicial review in the Constitution itself. Proponents of judicial review merely infer that power from Article III of the Constitution which states: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court... and shall extend to all Cases... arising under this Constitution..."
    • The inference that this flimsy language somehow grants our Supreme Court the power to define the parameters of the Constitution seems tenuous at best and may come close to contradicting the specific language of that document. Specifically, the Tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people." Additionally, why is it that if the Court has the legitimate authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, that power was used so sparingly in the early decades of the country's history?
    • Judicial review is an undemocratic extension of the undemocratic nature of the Constitution itself, a document protecting the rights of property over the rights of people. Given that the Constitution was drafted by a small number of people who met behind closed doors, the fact that a small number of unelected judges overrule citizen initiatives or laws passed by legislative bodies is not very surprising.
  • An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (2 page excerpt) - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014
    • In other modern constitutional states, constitutions come and go, and they are never considered sacred in the manner patriotic U.S. citizens venerate theirs….
    • How then can U.S. society come to terms with its past? How can it ac­knowledge responsibility? The late Native historian Jack Forbes al­ways stressed that while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of that past. Assuming this responsibility pro­vides a means of survival and liberation. Everyone and everything in the world is affected, for the most part negatively, by U.S. dominance and intervention, often violently through direct military means or through proxies. It is an urgent concern.
  • An African & Latinx People’s History of the United States (1 page excerpt) - Paul Ortiz, 2018
    • The Patriot ruling class designed the U.S. Constitution to protect chattel bondage. As Staughton Lynd notes, the Constitution:gave the South disproportionate strength in the House of Representatives by adding three-fifths of the slaves to the number of white persons in apportioning Congressmen to the several states; byArticle I, Section 8, which gave Congress the power to suppress insurrections; by Article I, Section 9, which postponed prohibition of the slave trade until twenty years after the Constitution’s adoption; byArticle IV, Section 2, which provided for the return of Fugitive slaves.
    • The Electoral College was a check on the rights of ordinary people to directly elect the president, as well as a guarantee that Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe would protect their fellow Virginia plantation owners’ interests for the first decades of the nation’s history.
    • Shortly after ratification of the Constitution, in 1779, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, which restricted the naturalization process toward citizenship in the United States to “any alien, being a free white person.” The Constitution and the Naturalization Act marginalized people of color for generations to come. The racialization and denial of citizenship to entire classes of workers became the blunt instrument that employers used to keep wages low in numerous occupations identified with undesirable AfricanAmerican and, later, immigrant labor.

  • A People’s History of the United States (13 page excerpt) - Howard Zinn, 1980

    •  many Americans over the years, the Constitution drawn up in 1787 has seemed a work of genius put together by wise, humane men who created a legal framework for democracy and equality. 

    • Another view of the Constitution was put forward early in the twentieth century by the historian Charles Beard (arousing anger and indignation, including a denunciatory editorial in the New York Times}. lie wrote in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution: 

    • Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government. 

    • In short, Beard said, the rich must, in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the laws by which government operates. 

An Exploration of Rights

  • Unalienable Rights -- Rights shared equally by all by birthright and not subject to loss, limitation, nor regulation. "Unalienable" means inseparable from the natural person; they cannot be sold, surrendered or voluntarily waived. Examples: free speech, self defense, life and those things necessary for its sustenance (food, shelter, medicine), reproductive freedom, liberty of thought and belief, self-determination, freedom from servitude, and many others -- all of which may be exercised freely and without limitation except that in the exercise of these rights, the unalienable rights of others may not be violated.
  • Secondary Rights -- Lower order rights, not shared equally by all, and not unalienable therefore subject to being "alienated" as in property, which can be sold, gifted, forfeited when used anti-socially (in ways that violate the rights of others), also subject to limitation and regulation in service of the general welfare.. Examples: property rights, right to bear arms (a property right), driver's license, internet, incorporation, etc.

The sole purpose of the constitution is the establishment, protection and enforcement of Unalienable Rights. All other considerations should be open to democratic community decision-making. In other words, freedom to govern in all things, in the hands of each community, except wherein a law would limit or violate anyone's Unalienable Rights.

  • International Declaration of Human Rights (8 pages)- United Nations, 1948
    • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.
  • A U.S. Constitution with DEMOCRACY IN MIND (4 pages) - Virginia Rasmussen and Greg Coleridge, 2007
    • At this time we're not calling for a Second Constitutional Convention, but extending an invitation to reflect on a variety of questions were we to call such a gathering. Let's start at the beginning. Who would be there and how would they be chosen? What elements would be included and who would set the agenda? What processes of facilitation, discussion, deliberation, conflict resolution, and decision-making would be used? What rights and protections would be guaranteed for people and for nature's many life forms? How would powers be delegated in a Constitution that allowed democracy to flourish and be sustained over time?
    • Jamin Raskin, a teacher of constitutional law at American University, claims that the Constitution "remains deeply compromised by its historical concessions to the political institutions of white supremacy and the interests of elite rule." For Raskin, "defending the Constitution requires changing it." There will be "a lot more constitutional growth" if we are to make of ourselves a democratic people.

  • Readings from speakers at the Fall 2020 People's Movement Assembly - Towards a People's Constitution

    • What if we struck racism and sexism from the Constitution of the United States, actually abolished slavery, and added 2 simple words articulating a value for life? (20 pages) - Mark Charles, 2020
      • Most Americans have never read through the entire U.S. Constitution. While this founding document of our nation begins with the inclusive language “We the People”, a full reading of the entire document makes it abundantly clear that the founding fathers did not intend for We the People to actually mean All the People.  In order to serve in the military, become a judge or hold public office, citizens must take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. But because of the language and world view it was written in, many citizens cannot take this oath without ignoring certain sections or specific language that, to this day, are exclusive of women, American Indians and African Americans. As a Navajo man, a father and a citizen of this country, that is not satisfactory. I want my children to live in a nation where We the People actually means All the People, so I propose these edits which strive for 3 goals:
        • Strike the racist and sexist language from the Constitution.
        • Actually abolish slavery.
        • Add 2 words articulating a simple value for life.
    • The Senate: Profoundly Undemocratic (2 pages) - Esha Krishnaswamy, 2020
      • n 1787, during the constitutional convention, James Madison describes the primary function of the senate.
      • In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. 
    • Michael Parenti on the Founding Fathers (15 min video) - Michael Parenti, 2020
      • And they are putting together the constitution in secrecy. Madison records their remarks and he joins in and he says, “The common people are not to be trusted and the common people are irresponsible.”.... The constitution, brothers and sisters, was and is a filtered system. What does it filter? Popular sentiment. Popular input. Rule by the common folks. Get a look at your constitution. You cannot vote for the U.S. president. Nobody has ever voted for an American president.
    • National Community Rights Amendment (1 page) - Community Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF)
      • Without a federally protected right of local, community self-government, rights-based laws adopted at the local and the state level can be overturned by preemptive federal laws and by federally-anchored corporate constitutional “rights.” Although the adoption of a federal constitutional amendment is still many years away, finalization of this amendment language allows the CRN’s to “frame” the conversation about the need for a federal amendment, and to capture support from both local and state rights-based organizing.

    Miscellaneous

    • Constitute: A searchable website of the world’s constitutions

    • Universal Declaration of Human Rights -  In six cross-cutting themes (2 pages) - UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 1948

    • After Trump and Obama: A President’s Day Resolution to Abolish the Presidency (1 page) - By Ben Manski  |  February, 2018

      • The presidencies of the twentyteens have shown us both the limits of the presidency for a majoritarian progressive politics as well as the beginnings of the dangers of the presidency when wielded by a minority reactionary politics.

    • Supreme Authority: The Growing Power of the U.S. Supreme Court and Democratic Alternatives (4 pages) - Greg Coleridge, 2014

      • Are there democratic alternatives to the current Supreme Court structure that might retain a degree of independence yet hold the Court accountable to the legislative and executive branches, as well as to We the People?

        Of course there are.

        Alternatives exist not simply in legal textbooks or some distant past, but presently in other nations, many considered to be as “democratic,” if not more so, than the U.S.

        What follows are several proposed changes for restructuring the Court based on features existing in other nations.

    • Burn the Constitution: The pitfalls of constitutionalism (5 pages) - Seth Ackerman , 2011

      • But what is equally lamentable is that the recent rise (or, rather, return) to prominence of this constitutional crankery has spawned a whole genre of anxious liberal commentary aimed at rescuing the document’s honor from the clutches of uncouth reactionaries. It is an article of faith in this commentary that the Glenn Beck crowd simply misunderstand the Constitution and the intentions of the Founders. They labor under the illusion that our founding text enshrines conservative principles, when in reality (the claim goes) it’s an ambiguous document whose meaning is contested and always changing — or maybe even a warrant for ceaseless progress and change. But whatever it is, the Constitution according to today’s liberals is always misunderstood and never at fault, usually treated with a fond if wised-up reverence and never with the disapproving righteousness of the more advanced progressives.

Corporate Constitutional Rights

ANALYSIS/EXPLANATION

Most are aware of how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for corporations and exploded the creation of Super PACs to spend unlimited money to influence our elections.

While many organizations have risen to overturn Citizens United and focus exclusively on getting money out of politics for good reason, the root of the problem goes much deeper than just Citizens United and goes back further than 2010. When we recall from recent history, we can see...

  1. The amount of money spent to influence our elections has been excessive long before Citizens United...
    1. Campaign spending already high before 2009: 1998 elections vs. 2010 election
      1. Let’s be real: any election costing over a billion dollars is excessive
    2. Elected officials have long maintained staying power thanks to wealthy corporate benefactors
      1. Incumbents of both major parties win re-election 98% of time, running unopposed more than half the time.
      2. Outside campaign donors three times the level of access to candidates than their own constituents.

 

While excessive money in politics is certainly a corrosive problem, our nation has long struggled with an even deeper problem: a profoundly undemocratic system where the vast majority of people lack participation and access to participate: 

  1. Largest political influencers are almost all wealthy, white men, and men far outnumbering women.
    1. Millionaires comprise 3% of U.S. population, but 45% of congressional donors.
    2. Over 90% of political donors are white, over 63% are men, and over 45% are white men accounting for 57% of political contributions.
    3. Virtually no large donors of color
  1. Barriers to voting and political participation
    1. Over 5 million voters either permanently barred or indefinitely restricted
    2. Voter ID laws in 33 states disproportionately target young, elderly, black/brown, and Latinx people of color
    3. Partisan gerrymandering intentionally dilutes the voting power of black/brown/Latinx voters
    4. More than 2 million voters purged from the rolls just for lack of participation or trumped up registration errors
  2. Lack of representation for POC, women, Latinx, poor folks, etc.
    1. U.S. population is 52% women and 39% people of color, and yet…
      1. 71% of all elected U.S. officials are men, 90% are white, and 65% are white men.
    2. In Congress alone, 80% of members are white men, and more than half are millionaires with a median income over $1 million.

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

With the first three words of the U. S. Constitution being "We the People," how did corporations come to be a "person"? While the concept of corporate personhood was established by English Common Law preceding the U.S. Constitution, its expansion of corporate constitutional rights was created through use of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Adopted in 1868 during the Reconstruction Era, the amendment was commonly understood to assure political rights for the newly-freed slaves but was often used as a shield against government regulation. Of the first 150 Supreme Court cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment, only 15 cases involved blacks and 135 cases involved business entities. 

 

Nearly 15 years after the amendment was adopted, corporate personhood was first mentioned in Supreme Court cases.  

  • First in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1882),  it was argued that corporations were persons and that the Joint Congressional Committee drafting the Fourteenth Amendment had intended the word “person” to mean corporations as well as natural persons.  The attorney for Southern Pacific Railroad was Former Senator Roscoe Conkling, who served on that congressional committee. During the hearing he waved an unidentified document in the air and then read from it, in an attempt to prove that the intent of the Joint Congressional Committee was for corporate personhood.  The Court did not rule on corporate personhood, but in this case they heard the argument.  
  • Second, the Court ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) said nothing at all about corporate personhood, but thanks to a court reporter in the case (a man named Bancroft Davis who just so happened to own his own railroad company) noted in the “Headnotes” this statement made by Chief Justice Waite before the hearing began: “(t)he court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.” 
    • Important to be clear about this statement by Chief Justice Waite: this was not part of any decision in this case, but nevertheless it became the basis for granting corporations 14th Amendment rights two years later in Minneapolis & St. Louis Railways v. Beckwith. Further complicating this history is that the court reporter had ties to railroad interests. This case primed the corporations’ hundred-year march to global power.

 

And at the same time as this Court was expanding personhood rights for corporations, they were actively restricting the rights of actual human beings. For example: 

  • In 1874 (12 years before Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad), the Court ruled in Minor v. Hapersett that women’s right to vote not guaranteed by Equal Protection clause, leaving it up to the states. In fact, the Court would not explicitly apply equal protection to women until 1971’s Reed v. Reed -- nearly 100 years AFTER corporations received the same protection!
  • In the 30 years after the Santa Clara County ruling, the Supreme Court would apply the 14th Amendment to corporations over 300 times compared with less than 25 times for African Americans. This is the same period where Jim Crow laws emerged across the South to put Black people back in chains while the Court would actually deny equal protection for African Americans for 55 years under its “Separate but Equal” doctrine created by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1899.
  • During the first quarter of the 20th Century, the Court would continue using the 14th Amendment to overturn over 200 democratically-enacted regulations on corporations and would also expand corporate personhood to include 4th and 5th Amendment protections that would thwart local and state governance during the Court’s corporate-friendly Lochner era (1896-1933).

FOURTH AMENDMENT

Once upon a time, police officers were limited to conducting searches or seizures only when they had probable cause to reasonably believe that the person committed a crime or is in the process of committing a crime. But thanks to decisions in Terry v. Ohio (1968) and Whren v. U.S. (1996), the Supreme Court expanded police officers’ discretion to search or seize on mere “reasonable” suspicion. This has expanded the ongoing problem of racial profiling to enable police (and even civilian members of the public) to target and harass people of color in the course of their daily lives doing the same things as white people (ie, living while Black)

FIFTH AMENDMENT

The federal courts have not restrained state and local governments from seizing privately owned land for private commercial development on behalf of private developers. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in Kelo v. City of New London, that it was appropriate for a local government to take property for the purpose of economic development, saying that New London had “carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue."

Furthermore, government agents (ie, police and law enforcement agencies) are justified take personal property through civil asset forfeitures, whenever they “suspect” it was used in a crime but without having to charge its human owner! The Supreme Court has upheld this power not as a punishment but as a type of fine, otherwise refere to as a “legal fiction of punishing the property,” all of which is justifed for the purpose of generating revenue for law enforcement and to enhance police cooperation through the equitable sharing of those seized assets, worth as much as $2.5 billion back in 2010.



As long as corporations are considered “persons” with inalienable human rights, and their political spending is considered “protected political speech,”  they will always be able to assert those rights better than any real human being or our communities through their concentration of wealth. So we must fight not only to get the excessive special interest money and undue political influence of corporations out of our political process, but our solution must be comprehensive enough to get to the root problem and leave no loopholes!

 

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INTRODUCCIÓN

Para el Movimiento para Enmendar, poner fin al gobierno corporativo no es solo un problema político: es un problema de derechos humanos que se cruza con cada lucha por la justicia. La Constitución de los EE. UU. Se escribió originalmente como un documento de derechos de propiedad que sólo agregaba los derechos humanos como una ocurrencia tardía (la Declaración de Derechos). Después de que se ratificó, las únicas "personas" consideradas dignas de los derechos constitucionales eran los propietarios ricos, hombres blancos, ¡menos del 10% de la población primitiva!

 

Si bien hemos hecho un buen progreso en la expansión de las protecciones constitucionales al enmendar la constitución 27 veces, las corporaciones han sido tratadas como "personas" con derechos inalienables e igual protección durante más tiempo que las mujeres, las personas negras, marrones e indígenas de color, y otras personas menos ricas - ¡La gran mayoría de los seres humanos VIVOS en los Estados Unidos! Peor aún, este grupo de propietarios corporativos ha mantenido durante mucho tiempo su estatus en el poder mediante el establecimiento de sistemas de opresión que dividen a la sociedad estadounidense a lo largo de líneas sociales arbitrarias de raza, sexo y clase, creando poblaciones segregadas que luchan entre sí mientras se hacen fáciles para un pocos propietarios adinerados para controlar y explotar.

 

Dado que el gobierno corporativo no puede existir sin opresión, porque depende de una clase de personas "desechables" que deben sufrir para mantener la comodidad de los poderosos, la lucha contra la opresión no puede ser solo parte de nuestras campañas, debe ser nuestra campaña. Y debido a que este sistema perjudica y afecta desproporcionadamente a mujeres, personas de color, personas LGBTQ +, inmigrantes y personas pobres, literalmente no podemos tener un movimiento democrático, y mucho menos una democracia real, sin centralizar las realidades sociales, económicas y políticas de estos comunidades marginadas y siguiendo su liderazgo para cambiar nuestra realidad compartida. Es importante recordar: nuestra antigua "república" fue fundada por los deseos de hombres blancos ricos, y no podemos construir una nueva democracia sin todos los que quedaron fuera la primera vez.

 

Pasar a la visión de Enmienda para hacer realidad la promesa de la democracia requiere que cumplamos con varios Principios Básicos:

  1. La organización contra la opresión y la solidaridad nos ayuda a desarrollar relaciones con quienes están en la primera línea de lucha contra los impactos del gobierno corporativo, incluidas las comunidades de color, nuestros aliados esenciales e inmediatos en el trabajo por delante.
  2. La creación de coaliciones y movimientos es esencial para establecer las conexiones de otros temas con los obstáculos legales de los derechos constitucionales corporativos y el dinero como discurso político protegido. El poder de nuestra estrategia descansa en el terreno común que podemos encontrar dentro de otros movimientos, la visión compartida de una verdadera democracia. Esta estrategia y visión es el resultado de escuchar, aprender, hablar y evaluar juntos.
  3. La organización de base es la clave para aumentar significativamente los números y ampliar la capacidad. Las relaciones personales continúan siendo la mejor manera de difundir nuestro mensaje y encontrar apoyo. El profundo cambio cultural está enraizado en la organización comunitaria, y estamos dedicados a fomentar este proceso y apoyar a las personas a nivel local.
  4. La dedicación a la educación política es un proceso continuo y necesario para absorber las lecciones de la historia y los éxitos o fracasos de los movimientos de las personas del pasado y avanzar hacia la victoria con intencionalidad. No podemos cambiar dónde estamos a menos que sepamos cómo llegamos aquí. ¿Cuál es la historia? ¿Qué salió mal? ¿Cuáles fueron las fuerzas en el trabajo? A través de este entendimiento mutuo, estamos mejor equipados para repensar esa historia y comprometernos mutuamente para crear una nueva historia que haga realidad la promesa de la democracia.
  5. La Independencia Política y Económica nos permite salir libres de la política partidista o del quid pro quo asociado con los financiadores corporativos o ricos. Es esencial para lograr y sostener un gobierno de, por y para la gente.

ANÁLISIS / EXPLICACIÓN

La mayoría sabe cómo la decisión de Citizens United de la Corte Suprema abrió las compuertas para las corporaciones y explotó la creación de Super PAC para gastar dinero ilimitado para influir en nuestras elecciones.

 

Si bien muchas organizaciones se han levantado para derrocar a Citizens United y centrarse exclusivamente en sacar dinero de la política por una buena razón, la raíz del problema es mucho más profunda que solo Citizens United y se remonta más allá de 2010. Cuando recordamos de la historia reciente, podemos ver...

1. La cantidad de dinero gastada para influir en nuestras elecciones ha sido excesiva mucho antes de que Citizens United ...

a.) El gasto de campaña ya es alto antes de 2009: elecciones de 1998 frente a elecciones de 2010

i.) Seamos realistas: cualquier elección que cueste más de mil millones de dólares es excesiva


b.) Los funcionarios electos han mantenido durante mucho tiempo el poder de permanencia gracias a los ricos benefactores corporativos

i.) Los titulares de ambos partidos principales ganan la reelección el 98% del tiempo, sin oposición más de la mitad del tiempo.

ii.) Los donantes externos a la campaña tienen tres veces el nivel de acceso a los candidatos que sus propios electores.

 

Si bien el dinero excesivo en política es ciertamente un problema corrosivo, nuestra nación ha luchado durante mucho tiempo con un problema aún más profundo: un sistema profundamente antidemocrático donde la gran mayoría de las personas carecen de participación y acceso para participar:

1.) Los influyentes políticos más grandes son casi todos ricos, hombres blancos y hombres que superan en número a las mujeres.

a.) Los millonarios comprenden el 3% de la población de EE. UU., Pero el 45% de los donantes del Congreso.

b.) Más del 90% de los donantes políticos son blancos, más del 63% son hombres y más del 45% son hombres blancos que representan el 57% de las contribuciones políticas.

c.) Prácticamente no hay grandes donantes de color.

 

2.) Barreras al voto y la participación política.

a.) Más de 5 millones de votantes permanentemente excluidos o restringidos indefinidamente

b.) Las leyes de identificación de votantes en 33 estados se dirigen desproporcionadamente a personas de color jóvenes, ancianos, negros / marrones y latinos

c.) El gerrymandering partidista diluye intencionalmente el poder de voto de los votantes negros / marrones / latinx

d.) Más de 2 millones de votantes fueron eliminados de las listas solo por falta de participación o errores de registro falsos



3.) Falta de representación para POC, mujeres, latinx, gente pobre, etc.

a.) La población de los Estados Unidos es 52% mujeres y 39% personas de color, y sin embargo ...

i.) El 71% de todos los funcionarios estadounidenses elegidos son hombres, el 90% son blancos y el 65% son hombres blancos.

b.) Solo en el Congreso, el 80% de los miembros son hombres blancos, y más de la mitad son millonarios con un ingreso medio superior a $ 1 millón.

 

Decimocuarta Enmienda

Con las primeras tres palabras de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos siendo "Nosotros, la gente", ¿cómo llegaron las corporaciones a ser una "persona"? Si bien el concepto de personalidad corporativa fue establecido por el Common Law inglés anterior a la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, su expansión de los derechos constitucionales corporativos se creó mediante el uso de la Decimocuarta Enmienda. Adoptada en 1868 durante la Era de la Reconstrucción, la enmienda se entendía comúnmente para garantizar los derechos políticos de los esclavos recién liberados, pero a menudo se usaba como un escudo contra la regulación gubernamental. De los primeros 150 casos de la Corte Suprema relacionados con la Decimocuarta Enmienda, solo 15 casos involucraron a negros y 135 casos involucraron a entidades comerciales.

 

Casi 15 años después de la adopción de la enmienda, la personalidad corporativa se mencionó por primera vez en los casos de la Corte Suprema.

  • Primero en el Condado de San Mateo v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1882), se argumentó que las corporaciones eran personas y que el Comité Conjunto del Congreso que redactaba la Decimocuarta Enmienda había tenido la intención de que la palabra "persona" significara corporaciones y personas físicas. El abogado de Southern Pacific Railroad fue el ex senador Roscoe Conkling, quien sirvió en ese comité del Congreso. Durante la audiencia agitó un documento no identificado en el aire y luego lo leyó, en un intento de probar que la intención del Comité Conjunto del Congreso era la personalidad corporativa. El Tribunal no dictaminó sobre la personalidad corporativa, pero en este caso escucharon el argumento.
  • En segundo lugar, el fallo de la Corte en el Condado de Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) no dijo nada acerca de la personalidad corporativa, pero gracias a un reportero de la corte en el caso (un hombre llamado Bancroft Davis que por casualidad era dueño de su propia compañía ferroviaria). ) señaló en las "Notas" esta declaración hecha por el Presidente del Tribunal Supremo Waite antes de que comenzara la audiencia: "(e) el tribunal no desea escuchar argumentos sobre la cuestión de si la disposición en la Decimocuarta Enmienda a la Constitución, que prohíbe a un Estado negar a cualquier persona dentro de su jurisdicción la igualdad de protección de las leyes, se aplica a estas corporaciones. Todos somos de la opinión de que lo hace ".
  • Es importante ser claro acerca de esta declaración del Presidente del Tribunal Supremo Waite: esto no fue parte de ninguna decisión en este caso, pero sin embargo se convirtió en la base para otorgar a las corporaciones derechos de la Enmienda 14 dos años después en Minneapolis & St. Louis Railways v. Beckwith. Para complicar aún más esta historia es que el reportero de la corte tenía vínculos con los intereses del ferrocarril. Este caso preparó la marcha de cien años de las corporaciones hacia el poder global.

Y al mismo tiempo que esta Corte estaba ampliando los derechos de persona para las corporaciones, estaban restringiendo activamente los derechos de los seres humanos reales. Por ejemplo:

  • En 1874 (12 años antes del Condado de Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad), el Tribunal dictaminó en Menor v. Hapersett que el derecho de voto de las mujeres no está garantizado por la cláusula de Igual Protección, dejándolo a los estados. De hecho, el Tribunal no aplicaría explícitamente la igualdad de protección a las mujeres hasta Reed v. Reed de 1971, ¡casi 100 años DESPUÉS de que las corporaciones recibieran la misma protección!
  • En los 30 años posteriores al fallo del condado de Santa Clara, la Corte Suprema aplicaría la Enmienda 14 a las corporaciones más de 300 veces en comparación con menos de 25 veces para los afroamericanos. Este es el mismo período en el que las leyes de Jim Crow surgieron en todo el Sur para volver a encadenar a los negros, mientras que el Tribunal denegaría la igualdad de protección para los afroamericanos durante 55 años bajo su doctrina "Separada pero igualitaria" creada por Plessy v. Ferguson en 1899. .
  • Durante el primer cuarto del siglo XX, la Corte continuaría usando la Enmienda 14 para revocar más de 200 regulaciones promulgadas democráticamente sobre las corporaciones y también expandiría la personalidad corporativa para incluir protecciones de la Enmienda 4ta y 5ta que frustrarían el gobierno local y estatal durante la Corte Era empresarial de Lochner (1896-1933).


CUARTA ENMIENDA

Érase una vez, los oficiales de policía se limitaban a realizar registros o incautaciones solo cuando tenían una causa probable para creer razonablemente que la persona cometió un delito o está en el proceso de cometer un delito. Pero gracias a las decisiones de Terry v. Ohio (1968) y Whren v. EE. UU. (1996), la Corte Suprema amplió la discreción de los oficiales de policía para buscar o capturar por simple sospecha "razonable". Esto ha expandido el problema actual de los perfiles raciales para permitir que la policía (e incluso los miembros civiles del público) apunten y hostiguen a las personas de color en el curso de su vida diaria haciendo las mismas cosas que las personas blancas (es decir, viviendo mientras son negras)

 

QUINTA ENMIENDA

Los tribunales federales no han impedido que los gobiernos estatales y locales confisquen tierras de propiedad privada para el desarrollo comercial privado en nombre de desarrolladores privados. De hecho, la Corte Suprema dictaminó en Kelo v. Ciudad de New London, que era apropiado que un gobierno local tomara propiedades con fines de desarrollo económico, diciendo que New London había "formulado cuidadosamente un plan de desarrollo que cree que proporcionará beneficios apreciables para la comunidad, incluidos, entre otros, nuevos empleos y mayores ingresos fiscales ".

 

Además, los agentes del gobierno (es decir, la policía y los organismos encargados de hacer cumplir la ley) están justificados para tomar bienes personales a través de decomisos de bienes civiles, siempre que "sospechen" que se utilizó en un delito, ¡pero sin tener que acusar a su dueño humano! La Corte Suprema ha confirmado este poder no como un castigo sino como un tipo de multa, también conocida como "ficción legal de castigar la propiedad", todo lo cual está justificado con el propósito de generar ingresos para la aplicación de la ley y mejorar la cooperación policial a través del intercambio equitativo de esos activos incautados, por un valor de hasta $ 2.5 billones en 2010.



Mientras las corporaciones se consideren "personas" con derechos humanos inalienables, y su gasto político se considere "discurso político protegido", siempre podrán hacer valer esos derechos mejor que cualquier ser humano real o nuestras comunidades a través de su concentración de riqueza. Por lo tanto, debemos luchar no solo para obtener el excesivo dinero de intereses especiales y la influencia política indebida de las corporaciones fuera de nuestro proceso político, sino que nuestra solución debe ser lo suficientemente integral como para llegar al problema raíz y no dejar vacíos.