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Eugene voters, on November 6, 2012, overwhelmingly voted yes (73.5% to 26.5%) on an advisory question on corporate/union constitutional rights and campaign spending:

Shall Congress send to States constitutional amendment reversing negative impact of the Citizens United case and limit independent campaign spending?

See advisory vote details for more information.

 

We the People – Eugene is a grassroots network of citizens fighting corporate rule in all areas of politics and life. Research, community education, activist training, coalition building and multi-faceted, innovative community outreach are the hallmarks of our approach to social justice in the Eugene Oregon area.

We the People – Eugene was founded in 2011 as a nonprofit, independent coalition of individuals and groups responding to the growing devastation caused by growing wealth inequality, corrupt elections, and other adverse results of bad corporate behaviors that seriously harm the public good.

We the People – Eugene was also organized to facilitate a constitutional amendment process to reverse Supreme Court interpretations granting corporations the same constitutional rights as people, including the 2010 Citizens United ruling that allows unlimited corporate spending for or against individuals seeking public office.

We are determined, however, to pursue all alternatives that will eliminate the excessive influence of moneyed interests that now govern our politics, distort our priorities and remove common sense from our domestic and foreign policies

We are a local affiliate of the nation-wide movement Move to Amend.  Please see MovetoAmend.org for more information.

See information about upcoming Democracy Schools put on by CELDF that we will be hosting in Eugene -

http://www.wethepeopleeugene.org/democracy-schools/

 

 

22 Comments »

  • http://www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org/2011/01/asymmetrical-warfare.html Rick Staggenborg, MD

    You guys are doing great work!

    Are you working with other groups on organizing an event to coincide with the October 6 occupation of Washington?

    It seems to me that this would be a great way to get signatures for your petition drive(s).

  • Loretta Huston

    Mama Earth is going through Re-Birthing Contractions and cleaning up all this gaudy, toxic commercialized excess. I now have Deep Faith, for our Planet of Life is very resilient and far more powerful than all the fictitious $billions & $trillions, of dollars, the most destructive weapons, and the most Oppressive Forces on the planet.
    Volcanic Eruptions create rich fertile soils, fires burn and out of the ash life emerges, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes etc. are washing away this “man made” world.
    The World is “Bank-ruptured,” for “All of the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men will never Re-Create this World or Earth again.

    Unfortunately, “Exponential Growth” is simply, “Non-Sustainable”.

    Yes we are scrambling, and highly fractured, for life is “Extremely Complex”, and we are running out of “Time, Money and Energy” for we are “Mortal Beings” living in a “Mortal World”.

    Yet, we are Conscious Beings, who have been given the “Power of Choice”. For Our ultimate Choice is “Between Life and Death”. We must die in order to be “re-born”
    I do believe there is far more to this human story than the ongoing “Struggle, and Challenge” that we have always endured. Life is truly too short, to be miserable. Perhaps, Letting Go, is true Freedom. What is our greatest fear? Death or the Unknown?

    Ah, the “Serpent swallows it’s tail” A journey of Full Circle, Recycling over and over again, the Human Story.

    Aho! To All My Relations!
    Prepare to “Embrace and Let Go!”

  • http://oldnewlefty,OpenSalon Karl Eysenbach

    I strongly recommend that you involve yourself in local politics. The people in the Tea Party are already monitoring state and local governments. Do likewise.

  • Loretta Huston

    Would love to forward this Web-site. How can we get this out there with the click of the mouse?
    Thank you for organizing!
    Loretta

  • Loretta Huston

    Now that “Occupy Wall Street” is gaining momentum and attention, perhaps WE Can All Join As ONE Movement, for we are the 99%.

  • Fred L. Mallery

    Peace to the People!

  • Sterling Rand

    Corporate personhood is not legal, I REPEAT , NOT LEGAL.
    Orthodoxy has it the Supreme Court decided in 1886, in a case called Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad, that corporations were indeed legal persons. I express that view myself, in a recent book. So do many others. So do many law schools. We are all wrong.

    Mr. Hartmann undertook instead a conscientious search. He finally found the contemporary casebook, published in 1886, blew the dust away, and read Santa Clara County in the original, so to speak. Nowhere in the formal, written decision of the Court did he find corporate personhood mentioned. Not a word. The Supreme Court did NOT establish corporate personhood in Santa Clara County.

    In the casebook �headnote,� however, Mr. Hartmann read this statement: �The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment�which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.� Here, anyway, corporate personhood was �provided�� in the headnote, instead of the formal written decision of the Supreme Court. But that�s not good enough.

    What is a �headnote?� It is the summary description of a court decision, written into the casebook by the court reporter. It is similar to an editor�s �abstract� in a scientific journal. Because they are not products of the court itself, however, headnotes carry no legal weight; they can establish no precedent in law. Corporate personhood, Mr. Hartmann discovered, is simply and unequivocally illegitimate.

    The court reporter for Santa Clara County was Mr. John Chandler Bancroft Davis, a graduate of Harvard Law School.

    Mr. Hartman has in his personal library 12 books by Davis, mostly original editions. They display Davis�s close alliance with the railroad industry, and they support persuasively Mr. Hartmann�s argument that Davis injected the personhood statement deliberately, to achieve by deceit what corporations had so far failed to achieve in litigation.

    If Davis knew his headnote was legally sterile, though, we can only speculate about his tactics. Perhaps he thought judges in the future would read his headnote as if it could serve as legal precedent, and would thereafter invoke corporate personhood in rendering court decisions. That would be grossly irregular, and it would place corporate personhood in stupendous legal jeopardy if it ever came to light. But something of that sort must have happened, because corporate personhood over time spread throughout the world of commerce�and politics.

    Mr. Hartmann doesn�t fill in this blank, but his daylighting of the irregularity will be the eventual undoing of corporate personhood. Its alleged source in Santa Clara County is a myth, a lie, a fraud. Corporate personhood simply cannot now survive, after Mr. Hartmann�s book, a rigorous and sustained legal attack.

    Sustained it will have to be, for years or decades or even longer: corporations will fight the attack bitterly, but we now know corporate personhood has utterly no basis in law.

  • https://sites.google.com/site/eugenecityofpeacepublic/Home David Hazen

    I got an e-mail from Senator Merkley this morning asking for signatures to a petition for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United at this URL: http://petition.reversecitizensunited.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5007&tag=rcu_merkley_e

    • John Davidson

      Senator Merkley is promoting the Udall bill, of which he is a co-signer. That bill would overturn Citizens United in the sense that it would confirm the authority of Congress and the states to regulate political expenditures. However, it doesn’t deal directly with problems of corporate personhood and power, it doesn’t address spending on ballot initiatives, and it doesn’t directly prohibit political expenditures by corporations; it relies instead on the discretion of Congress.

      • Wdougr

        Hi John, I just posted about having a goal for the People to rally around “Change”. The bill you write about does not go far enough to make effective change that will stop the philandering of special interest that has rotted the base of our Democracy. The self interested minority that has taken over our Republic to fleece and control for their own agenda. Some how our leadership has to yield to the public cry for fairness again in our country. To legally come up with a way to change these rules and leave the corruption behind so as not to sink our great country with their greed and selfishness.
        WE CAN DO THIS-WE HAVE TO!

  • Leanne Wolf-Webber

    Can I be placed on your email contact list, please? Also, having just found out about this organization last night at the Move to Amend-Corvallis group, I will attend this month’s potluck on 11/13. Looking forward to working with you.

  • Patty Hine

    Hello. I met a woman organizer at the Occupy site a couple weeks ago. One of the organizers of your group, I believe. We’ve been on your email list for a while. I was impressed by her passion and commitment, but can’t remember her name.

    The progressive church where I am an active member, First United Methodist, has an great youth group and the leader asked me if anybody could come and talk to the kids about the Occupy Movement.

    Some of us would like our faith community members to show up in support too! It’s very energizing and right up our alley!

    It’s my understand there’s nobody exactly to “contact” with the Occupy folks. I tried through the FB page… Nothing.

    What would you recommend? I’d like to get the word out and when the young people are interested, I’d say it’s time to LET THEM KNOW ASAP. I think your group is totally on the right track. Would you care to accept an invitation to speak to a small group at a local church? Please let me know.

    Any ideas? Thank you.
    Patty 541.343.5091

  • Trudy Maloney

    Thank you for organizing this. I’m planning on attending the next meeting: 12/11.

    Happy Thanksgiving!
    Trudy

  • Anonymous

    I have signed up to be on the mailing list awhile ago, but have not received any e-mails. What are the committees and when and where do they meet?

    • Wethepeopleeugene

      If you are not getting emails yet ask to be added to the volunteers list:
      wethepeopleeugene[AT]gmail.com

  • Sunkneeville

    you people are the light for the world for the future may the great spirit be with us.

  • bobmarleyweedsmoke420

    hippies

  • Wdougr

    The time has come
    As the 99% rise up to a theme of “CHANGE” we recognize the need to have a clear goal. The first change could be for no more political fund raising only funded by tax payers with a whole new system that keeps out special interest!

  • Sylviadancingwind

    So glad to hear about this local endeavor:) Happy 2012 co-creating a new reality without hate or fear…….Love and Light, Sylvia

  • Shannonebuck

    How can you “Occupy the Courts” at a church?? I just read that because of inclement weather it has been moved???? We live in Oregon. You never know what the weather will be. I have been making signs and getting friends to agree to finally go protest something…now well what is the use.

  • jim bruggenschmidt

    Please take time to review this important information regarding Yield Spread Premium and Predatory Lending…

    Senator Jeff Merkley: YSP and Predatory Brokers
    http://merkley.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=A09C6A80-537A-4EB1-83C5-31925F046B6F

    REMAX: Predatory Lending
    http://jmb27.posterous.com/remax-the-dick-gaylord-scam

  • Curtis B. / Albany Area

    It’s about time to take back our country from the criminal Banksters who now run it. Our current ILLEGAL and ALIEN President is no more than a PUPPET doing the bidding of the Wall Street Banksters and until he is REMOVED from office we will have MORE OF THE SAME!!! WAKE UP AMERICA…..RON PAUL 2012!!!