Former Green Party candidate for president David Cobb was on a three-day tour of Vermont this week to pitch a constitutional amendment that would strip corporations of personhood rights. Sen. Ginnie Lyons has proposed a resolution urging Congress to amend the Constitution to change the rights of corporations.
Listen to an audio clip of Cobb speaks and Lyons speaking at the Statehouse Jan. 18, 2011l
Draft of the proposed resolution from Sen. Lyons:
Joint resolution relating to urging the United States Congress to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution for the states’ consideration which provides that corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States or any of its jurisdictional subdivisions.
(Following are 16 ‘whereas’, the last two stating….)
Whereas, large corporations own most of America’s mass media and employ those media to loudly express the corporate political agenda and to convince American that the primary role of human beings is that of consumer rather than sovereign citizens with democratic rights and responsibilities, and
Whereas, the only way to reverse this intolerable societal reality is to amend the United States Constitution to define persons as human beings and not corporations, now therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives:
That the General Assembly urges Congress to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution for the states’ consideration which provides that corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States or any of its jurisdictional subdivisions, and be it further
Resolved: That the Secretary of State be directed to send a copy of this resolution to the Vermont Congressional Delegation.
