Overview: Ben& Jerry: Why Business for Democracy? John Bonifaz& Jeff Clements: The People s Rights Amendment David Levine: The Road Ahead Questions

Transcription

1 Welcome to Beyond Citizens United, a webinar by the American Sustainable Business Council s Business for Democracy Campaign and ASBC partner Free Speech for People. We would like to thank ASBC partners Green America, the Social Venture Network, New Voice of Business and our other network partners who have promoted this event. This Webinar is co-sponsored by AMIBA the American Independent Business Alliance. The Goal of this webinar is to educate business leaders who want to know more about Business for Democracy, Free Speech for People, and the People s Rights Amendment. It is both for people who may be new to the issue, and existing supporters considering investing more. 1

2 Overview: Ben& Jerry: Why Business for Democracy? John Bonifaz& Jeff Clements: The People s Rights Amendment David Levine: The Road Ahead Questions questions to: businessfordemocracy@gmail.com -How the Polls work and sample poll 2

3 The American Sustainable Business Council is a growing coalition of business networks and businesses committed to advancing a new vision, framework and policies that support a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. The Council brings together the business perspective, experience, political will and strength to stimulate our economy, benefit our communities, and preserve our environment. Today, the organizations that have joined in this partnership represent over 70,000 businesses and social enterprises and more than 150,000 entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals and other individuals. Find out more at: - The importance of business leaders as a political voice. - Build a positive business voice for a sustainable economy -Counter the idea that what is good for communities and the planet can t be good for business -Represent many who do not feel represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Ben and Jerry,Co-Founders of Ben and Jerry s Homemade and the Business for Democracy Campaign, scarcely needanintroduction They ll take it from here. 3

4 Ben and Jerry introduce themselves. -Launched Business for Democracy in Jan 2011 anniversary of the Citizens United decision. - The January 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision broke with precedent by asserting that corporations have a Constitutional right to speech through independent political expenditures. The ruling has allowed unlimited, secret electioneering directly from corporate treasuries to become the law of the land. We believe this policy is an affront to our democracy. It crowds out the voices of citizens - including small and mid-sized business owners and all businesses that want to operate ethically. -Business for Democracy presents a powerful way for business leaders to transform the discussion around pay to play politics. -The only ways to challenge a Supreme Court ruling are to get the Justices to reverse the ruling, or to pass a Constitutional Amendment. We kickstarted the Business for Democracy Campaign with our colleagues to make sure that a business voice is heard in support of reversing Citizens United through a constitutional amendment 4

5 Citizens United Undermines the Constitution and basic rights. -Supreme Court ruling effectively says that corporations have the right to speech, in other words to spend money, in unlimited amounts around elections, even if that speech involves directly advocating for or against a candidate (as long as the ad doesn t say vote for/against or to elect a particular candidate). -While before there were limits on how much corporations could spend promoting a particular candidate and how they could spend it those donations are not only unlimited, but they can be kept secret. -Much of this money is spent on political advertising -$ is fueling ever growing numbers of largely negative ads flooding the airwaves with no disclosure of who paid for them, and many wildly misleading. 5

6 -Corporations are designed to provide goods & services, to contribute by providing jobs and growing the economy; however corporations are not people. - We actively oppose the false assignment of people s Constitutional rights to corporations. -As business owners, we do not want new Constitutional rights for corporations which undermine both a healthy democracy and a competitive economy. -Businesses interests are best expressed in the political arena through individual business owners and managers, shareholders, employees, customers & the appropriate trade groups. 6

7 -This slide features the Story of Citizens United which is a great short film by the Story of Stuff crew on this issue. Check it out. -Many for-profit corporate forms require decision-makers put profit before the environment, community and democratic values or risk dismissal. -ASBC members are working to build a new economy where social mission driven companies & benefit corporations are the norm But, we cannot allow company profits to be the major reason certain candidates are promoted in our elections over others. -Constitutional rights to speak in elections should be reserved for the individuals who participate in the life of a business, not for the artificial legal entity of the corporation itself. -As business leaders, we have an opportunity to make this distinction publicly, that individual people, not legal corporations are vested with Constitutional rights to speak on who should run the country. 7

8 Citizens United increases inequality: - We believe that Citizens United stands to accelerate the growing inequality in this nation, not just amongst people, but also within the business community, where resource concentration in the hands of fewer and fewer large companies, is undermining market competition and distorting policy. -A fair playing field and a truly competitive market demand an impartial democratic system of governance. -Not only that, Our Democracy is at stake. 8

9 Poll: Which of the following impacts of Citizens United concern you most? -Foreign corps will be able pay for better market position - Corp. spending will overwhelm the voice of average citizens - It may allow large corporations to buy elections - Campaigns will become more expensive 9

10 Our pleasure to introduce John Bonifaz and Jeff Clements of ASBC partner Free Speech for Peoplewho willtalk about why and how topassa constitutional amendment. -Free Speech For People (FSFP) is a national, non-partisan campaign seeking to restore democracy to the people. -FSFP is dedicated to overturning, through a 28 th Amendment to the US Constitution, the US Supreme Court's January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FECand an expanding corporate rights doctrine which threatens our elections and our self-government. The ruling marks the most extreme extension yet of a corporate rights doctrine that has placed corporations over people. Corporations have used this fabricated doctrine in recent years to strike down democratically-enacted laws for the environment, health care, consumer rights, and civil rights. This doctrine threatens the fundamental promise of American government: of, for, and by the people. -We face today an historic moment for uniting the country around a basic principle: that people, not corporations, shall govern in America. -We are honored to be partnering with Ben and Jerry and the American Sustainable Business Council in seizing this moment and building a broad-based constitutional amendment that prominently includes the business leaders working to defend our democracy. 10

11 About FSFP Moments after the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling, we launched Free Speech For People to restore our Constitution and democracy to the people. Some of what we have already accomplished: Public Education and Grassroots Mobilization We have conducted public education events in more than a dozen states, raising awareness about the Citizens United ruling, the corporate rights doctrine, and their impact on our democracy. This outreach work has taken us to California, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington, DC, Washington State, and Wisconsin. Tens of thousands of people from across the country have signed our resolution calling for a constitutional amendment. State senators and representatives in MA, NM, and WA State have introduced our resolution in their state legislatures. The NM legislature came within a vote of passing our resolution earlier this year. 9 communities across Massachusetts passed our resolution at their annual town meetings this year. We worked with Representative Donna Edwards of Maryland, who, with Representative Conyers, Jr. of Michigan and 23 co-sponsors, introduced an amendment resolution in the House, which we helped to draft. We held meetings and briefings with other U.S. Senate and House staff from both major parties. Since then, several other amendment proposalshave been introduced in the House and Senate, the most recent offered in July 2010 by Senator Max Baucus. Further, we submitted testimonyto the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and briefed key staff for members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. 11

12 There is widespread trans-partisan support for a constitutional amendment

13 Public Opinion Research With support from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, we retained Peter Hart and Hart Research Associates at the end of last year to do a public opinion study on the Citizens Unitedruling and a constitutional amendment to address it. The study showed that widespread majorities of the electorate, across the political spectrum, oppose the Citizens Unitedruling Further, they support a constitutional amendment to make clear that corporations do not have the same rights as people. More than 75% of Americans remain unaware of the Court s ruling and its impact on our democracy. Once educated on this matter, however, voters, regardless of their ideology, are united in supporting a constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling. We have used this research to help demonstrate the viability of pressing for this constitutional amendment and the potential for building a broad coalition across the political spectrum in support of it.

14 Legal Resource & Advocacy Free Speech For People is now recognized as a leading and popular legal resource on the Citizen United case. We have appeared on panels at a number of law schools (will appear on slide no need to read: such as Harvard, Boston College, Cornell, New York University, University of Colorado- Boulder, New Hampshire, Maine, New England and the University of Washington). We ve authored Issue Briefs and media pieces for the American Constitution Society and the American Bar Association. We organized a bipartisan lettersigned by more than fifty leading law professors and prominent attorneys including seven former state attorneys general urging Congress to explore a constitutional amendment. 14

15 Our Strategy Moving Forward Our strategy and short-term objectives toward the overall goal of a 28 th Amendment to the Constitution include the following: Educate the public at the grassroots Build a true trans-partisan movement for change, working with individuals and organizations across the political spectrum; Create a legal environmentfor moving courts to reject the corporate rights doctrine and return to the fundamental understanding that our Constitution protects the rights of people; and Engage the business community in support of our campaign. 15

16 Public Education at Grassroots We will target five initial states for building mobilized, grassroots constituencies across the political spectrum to reclaim democracy for people. Four of the states will be MA, CO, WA and NM looking at the 5 th state. In these states, we will train, support and develop citizen activists as leaders to frame the message and increase awareness of the problem. We will work to pass local and state resolutions calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment and send it to the states for ratification. These resolutions will serve as important organizing vehicles at the grassroots level and will help broaden public discussion of the corporate rights doctrine and its effects on our democracy and our government. We will also engage in public education on corporate charter laws, to educate the public that corporations are entities created by the states whose conduct we the people, through our democratic institutions, ultimately oversee. We will highlight the importance of corporate charter reform as a means to ensure that corporations are serving the public good through the states. 16

17 Building a Trans-partisan Coalition We will further our efforts to be the only national organization working on overturning the Citizens United ruling and the corporate rights doctrine that is truly non-partisan and transpartisan. We will mobilize constituencies and engage in communications in ways that genuinely reach across all ideologies. We will focus on building a coalition across various issue-based constituencies including: environmental, labor, civil rights, economic justice, health care, corporate accountability, consumer rights, and campaign finance fields. Free Speech for People seeks to seize this opportunity to unite people across numerous issues and party lines to address the fundamental relationship of corporate power and American democracy. 17

18 Creating a Legal Environment We will continue to serve as a key legal resource on a 28 th Constitutional Amendment We will build on this work and will convene regional meetings with leading constitutional scholars and attorneys. Continue to partner with law schools and progressive law organizations in holding education events for the legal community and the public Build a legal advisory committee tasked with helping to educate and enlist the support of legal academics and practitioners Build a legal network, with legal committees in various states, to help us identify and seize opportunities to push back in the courts against the corporate rights doctrine. 18

19 Engaging the Business Community Through our partnership with the American Sustainable Business Council and its Business for Democracy Campaign, we are building support within the business community for a constitutional amendment. We are reaching out to business leaders to serve as spokespeople for our public education efforts, with particular attention to the harmful impact of the corporate rights doctrine on a competitive marketplace. In addition, we are building a Business Advisory Council for Free Speech For People which will also assist us in presenting the business rationale for this campaign. This partnership will be central to our public education and outreach to the business community. Further, we will support efforts to get businesses to educate and engage their consumers on this critical question of our time. 19

20 Conclusion In joining the launch of this campaign on the day of the Court s ruling in Citizens United, Jamie Raskin, professor of constitutional law and the First Amendment at American University s Washington College of Law, issued this statement(see slide). John Bonifaz continued: America is at a crossroads. In the wake of the Citizens United ruling, we will either see corporate dominance of our government to its fullest extent or we will see a restoration of the promise of our Constitution and our democracy. The campaign outlined here will be critical in ensuring that the nation takes that latter road. 20

21 I m Jeff Clements, co-founder and general counsel with Free Speech for People. When I told my kids I was doing a webinar with Ben and Jerry, they immediately started coming up with great new names for ice cream flavors. The winner: Free Peach for People! We are in this fight for our country, for liberty and democracy for people, for the environment, for who we are as a government of the people, not government of the corporations. But this is also a fight for a fair, free economy. ASBC and business people are critical advocates for this cause. 21

22 We were in Washington this week, and bills already are being introduced in Congress, but our strategy must focus on building this effort in the states and local communities. Congress will act when we have a critical mass of resolutions passed in the States demanding the People s Rights Amendment. Congress must pass a Constitutional Amendment resolution to send to the states for ratification. 2/3 of Congress, ¾ of the States. We will also advocate in the courts, pushing back on the concept that our Bill of Rights is for multinational corporate entities, not people. We will file amicus briefs, and intervene where multinational corporations seek to strike down laws or demand special corporate rights. We will press for accountability when large corporations continue to break the law, as is happening in Appalachia with Massey Energy, or in the Gulf of Mexico with BP. We will advocate and debate in town hall meetings, in business groups, state legislatures, Congress, law schools, judicial nominations, and anywhere we have the opportunity to build this campaign to restore free speech, fair elections and our government to people, not multinational corporations. 22

23 We need you to not only make the case for republican democracy, but for a fair market economy. Your businesses, and the vast majority of businesses in America, are hurt, not helped, by Citizens United and the fabrication of corporate rights in our Constitution. It is global fossil fuel companies, chemical and agribizcompanies like Monsanto, and cigarette corporations that have used corporate speech arguments to strike down basic laws. It is global military contractorsand fossil fuel dinosaurs, that funneled literally billions of dollars of the past decade into Washington and State capitals to win unfair and inefficient advantages. A key part of our strategy is to make a business argument foran amendment in states and communities across the country. Business people like you are essential to winning our country back for the American people, and to building the sustainable world we envision. Citizens United undermines the political process. -For businesses who feel obliged to contribute, Citizens United ->increased political spending, - Could even lead to bidding wars in contentious elections -Wasting company resources that should be invested in growth. The current policy wastes politicians time that should be spent governing instead raising money. In the current pay to play system, voters are bombarded and misled by ever increasing amounts of unwanted advertising. -Majority of biz lose out because unwilling or unable to compete with large multinational corporations in an escalating bidding war for the favor of political office holders. - Businesses on the cutting edge of innovation, such as new entrants in renewable energy or manufacturing, are drowned out the ExxonMobils and GEs. Enormous subsidies are directed to corporations already doing well, while those who would benefit most from proactive policy are be drowned out along with the majority of citizens. Poll:Approximately how much did the 2010 federal elections cost? 500 M, 1B, 3B, 4B Answer: ~$4B Point out we don t actually know since disclosure is no longer required. 23

24 MT Amicus An example of our state strategy beyond resolutions happened last month in Montana. There the Attorney General is defending a Citizens United-based attack on the 1912 Montana law that keeps corporate money out of state elections. Free Speech for People filed an amicus brief, joined by ASBC, AMIBA and two Montana businesses Mike s Thriftway, a local grocery in business since 1971, employer of 26 people, and Home Resources Center, a green building supply and recycling business. With help from these businesses, we could explain to the Supreme Court of Montana, that most businesses don t want or need phony Constitutional rights to divert precious capital to pay-to-play politicians. 24

25 U.S. Chamber Here s some stats we brought to the Court s attention. The U. S. Chamber of Commerce is the favorite funnel for corporate money into politics, and it is dominated by giant, multinational corporations. Even Apple and Nike resigned because of its extremism on climate change. In recent years, 83% of U.S. Chamber contributions were $100,000 or more; 40% came from 25 contributors; Three contributors provided 20% of the Chamber s dollars. In 2009, onecontribution of $86.2 million came to 42% of all Chamber contributions. That was from the health insurance lobby to block real reform on healthcare and ensure favorable treatment. (U.S. Chamber Watch findings at and (accessed April 14, 2011).) 25

26 Much of these political donations come from multinational corporations with foreign or institutional shareholders who do not necessarily share our interest in election outcomes that benefit the American people or the American economy. For example, News Corporation contributed at least $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce election spending campaign and $1 million to the Republican Governors Association campaign. While the corporation s largest shareholder is the family of Rupert Murdoch, a naturalized Australian-American, the second largest shareholder, with $2 billion in shares, is Prince Alalweed bin Talal s Kingdom Holding Company of Saudi Arabia. (See Interview with Prince bin Talal, available at (accessed April 25, 2011); News Corp Gave $1 Million to GOP Group, POLITICO, September 30, 2010, available at (accessed April 25, 2011). How many American businesses think it is prudent to throw $2 million at an election? Why should businesses have to do that rather than concentrate on business? For our economy, our country, and our kids and the future, we must win this fight. We must win the People s Rights Amendment. We thank you for your interest and support and look forward to working with you. 26

27 Poll: How much do you support the proposed People's Rights Amendment text? - Talk to/ my friends and business colleagues -Write a letter to the editor or an opinion editorial - Speak publicly about the issue - Talk to my state and federal representative 27

28 Business for Democracy is an initiative of companies and business leaders who believe that the Citizen United Supreme Court ruling is in direct conflict with American democratic principles and a serious threat to good government. Its members stand with the four members of the Supreme Court and the 80 percent of Americans who disagree with the decision. 28

29 What is B4D doing about it: Outreach & Education Major focus currently is building the business voice around this issue. Businesses has a very powerful voice on this issue, have an opportunity to disrupt the prevailing assumption that businesses, as represented by the US Chamber are in favor of unlimited, secret electioneering. ASBC works for each campaign with specific business owners amongst our membership and beyond with all business groups and independent business. Have partnered with Free Speech for People in advocating with business leaders for a Constitutional amendment to overturn thecitizens United decision and clarify that Constitutional rights such as free speech are for people, not for corporations. 29

30 What B4D is doing: Testimony and Advocacy We have received a requests from numerous legislators to have our business perspective or to participate in providing testimony. Recently, we were asked by Oversight Counsel for the House Small Business Committee to present testimony at a hearing called by Congressman Darrell Issa around the President s draft Executive Order to require contractors to disclose their political expenditures, including to groups like the Chamber of Commerce. Use opportunity to hold press conf. calling for a complete restriction of political donations by fed contractors. 30

31 What B4D is doing: Media and Dialogue - Working to develop more business spokespeople who can speak out on this issue. Identifying leaders to write opinion editorials, blogs, and letters to the editor. -If you are interested in doing some writing (with lots of help from ASBC and Free Speech for People), or in speaking at events or with your elected officials please businessfordemocracy@gmail.com 31

32 Poll:What are you will you do to help overturn Citizens United? - Talk to/ my friends and business colleagues -Talk to my customers - Talk to my state and federal representative -Write a letter to the editor or an opinion editorial (with help) - Speak publicly about the issue 32

33 Contact Us Contact Us: John Bonifaz, Director, Free Speech For People , Jeff Clements, Gen. Counsel, Free Speech For People , Aquene Freechild, Coordinator, Business for Democracy , 33

34 Thank you for joining Free Speech for People and American Sustainable Business Council s webinar. If you haven't yet signed our Business Leader Statement of Support,please do so via Free Speech forpeople ( or the American Sustainable Business Council( 34