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4 <br />Resolution to Amend the Federal Constitution to Clarify that Corporations are not People and Money is not <br />Speech . <br />Whereas, government of, by, and for the people has long been a cherished American value, and We The <br />Peoplea?Ts fundamental and inalienable right to self-govern, and thereby secure rights to life, liberry, properry; <br />and the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and; <br />~Vhereas, corporations are human-madeY legal fictions created by express permission of We The Peop~e and our <br />government, and are not and have never been human beings, but rather are rightfully subsexvient to~human <br />beings and governments as our legal creations, and; <br />~Vhereas, corporations can exist in perpetuity, can exist si.multaneously in many nations at once, and can <br />concentrate vast wealth which allows them to corrupt the political process in order to ga.in special privileges and <br />to wield coercive force of law to overpower human beings and communities, thus denying We The Peoplea?Ts <br />exercise of our Constitutional rights, and; ~ <br />Whereas, the recent Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision that rolled <br />back the legal limits on corporate speriding in the electoral process creates an unequal p~aying field and allows <br />unlimited corporate spending to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes, and <br />forces electeci officials to divert their attention from The Peoplesa?T business, or even vote against the interest <br />of their human constituents, in order to ensure competitive campaign funds for their own re-election, and; <br />Whereas, large corporations own most of Americaa?Ts mass media and use that media as a megaphone to <br />express loudly their political agenda. and to convince Americans that their primary role is that of consumers, <br />rather than sovereign citizens with rights and responsibilities within our democracy, and this forces citizens to <br />toil to discern the truth behind headlines and election campaigning, and; <br />Therefore be it resolved tiiat Orange County, NC stands with the Move to Amend campaign and communities <br />across the country to defend democracy from the corrupting effects of undue corporate power by amending the <br />United States Constiiution to establish that: <br />1. Only human beings, not corporations, are endowed with constiiutional rights, and 2. Money is not speech, <br />and therefore regulating political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech. <br />DATE: <br />4 <br />