Humboldt County, CA Measure T

Title: Ordinance to Protect Our Right to Fair Elections and Local Democracy

Jurisdiction: Humboldt County, California

Type: Initiative

Status: Adopted with 55% of the vote

Date: June 6, 2006

Search strings: corporate power, corporate personhood, local democracy, people power, campaign finance reform

Full text: http://www.votelocalcontrol.org/ordinance_text.htm

Summary: Prohibits campaign donations by corporations based outside of Humboldt County and declares that corporations do not have constitutional rights Analysis: A New Populist Uprising, by David Cobb in the Progressive Populist

Something profoundly important is happening in the shadows of the redwoods of Northern California. On June 6, voters in Humboldt County will have the opportunity to vote on an historic initiative -- the Ordinance to Protect Our Right to Fair Elections and Local Democracy.

If passed, this ordinance (known locally as Measure T) will prohibit non-local corporations from making political contributions in Humboldt County elections. This alone would make the ordinance worthy of support amongst progressives. But this ordinance goes so much deeper.

The official ballot language includes a direct challenge to the ridiculous notion that a corporation is a "person" with vested constitutional rights. Specifically, the ordinance provides that "only natural human persons possess civil and political rights, and corporations are creations of state law and possess no legitimate civil or political rights."

There is the additional assertion that "courts have illegitimately defined corporations as 'persons' and this doctrine illegitimately denies the people of Humboldt County the ability to exercise our fundamental political rights." And to add teeth, the initiative provides that "no corporation shall be entitled to claim corporate constitutional rights or protections in an effort to overturn this law."