Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
. . . and growing . . .
David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party candidate for president, is a volunteer member of the DUHC Steering Committee. I spoke with David this morning concerning the high court's decision and about the MoveToAmend's goals.
MB: Representative Alan Grayson of Florida told Keith Olbermann yesterday that he's already proposed five pieces of legislation to combat the court's ruling legislatively.
Do you have any faith in a legislative response to the court's decision?
DC: Of course I support any and all efforts to improve the country through the legislative process, through campaign finance; I support publicly financed elections; I support efforts to require any corporate contributions to get a majority of shareholders; I support campaign limits; I support a number of legislative efforts to make elections more democratic, more fair. But at the end of the day, those legislative efforts aren't going to reach the core of the problem, which is the fact that the social, political and legal system is profoundly undemocratic. And that's the reason that the campaign to legalize democracy is trying to build a movement that will be commiserate with the level of the problem. That's not to say that I don't support the legislative efforts of progressives in Congress.
MB: Following up on that, it's my impression that the floodgates have opened for corporations to not accept any rulings by lower courts and to bring all rulings to The Supreme Court, at which time The Supreme Court will have no other option other than to side with the corporations as it did yesterday.
Even legislation might be challenged.
DC: Legislation will be challenged. That's always been the case.
Many of us have been working in the trenches trying to organize, agitate and educate people about the problems at the core level. So, forgive me if I'm not surprised or outraged about The Supreme Court decision. It was inevitable.
So, yes, we should engage in legislative response. We should have candidates running for office on a platform calling for real democracy and calling to challenge the legal doctrine.
But it's always been the case. There are thousands of laws at the local, state and federal levels that courts have overturned in the last hundred years. When Democrats were in the White House and had control of Congress. When Democrats were sitting at The Supreme Court.
My frame on this decision is not that it is merely a travesty for campaign finance laws. It goes deeper. It is another indication, glaring and specific, of how undemocratic our country is because a law that people care about was overturned.
It's a profoundly jinxed ruling because it goes to the heart of elections and elections are the infrastructure of how a democratic republic ought to operate.
MB: How did the idea to outlaw corporate personhood develop?
