The Oregon Progressive Party commends Oregon U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio for recently signing on as co-sponsors of the “We the People” proposed U.S. 28th Constitutional Amendment (HJR 48).

Since the January 2010 U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision much interest has been expressed in Congress and by citizens working at the local and state level in amending the Constitution to address the granting to corporations of the right to freely spend corporate funds on elections campaigns.  The Court did so by concluding that corporations have constitutional rights--that they are in effect human beings with constitutional rights.  

Oregon and 15 other states have now called for a constitutional amendment to at least overturn Citizens United.  The “We the People” proposed amendment would go further by amending the U.S. Constitution to say that corporations are not people and money is not speech. Such an amendment would overturn court decisions going back to Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), which gave 14th Amendment human rights to corporations, and would include more recent decisions like Buckley v Valeo, First National Bank of Boston v Bellotti, and others.

On June 17, these 3 bills were "withdrawn" directly to the floor of the Oregon Senate by their Republican sponsors.  All were then rejected on straight party-line 18-12 votes, with all Democrats voting against them.

• SB 940 makes “vote trading” illegal for legislators, ensuring they put their constituents first and not vote based on future promises of campaign contributions.
   
• SB 853 places high-ranking agency and elected officials under oath when testifying before the Legislature.  This is the ordinary procedure in the U.S. Congress.
   
• SB 852 makes submitting false information in a candidate voters’ pamphlet statement illegal.

UPDATE: JUNE 18.  Today the House of Representatives approved a "stand alone" Fast Track Authority bill on a vote of 218-208. Democrats who voted in favor again included Rep. Blumenauer, Bonamici and Schrader.

One Win but battle not over.

On Friday, President Obama's corporate driven trade agenda was dealt a serious blow in large part due to the huge grassroots insurgence of phone calls, emails, faxes, meetings, rallies and general rabble-rousing done by all of us and our allies in the labor, environmental, consumer, farmers, internet users, public health, LGBTA and other peoples' movements. Those movements have really stepped up to the plate to say No to Fast Track, the TPP and other corporate trade agreements.

But the fight will continue and so we must be ready ON MONDAY to swing back into action.

What happened on Friday is that the corporatists' plan fell apart. The Senate had passed a combined Fast Track/Trade Adjustment Assistance bill (62-37) last month. But the House split it apart, resulting in two votes, one on Fast Track and one on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). The House voted in favor of Fast Track Authority (219-211, with 28 Democrats voting with the Republicans) but soundly defeated TAA (126-302). Democrats, who typically support TAA, voted against it because of various modifications made to it in order to attract conservative Republican votes and most importantly, because it had to pass for Fast Track to move forward. Not wanted Fast Track to move, Democrats in large number voted No. Note, however, that Oregon Representatives Blumenauer, Bonamici and Schrader, all Democrats, voted wrong on both these pieces of legislation, voting to move Fast Track forward.

Because of differences between the House approved Fast Track and the Senate version, it must either go to the Senate for their approval or the House must try to pass the TAA in another vote on Monday or Tuesday. Speaker Boehner has called for the House to reconsider during that time frame. If the Speaker does not think that a vote would produce the desired result, he might delay the vote. For us, the more delay the better. Or the Fast Track bill could be sent to the Senate as is, without the TAA, for their approval.

So our job now is to CALL, CALL, EMAIL, and CALL more and more often.

Our candidate, Michael Sonnleitner, yesterday won a seat on the Board of Directors of the Portland Community College system, which serves over 90,000 students.

The vote was close.  We conducted a phone bank for Michael on May 5.

Courtney Wilton . . . . . . . . 3,407 30.5%
Anita Yap . . . . . . . . . .   3,435 30.7%
Michael Sonnleitner . . . . . . 4,234 37.9%
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . .      93

Congratulations!