April 22
1970 – Earth Day, birth of environmental movement
An estimated 20 million people took part across the US in marches, rallies, teach-ins and other public events to demonstrate support for the environment. Much of the environment’s deterioration/destruction from toxic and radioactive dumps, pesticides, wildlife extinction, air pollution, oil spills, raw sewage, wilderness loss and freeways came from corporate actions – that were ignored, sanctioned or subsidized by the government. The day led to the creation of organizations and massive grassroots pressure leading to the establishment of the EPA and federal laws addressing clean air, water and wildlife protection.
Earth Day went global in 1990. More than 200 million people in over 140 countries took part in activities and sparked a global movement, which continues today against these same issues as well as climate change.
Corporate entities remain a major cause of environmental destruction.
2011 – Students call for constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood
The Associated Students organization of Humboldt State University in California pass a resolution supporting the Move to Amend campaign and calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood. The resolution was proposed by a group of students working with Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC).
2019 – “How a River Was Granted Personhood” published article
“Then, in 2017, something unprecedented happened. The New Zealand government granted the Whanganui River legal personhood—a status that is in keeping with the Maori worldview that the river is a living entity. The legislation, which has yet to be codified into domestic law, refers to the river as an “indivisible, living whole,” conferring it “all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities” of an individual.
“An ancient Maori proverb reads, ‘I am the river, and the river is me.’”
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/587689/river-me
[Note: A very appropriate piece to be published on Earth Day!]
2022 – “PG&E CEO Cleared More Than $50 Million in 2021” Corporate Crime Reporter Morning Minute audio
Patricia Poppe, received more than $50 million in compensation in 2021. This was the same year that the corporation was responsible for causing the Camp Fire (the second largest wildfire in history) that resulted in 84 deaths (that the company pled guilty to) and over $1 billion in damages.
[Note: “’We treat corporations as persons but we don’t send corporations to jail,’ Ramsey remarked. The best the state could do, he said, is to fine the company as a person.
“‘There’s an obvious disconnect there,’ he added, explaining the state was only allowed to seek $10,000 per death.”
2023 – “The Constitution Is a Plutocratic Document: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT OVETZ”
“We’re seeing a resurgence of class struggle in the United States. I think there’s some dissatisfaction following the past two elections and the failure to get important legislation passed. Many of the people who have been involved with electing democratic socialists to Congress and trying to get Bernie Sanders the Democratic presidential nomination are turning toward labor organizing because they see things are blocked in terms of being able to elect the right person and having that result in meaningful changes in policy.
“Also, the long-running crises we face continue to go unaddressed — gun violence, climate catastrophe, homelessness, explosion of housing costs, low wages, anti-union repression. As a result, people are looking for a more systematic explanation and analysis for why we can’t get things done. We’re starting to look at the design and organization of the political process itself.”
https://jacobin.com/2023/04/us-constitution-we-the-elites-robert-ovetz
April 23
2010 – Arizona Senate Bill 1070 signed into law
Police are required to ask individuals to present their citizenship or immigration documents if they have undefined “reasonable suspicion” that the person stopped may be in AZ illegally, justifying racial profiling and harassment.
The law was upheld by U.S. Supreme court on June 25, 2012
2014: “My Resignation from the NC State Bar” by Lewis Pitts
A tremendous statement by the former Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy [POCLAD] Principal
“There is stark injustice in our land and the Bar stands mostly silent to its affirmative duty as the collective conscience of individual lawyers to speak out as ‘public citizen(s)’ in opposition to these legal and moral wrongs. Law must be grounded in notions of shared moral values. These have been made clear in our Founding Documents: justice, equality, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the enjoyment of the fruits of one’s own labor, domestic tranquility, and the general welfare – as well as the values contained in the Bill of Rights. Today those values are treated as if ‘special interests’ or on the fringe instead of being core values. The ‘morals and manners of the market place’ trample these values routinely in capital’s mad hunt for profits while selectively claiming ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ to expropriate and accumulate as much wealth as possible. It is this hunt for profit that has turned our legal profession into the ‘legal industry’ serving the market instead of the People.” Complete statement at
2018 – REPORT: The 3,100 Companies That Are Invested in Mass Criminalization
Urban Justice Center: “With this report we seek to convey the enormity of the prison industrial complex and shed light on its diverse corporate participants.”
2020 — “Seventeen More Communities Vote to Amend the U.S. Constitution” online posting
“In the April election, Wisconsin residents in seventeen communities voted to amend the U.S. Constitution to clarify that only human beings should have inalienable human rights and money is not the same thing as free speech.
“All referenda passed with overwhelming majorities in the cities of Rhinelander (89%) and Eagle River (87%) and the towns of Wescott (86%), Newbold (87%), Crescent (83%), Pelican (85%), Woodruff (85%), Pine Lake (86%), Hazelhurst (86%), Arbor Vitae (87%), Presque Isle (79%), Winchester (79%), Boulder Junction (86%), Phelps (81%), Lac du Flambeau (85%), Plum Lake (82%) and Manitowish Waters (77%).
https://www.movetoamend.org/seventeen_more_communities_vote_to_amend_the_u_s_constitution
April 24
1864 – Birth of John Basil Barnhill – writer, lecturer, debater, ed. of various journals including The Eagle and the Serpent – on liberty
“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” (under pseud. John Erwin McCall).
1936 – Death of Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley), humorist and writer
“I niver knew a pollytician to go wrong ontil he’s been contaminated by contact with a business man.”
2018 – Mick Mulvaney says in Congress, he only talked to lobbyists who gave him money
“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress…If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”
Talk by Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and head of the Offie of Management and Budget Office of Management and Budget, gave to a group of some 1,300 bankers and lending industry professionals at the American Bankers Association conference in Washington, DC.
[Note: Mulvaney was Trump’s Acting Chief of Staff from 2019-2020]
2020 – “Environmental Personhood: Recent Developments and the Road Ahead” published article
“Even today the essence of the principle propounded by Justice William Douglas back in 1972 can be discerned in a number of judicial pronouncements and legislation across the world that advocate for according of certain rights to nature and some even going out of their way in according legal personality to an array of flora and fauna and other environmental elements. These developments come in as a welcome change to the usual legal narrative which maintains an anthropocentric view and perspective to cases and disputes involving nature. Jurisdictions like New Zealand, India, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. have come up with diverse conceptions of environment as a judicial personality and thus it is rendered necessary to understand the rationale involved in each of these scenarios.”
https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/04/sanket-khandelwal-environment-person
April 25
2000 – Point Arenas CA becomes first modern-day community in nation to pass resolution challenging corporate personhood
“• Whereas, the Citizens of the City of Point Arena hope to nurture and expand democracy in our community and our nation; and
• Whereas, democracy means governance by the people and only natural persons should be able to participate in the democratic process; and
• Whereas, interference in the democratic process by corporations frequently usurps the rights of citizens to govern; and
• Whereas, corporations are artificial entities separate and apart from natural persons, are not naturally endowed with consciousness or the rights of natural persons, are creations of law and are only permitted to do what is authorized under law; and
• Whereas, rejecting the concept of corporate personhood will advance meaningful campaign finance reform.
• Now, therefore, be it resolved that: the City Council of the City of Point Arena agrees with Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in a 1938 opinion in which he stated, “I do not believe the word ‘person’ in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations;” and
Be it further resolved that the City of Point Arena shall encourage public discussion on the role of corporations in public life and urge other cities to foster similar public discussion.”
Jan Edwards and others promoted the resolution campaign with the Redwood Coast Alliance for Democracy
April 26
1978 – First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti – corporations win right to spend money in elections
Corporations win the First Amendment “free speech” right to spend money influencing ballot measures. The Supreme Court ruling (435 U.S. 765, 822) threw out a Massachusetts law and nullified the laws of thirty states that had adopted similar legislation prohibiting corporate spending to influence ballot issues. Dissent by Justices White, Brennan, Marshall: “Corporations are artificial entities created by law for the purpose of furthering certain economic ends…It has long been recognized…that the special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only our economy but the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process…The state need not allow its own creation to consume it.” Rehnquist also dissented: “The blessings of perpetual life and limited liability…so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere.”
This ruling coupled with Buckley v. Valeo is used to deny democratic attempts by We the People to remove corporate money from politics.
2019 — “The Supreme Court’s Anti-Worker Rulings Are So Routine Now That We Hardly Notice Them. Big Mistake.” by Sheldon Whitehouse
“This latest partisan 5–4 decision—which came in the case of Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela—used the Federal Arbitration Act, a law governing how parties can resolve disputes through private arbitration proceedings, to deny a defrauded worker a chance at a class action. Again, if you missed it, you’re not alone. Partisan decisions from the Roberts Five choking off the rights of workers and consumers and protecting corporations from accountability have become so boringly predictable that they’re hardly news anymore.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/sheldon-whitehouse-roberts-supreme-court-lamps-plus.html
April 27
1964 – President Lyndon Johnson on helping business corporations
“We haven’t done anything for business this week — but it is only Monday morning.”
— speech to U.S. Chamber of Commerce
2009 – Comment by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin – banks own Congress
“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”
What was a refreshing bit of true reality in 2009 is even truer today. The finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector tops all sectors in political campaign contributions (or are they investments?) to Washington politicians. The return on their investments are substantial – no indictments of top bankers responsible for the 2008 sub-prime crisis and financial implosion, bailouts galore…and, of course the continuation of the license to print debt money that is loaned to the US – at interest.
2018 — “2020 Democratic Contenders are Making the ‘Cheap Gesture’ of Sharing off Corporate PAC Money, but Big Checks are Still Flying” posted article
“The reason is that money from PACs – corporate or otherwise — comprises a relatively insignificant portion of these senators’ campaign contributions, raising the question of whether curtailing donations from corporate PACs will really make a difference. Critics think it doesn’t, noting that the bigger threat of influence comes from wealthy donors who don’t funnel their cash through PACs. But for politicians looking to seize on public discontent with the influence of money on politics, the decision makes for an effective messaging ploy.”
2021 – “The Green New Deal Needs the #WeThePeopleAmendment” online posting
“As long as corporations have constitutional rights, the Green New Deal is vulnerable to lawsuits and being gutted by the Supreme Court under the excuse that it violates corporate constitutional rights. In other words — the Green New Deal NEEDS the #WeThePeopleAmendment.”
https://www.movetoamend.org/the_green_new_deal_needs_the_wethepeopleamendment
2023 – 46 Senate Republicans vote against constitutional amendment guaranteeing gender equality, posted article by Josh Israel
“A bipartisan resolution that would have recognized the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment failed to get a filibuster-proof majority.
“Fifty-one senators voted on Thursday for a resolution that would have eliminated a past deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and effectively deemed it ratified. But 46 Republicans voted to filibuster the legislation, leaving the constitutional amendment in limbo.”
April 28
1890 – Leisy v. Hardin [135 U.S. 100, 128] Supreme Court decision – federal Commerce Clause overrules state law protecting citizens.
The Court ruled that the laws of Iowa prohibiting in-state sales of out-of-state produced alcohol were unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. The state argued that the state had the right to bar sales under the “police powers” of Iowa that charges the state with protecting the life, health and welfare of its citizens. The Court disagreed.
In his dissent, Justice Gray stated:
“The police power includes all measures for the protection of the life, the health, the property and the welfare of the inhabitants, and for the promotion of good order and the public morals. It covers the suppression of nuisances, whether injurious to the public health, like unwholesome trades, or to the public morals, like gambling houses and lottery tickets.
“This power, being essential to the maintenance of the authority of local government, and to the safety and welfare of the people, is inalienable. As was said by Chief Justice Waite, referring to earlier decisions to the same effect, ‘No legislature can bargain away the public health or the public morals. The people themselves cannot do it, much less their servants. The supervision of both these subjects of governmental power is continuing in its nature, and they are to be dealt with as the special exigencies of the moment may require. Government is organized with a view to their preservation, and cannot divest itself of the power to provide for them.’”
1915 – Founding of the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF)
As part of the WILPF’s ‘”Challenge Corporate Power, Assert the People’s Rights” national campaign in the early 2000’s, study materials were developed and six-session study groups were formed across the country to “explore the history and roots of corporate power, examine global corporatization, decolonize our minds, and participate in democratic conversation.”
2020 – Nader Activists Push Back Against Corporate Campaign to Limit Coronavirus Liability
“In an open letter to President Trump and members of Congress, Nader and twenty other lawyers, law professors and activists warned of “the pernicious effort by corporate lobbyists, insurance companies and other special interest groups to put our fellow citizens at risk, and press for legislative immunity to escape liability for preventable harms causing injury or death…
“’The problem extends far beyond nursing homes. This is part of the coming wave of tort injuries, far beyond health care institutions. This includes sales of defective products, dangerous nostrums, ill-advised treatments and other fraudulent or criminal merchandising preying on people struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Immunity from liability is a legal contagion. Special interest groups often raise pleas for immunity from liability for injuring, even killing people. And more often than not, those pleas are a pretext to obscure or conceal serious wrongdoing; and to escape liability for harming, maiming, even killing people.’”
2022 – “Bernie Sanders pushes back on Romney’s comments bashing student-loan forgiveness: ‘I know he thinks corporations are people, but does he know people are people?’” posted article
“Mr. Romney supports ‘bribes’ in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and billions in welfare for corporations, but is shocked by the idea that working Americans might get help paying off student debt,’ Sanders wrote on Twitter on Thursday. ‘I know he thinks corporations are people, but does he know people are people?'”
https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-mitt-romney-spar-on-student-loan-forgiveness-2022-4
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