Citizens Unite! (Seven Days)

January 25, 2012

By Andy Bromage

Vermont is fast becoming the epicenter of the national grassroots movement to repeal Citizens United. That’s the 2010 Supreme Court decision that obliterated federal campaign-finance laws and opened the floodgates for the sleazy, Super-PAC-funded attack ads clogging airwaves in primary states.

Vermont’s own U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment heroically called the “Saving American Democracy Amendment” that would overturn the Supremes’ ruling by declaring that corporations are not persons with constitutional rights equal to actual people. As of January 24, his online petition had gathered 195,000 supportive signatures.

In Montpelier, state Sen. Ginny Lyons (D-Chittenden) is leading the fight to make the Vermont Legislature the first in the country to call for a repeal of Citizens United. Twenty-five towns will vote on opposing corporate personhood on Town Meeting Day. Another 35 towns are still gathering signatures to put the question on the ballot.

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