Referendum aims to reverse Citizens United ruling

When many Greater Lynn residents head to the polls in November, they will be asked whether to urge their congressman to call for a Constitutional amendment banning corporations from being defined as people.The ballot question, appearing on more than 1/3 of Massachusetts residents’ voting cards, is in response to the 2010 Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to anonymously give unlimited amounts to political action committees to influence campaigns.The result, said Nahant resident and Town Committee member Kathy Lique, is that corporations are buying the 2012 election and undermining people’s right to vote.”I believe we’re losing our democracy, and I don’t want to leave that to my kids,” she said.Lique is part of a national grassroots organization with active members on the North Shore that wants to overturn the Supreme Court’s so-called Citizens United ruling, which can only be done by amending the Constitution.So they’ll start small.The local branch, North Shore Move to Amend, succeeded in putting the non-binding referendum on the ballot in eight state districts on the North Shore. The communities covered include some or all of Lynn, Swampscott, Nahant, Marblehead, Salem, Beverly and up to Newburpyport.Lique said if voters are paying any attention to money flowing into this year’s elections – projected to reach an unprecedented $8 billion – they’ll realize the country is on the wrong track.”If we are a democracy that is governed is by the people for the people, then we need to take a look right now and see where we’re going and reverse directions,” she said.The group held a strategy meeting Friday night to discuss how to promote the ballot question among local voters. At the meeting, a former candidate for president and one of the leaders of the national Move to Amend movement spoke to attendees.David Cobb, who ran for president in 2004 as the Green Party candidate, put the cause to abolish corporate personhood on par with Constitutional amendments abolishing slavery and allowing women to vote.”It is, as they say, a heavy lift,” he said in an interview with The Daily Item, acknowledging the struggle ahead of Move to Amend advocates.But he said he’s optimistic Congress will eventually do the right thing.”I think we will amend the Constitution within a decade,” he said.The group sees the Nov. 6 election as the first small step toward that goal.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].