Envision Seattle

Bellingham's No Coal! Proposition 2 Seeks Emergency Stay

UPDATE: The Court of Appeals has agreed to hear the stay. Hearing date tba.

Bellingham's Proposition 2 (No Coal!) has requested an emergency stay and discretionary review from the Washington State Court of Appeals citing imminent harm if the initiative is barred from the November ballot (a decision on the stay is required by August 28th to meet deadlines for county elections).

No Coal! argues that the Judge reversed long-standing precedents barring pre-election initiative challenges based on allegations of invalidity and compromised free speech protectons of the initiative organizers and signers, among other claims .

Furthermore, the Judge ruled in part that Prop. 2 should be barred from the ballot in part because it challenges state and federal law - whereas Washington's Marijuana Legalization Initiative 502 has not been barred, but it also conflicts with state and federal law.

Read the full documents (pdf):

•  Motion for Emergency Stay
• Motion for Discretionary Review

 

Good Activism Breaks Law

Update: The Stranger published a shorter version of this on August  15.

    Last week, The Stranger called Initiative 103 “an unconstitutional waste of time,” but constitutionality isn’t the right benchmark to measure social change efforts. 

    In 1873, after suffragist Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting, The New York Times wrote, "Miss Anthony is not in the remotest degree likely to gain her case, nor if it were ever so desirable that women should vote, would hers be a good case.” The paper’s view proved true - it took 47 years to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. The constitutionality of gender-based sex discrimination lasted until 1971.

    Constitutionality isn't an appropriate assessment of social change efforts because shifts in constitutional law trail culture and change slowly in time, often in response to such movements. Slavery was constitutional until 1865 and the legacy of discrimination and segregation remained so until 1954's Brown v. Board of Education. The cultural view of abolitionists also changed greatly during this time.

    When The Stranger advocates for the legalization of gay marriage, it’s essentially doing a similar thing as i103. We're challenging the constitutionality of treating corporations as persons and it's challenging the constitutionality of excluding marriage rights from the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

    The Stranger chose not to publish my response to its legal professor's comments regarding i103’s constitutionality, but I had said, "What is constitutional today is corporate rights trumping community rights." That’s what we need to change by dismantling corporate personhood and corporate constitutional rights.

    When exactly did the city’s leading “alternative” newspaper begin quoting the establishment as the ultimate authority?

    We’ve created a system of law that renders economic and environmental sustainability illegal and impossible. For example, The Stranger acknowledges that Seattle has no means of stopping the coming escalation of coal train exports but doesn’t ask the question, why? This is the question i103 addresses by asking Seattle voters to initiate changes to the legal structures that subvert our community’s health and happiness - and our democracy.

    What might sound crazy today, may seem normal in the future. That's often how social change works.

The Case for Rights for Orca and Salmon

    The Stranger mocked i103 for its “rights for urban whales” but didn’t really consider the facts: Puget Sound’s orca, already endangered, are “highly likely” to go extinct by the end of the century; their population is down to 87. Their food source, salmon includes 27 endangered species. 29% of northwest salmon species are already extinct. “Some of the salmon populations are at less than 1% of their historic numbers.”

    These animals act as canaries in the coal mine for the general health of Puget Sound - and for our environment; both orca and salmon have high concentrations of toxic PCB’s in their body. Some male orca haven’t developed reproductive organs and it’s possible thepopulation could crash overnight as older males die off. Similarly, the average American has 700 industrial chemicals in their body. Our health and theirs isn't entirely disconnected. 

    Not only do existing regulatory protections seem to be falling short but they are often attacked. Last week, a group of California farmers filed suit to delist Northwest orca to end water restrictions in place to protect salmon.

    To argue against “their right to exist” is to continue a policy of their expendability.

    In our legal system, nature is treated as property. Only property owners can sue when their property is damaged. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act of the 1970’s are the regulatory systems we depend on for a sustainable environment … but by most measures, we’re facing greater threats than ever before e.g. climate change.

    The abolitionists never sought to reduce the harms of slavery by these kinds of regulations, they sought to abolish it and create rights for freed slaves. Similarly, as our regulatory protections for orca and salmon fail, one approach is to create “rights for orca and salmon to exist” and assert rights for citizens and the city council to defend the environment.

    There are emerging models for this. In 2008, Ecuador adopted a Constitution with Rights for Nature, aided by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the group from whose legal templates, I103 was drafted.

    The reason the coal train can't be stopped is because Seattle residents have no legal rights to protect our environment from unmitigatable harms; i103's rights for nature provides for this. 

    We understand The Stranger’s need to be cynical, snarky, obscene, playful and funny … but that doesn’t mean the paper can’t engage in the complexity of issues with accuracy and depth and show respect for creative solutions that challenge the status quo.

Setting the Record Straight

    I103 doesn’t restrict the rights of nonprofits such as the ACLU to lobby, it just requires they do so in public forums - like the rest of us usually do. If i103 had excluded nonprofits, then it would leave loopholes for companies like Microsoft to exploit by funding nonprofits such as, “Citizens in Favor of Tax-Dodging Megasoftware Companies”. I103 just creates a level playing field for everyone.

    It’s our belief that a 50% majority approval should be a baseline for commercial zoning changes within neighborhoods (like those needed for a Walmart to locate in Seattle) and i103 allows the city council to define the appropriate process for this. If you ask an attorney who makes his living representing developers using the current regulatory framework as The Stranger did, it’s not surprising he calls it “rubbish”.

    Perhaps The Stranger should ask Yessler Terrace residents if they feel they’ll be displaced over the long term by the city’s redevelopment plan; ask residents in Greenwood how they feel about the loss of Greenwood Market and the Walmart-sized Fred Meyer expansion; ask Fremont residents how they feel about the 20 foot height variation (44%) to Skanska’s “green” building; and, ask the Capitol Hill Community Council if they feel they should have a vote on the Mayor’s commercial rezoning ideas.

    Is i103’s Community Bill of Rights overly broad and ambitious? Perhaps, but all of these rights address very real, ongoing issues facing Seattle residents.

Encourage Activists Don’t Diminish Them

    What's most concerning to us is the uneven attitude applied to activists by the paper.

    Last week, The Stranger called us “oblivious” and said i103 “mocks a serious problem in our country … and the serious discussion surrounding it—while wasting the time and enthusiasm of activists.” But in fairness, we presented the paper with a serious and thoughtful array of materials (see related links below), which it either did not grasp or chose not to engage with.

    Earlier, it had called our neighborhood protections “batshit stuff”. And, separately, it joked about “being trapped in a roomful of neighborhood activists, each with his or her own tiny, tiny bone to pick.” It even reduced the font to emphasize the point. Should The Stranger, which is highly active on gay rights and city issues such as stopping the tunnel, really be so dismissive of the work of other activists?

    Our city is facing major challenges. Activists are putting themselves on the line and on the streets. They are getting involved when others do not. Often, the stakes are high. Just look at the pepper spraying of 84 year old Dorli Rainey, police violence against student debt protesters or the recent grand jury indictments of alleged anarchists. We need more activism not less. We need to make it hip and cool - not diminish those who make the effort.

    The corporatist-lens at The Seattle Times leaves a vacuum for independent journalism… we’re all better off when The Stranger steps up, consistently, to fill this gap in an even-handed, thorough and thoughtful way. 

    We support The Stranger’s advocacy for constitutional acceptance of gay marriage. Similarly, we ask for its thoughtful coverage of our challenge to the constitutionality of granting rights to corporations as if they were people, and the legal practice of allowing those corporations to trump the rights of Seattle residents.

    It took forty years for the Supreme Court to finally accept the constitutionality of minimum wage laws, and it changed with a local Washington State law, just as i103 aims to do. Enacting local initiatives is one way things change. 

Related Links

• Limiting Corporate Power in Seattle, Jeff Reifman (Video)
• A Bill of Rights for Occupied Communities
• How Things Change as Constitutional Rights Contract and Expand for People and Corporations
• How Phonebook Companies Are Wasting Seattle Taxpayers' Money
• Initiative 103 Provides Tools Seattle Needs to Protect Our Community
• i103 - Frequently Asked Questions
• Introducing The Spokane Declaration (of the Washington Community Rights Network)

Introducing The Spokane Declaration (of the Washington Community Rights Network)

On July 28th, the newly formed Washington Community Rights Network released The Spokane Declaration (below), calling upon communities across the state to join together in a movement to elevate the rights of people, their communities, and nature above the claimed rights of corporations. 

This comes with an understanding, as stated in the Declaration, that our communities are under siege from corporations exploiting our communities for resource extraction and a variety of other uses harmful to us and the natural environment... from a structure of law that has bestowed greater rights on those corporations than the communities in which they operate...

The creation of the Washington Community Rights Network comes out of active community campaigns on both sides of the Cascades, including Proposition 2 in Bellingham, Initiative 103 in Seattle and Proposition 3 in Spokane.

Specifically, The Spokane Declaration calls on communities to:

* Adopt local laws that recognize community rights for residents of Washington municipalities and the natural environment;

* Include in those local laws direct challenges to the legal doctrines that currently mandate that corporations have greater rights than residents of our communities or the natural environment;

* Build a statewide coalition of communities to change the State Constitution to recognize our right to local self-government eliminating these legal doctrines at the State level, to protect the local laws adopted within our municipalities; and

* Join together with other statewide movements to change the federal Constitution to elevate the rights of people, communities, and nature above the claimed rights of corporations.

Read the full document below or here. Learn more about the Washington Community Rights Network here or contact Kai Huschke 509.607.5034 / info@celdf.org.

What is Initiative 103's Internet Network Neutrality?

When we use the Internet on a computer or a smartphone, we take a lot for granted. We assume we'll be able to access any website or use any application we want, whenever we want, at the fastest speed, whether it's a giant corporation’s website or one for a mom-and-pop business around the corner. We assume we can use any service we like — watch online videos, update our Facebook status, read the news — any time we choose, on any device we choose, without us or the website provider paying additional fees.

What keeps the Internet open is Net Neutrality — the longstanding principle that preserves our right to communicate freely online. This is the definition of a free and open Internet.

Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of online content and apps. It guarantees a level playing field for all websites and Internet technologies.

Net Neutrality is the reason the Internet has driven online economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech. It protects our right to use any equipment, content, application or service without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher-quality service and which to demote to a slower lane.

Increasingly, equal, unobstructed access to the Internet is a critical component in our local democracy. This is why, Initiative 103 (pdf) provides a right to network neutrality:

Section 4(e) Right to Equal Access to a Free and Open Internet. All residents of the City of Seattle shall possess the right to a free and open internet, which shall include, but not be limited to, the right to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer lawful content, applications, or services of the user’s choice, free from provider service and performance level discrimination based on the identity, source or type of individual content or service provider. 

Net Neutrality is increasingly important in Seattle in light of the city's recent actions first shutting down its two municipal WiFi pilots in Columbia City and the University District and more recently leasing off its fiber to private parties. Says The Seattle Times, "Once the valuable sections are snapped up, the revenue they generate won't be available to help cover the cost of a citywide network providing service to everyone, in rich and poor neighborhoods." Seattle residents are now stuck dealing primarily with monopolies Century Link (DSL) and Comcast (cable).

Take Action: Please join the Initiative 103 Facebook page and consider a small contribution of $10 - 25 to support our efforts.

Acknowledgments: Text on net neutrality was adopted from the Save the Internet website under it's Creative Commons Non-commercial Sharealike License.

Sign i103 to Stop the Green Lake Walmart

Note: Some people didn't read past the first paragraph to notice that the Walmart story is a made up (but not unrealistic) example of the need for neighborhood involvement in commercial rezoning.

 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. plans to announce a 52,000 square foot store in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood. "We finally found 20 acres the city council would let us build on," said an unnamed Wal-Mart official. This is the third store planned for the broader metro area; a 74,000 square foot Factoria location and 64,000 square foot Kelsey Creek location are on the Eastside. The city has also agreed to include $3 million in taxpayer subsidies and sales tax rebates to encourage development, density and jobs near the coming Roosevelt light rail station. Said Wal-Mart, "We just asked for what the Sonics got."

Actually, we're kidding (a bit) ... while there are two Walmarts coming to the Eastside, there are no known plans for one in Green Lake. But recently, The Seattle Times highlighted the company's growing interest in the Seattle area: "I'd be very surprised if they didn't have plans to come to Seattle," said UFCW's Tom Geiger.

This is exactly the kind of controversial commercial zoning changes that Initiative 103's Community Bill of Rights is designed to put brakes on, requiring majority approval by neighborhood residents:

"Section 4. g) Rights for Neighborhoods. Neighborhood majorities shall have the right to approve all zoning changes proposed for their neighborhood involving significant non-governmental commercial, industrial, or residential development. It shall be the responsibility of the proposer of the zoning change to acquire the approval of the neighborhood majority, and the zoning change shall not be effective without it."

Says The Times: "The most common complaints are that Walmart drives mom-and-pop stores out of business with its rock-bottom prices and that it depresses wage and benefits standards by creating only nonunion jobs." But, it's not just giant box stores, there have been a number of neighborhood controversies over commercial rezoning in recent years:

• Sweeping changes to the Yesler Terrace community expected to increase gentrification
• Controversial new "green" tower in Fremont which will go ahead
• Mayor McGinn's planned commercial zoning changes to Capitol Hill residential areas
• SODO businesses concerns about increased traffic from the Sonics arena
• Controversial Fred Meyer redevelopment in Greenwood
• Defeated proposal for massive parking garage at Woodland Park Zoo

Initiative 103 just wants neighbors to have a say - rather than be overridden by corporate lobbying and influence. If you don't have a 50 percent majority behind changes to commercial zoning, then you're ramming it down people's throats. Note: I103 does not affect governmental projects related to public health, safety and transit e.g. homeless shelters, halfway houses or rail stations.

Print and Sign i103 Right Now: Help Initiative 103 qualify for the ballot. Print and sign the petition form and mail it in. If you just want to sign it yourself and have a few friends sign it, use the five signature form. Or, if you want to gather a lot of signatures, use the fifteen signature form. Forms must be printed double-sided or stapled. Learn more about signature gathering and drop off points.

Thank you for your support!

p.s. Please share this page in Facebook or email

p.p.s. Please get involved with i103 or consider a contribution

Original Green Lake photo by Joe Mabel [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Sign i103 to Stop Seattle's Coal Train Expansion

The phrase "The City of Seattle will request" appears five times in its brief resolution stating its "opposition" to coal exports. The fact is that there is no law on the books that allows the city to restrict heightened coal exports.

If you haven't heard yet, Peabody Energy plans to dramatically scale up coal exports to Asia by rail from Montana through Seattle up to Bellingham. The Seattle area (especially Ballard) would face 18 1.5 mile long coal trains per day: up to 150 million tons coal per year. There are 130 cars per train which each leak 500 - 2000 lbs of poisonous coal dust and remnants on the journey. 480 of the largest single hull vessels in the world would be coming through San Juan Islands each year. In total, this project represents 50% more coal than the U.S. has ever shipped. Doctors say health effects from diesel emmissions and coal dusts begin way below current federal safety standards.

In last week's, Global Warming's Terrifying New Math, Bill McKibben explains the science that the planet is on track to an 11 degree rise "which would create a planet straight out of science fiction. ... We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn."

This is why it's imperative that the coal train be stopped - to protect our community and our planet. But, after having its plastic bag fee overturned by an industry-funded referendum and being sued for its phone book ordinance, the city council is hesitant to pass a ban on coal exports that would surely invoke a lawsuit over interstate commerce regulations. The Constitution states that only Congress can regulate interstate commerce.

The problem therefore is that the City of Seattle has no way to protect our community from the diesel emmissions, coal dust and remnants and climate change from coal exports.

Seattle's  Initiative 103 (pdf) would authorize the city council to protect our community with Rights for Nature; and corporations that attempt to challenge these regulations would not have personhood rights or constitutional protections, such as the commerce clause. If the city does not step up to protect our community, i103 allows for any citizen to have standing to do so. I103 also includes a formal call to state and federal officials to change laws that currently allow corporations to overturn the health, safety and wellbeing of communities nationwide.

Call to Action: Help Initiative 103 qualify for the ballot. Right now, print and sign the petition form and mail it in. If you just want to sign it yourself and have a few friends sign it, use the five signature form. Or, if you want to gather a lot of signatures, use the fifteen signature form. Forms must be printed double-sided or stapled. Learn more about signature gathering and drop off points.

Thank you for your support!

p.s. Please share this page in Facebook or email

p.p.s. Please get involved with i103 or consider a contribution

The Wedding of Corporate Person to Angela Marie Vogel

On Tuesday, July 17th, Corporate Person and Ms. Angela Vogel married at Westlake Park to highlight the ridiculousness and insidious harms of "Corporate Personhood". If you'd like to get involved in ending Corporate Personhood, please check out the I103 website, print and sign the petition and consider volunteering or making a contribution.

Below you'll find video, pictures and a copy of the beautiful sermon by Pastor Rich Lang. There are also a full set of professional photos by Alex Garland on Facebook and a full roundup of our press coverage.

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Video of the Wedding

Video of the Marriage License

The Sermon: 

PRELUDE

PROCESSIONAL

THE DECLARATION

I greet you in the name of Mammon and invite you to enter into this “holy time” with glad and generous hearts as together we celebrate the wedded immortality of Corporate Person with the mortal flesh of Angela Marie Vogel. We gather knowing that the love that binds them together will end in the grief and tragedy of Angela’s mortal death even as Corporate Person lives on marrying again and again with the adoration and support of shareholders world-wide. But today we celebrate this moment, this consummation of ecstasy and attraction. We celebrate these bonds of affection as Corporate Person with stony indifference evokes yet another merger of yet another possession --- this one, like others before her and others that will come after, beautiful, unique and highly desired … full of potential and full of hope. Angela of flesh, blood and bone offers herself to Corporate Person as yet another object to be used, abused and cast away when no longer profitable. But deliriously expectant that this time Corporate Person will be different!

For Angela, dear, sweet victim of corporate propaganda, she has been swept up in a love that knows no boundaries, nor limits, nor moral concerns … what really does it matter that Corporate Person is merely a legal fiction? What really does it matter that he will look upon her as a business interest to be exploited and sacrificed for greater interests and profit? What really does it matter --- for Angela has found her Rock, the one who will secure and protect her … and even though Corporate Person cannot himself display ecstasy, adoration and actual concern for another life-form, he can still produce Viagra, pornography and sex-toys as distractions of amusement. In the end Angela comes before us, as has millions before her full of hopes and dreams and expectations … but at least in this case Angela knows they can never be fulfilled -- so since a girl can’t have everything she might as well have unlimited amounts of corporate cash. We celebrate this common sense wisdom, this worldly craftiness, this cold characteristic of capitalism as each, Corporate Person & Angela Marie Vogel, marry for their own self interest.

Let us prey:

PRAYER Oh benevolent Mammon for whom all of life bows and submits just to increase your influence --- we shareholders within your commonwealth of greed come now before Thee seeking blessing and grace for our fictional friend Corporate Person and his soon to be cast-aside wife Angela Marie Vogel. Pour out your Moneyed Spirit upon them so that they might unite both Corporate and Human energies to defeat any challenges to their union: through your power in them smite Initiative 103 and all other attempts to limit Corporate control, smite all attempts to grant human rule, human reason, or human desire, the priority of care. We are so grateful to you Creator Mammon for corrupting democracy and buying off politicians, we are thankful that through you we can now give up on that old quaint experiment of human beings as independent actors ---today we celebrate our absorption into the new image of corporate commodification of all flesh, blood and bone. As Angela offers her life in submission, may we also offer our own. All in the name of the brave new world, the brave new future, the brave new evolution of corporate control in whom we seek security.

Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

Corporate Person, do you choose this mortal woman to be your wedded wife, to live with her in the commodified state of matrimony? Will you insert her into your purposes, structure her life to increase your value, receive her adoration as chains to enslave her? Will you silence her voice, surveil her movements, monitor her vagina, and restrict her opinions while increasing the illusion of her choices as long as she remains your property, an object of your lack of affection?

(shareholders respond WE WILL)

Angela, do you choose this legal fiction to be your wedded husband, to live with him in the commodified state of matrimony? Will you love, honor and serve him in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in poverty, will you practice kindness and consideration toward him, will you defend his reputation and continually give up your time, talent, treasure and trophies for his pleasure and gain, will you forsake all other loyalties and priorities, being faithful only unto him as long as you shall live? (I will)

WILL THE CONGREGATION PLEASE STAND? Will you give your blessing to Corporate Person and Angela Marie Vogel and promise to do all that you can to support them in their marriage of corporation and flesh?

OBJECTIONS:

Is there any fool here who might object --- anyone that might have reason to be concerned with this commodified union? (Jeff Reifman I-103)

PASTORAL BLESSING:

Let us not be inhabited by such a fool ---turn away from him, go back to shopping, distract yourself with amusements, don’t worry ---BE HAPPY and have a nice day!

In celebration of this merger let us each reach deep into our pocketbooks and take out a symbol of that which is most sacred and holy of all --- let us show the benevolent power of our Corporate Lords & Masters by taking out a $1 bill ---

Is there anyone here among us who is homeless? Down & out? In need of a buck? In need of moneyed love? ---If so could you just raise your hand and those around such a one just give that person a wedding gift of love … give that a person your dollar of luv ---your sacred gift of treasure.

Receive this gift as a small token of the benevolence of the Corporate-Government-Military –Market merger that now rules the land of the once free.

Let us say AMEN !!!

THE PRONOUNCEMENT Because Corporate Person and Angela Marie Vogel have consented together in commodified matrimony, having pledged to each other their faithfulness before Mammon and this public politically enslaved gathering: on behalf of our true religion, the worship of the dollar, and in compliance with the laws of this land, I pronounce that they are, from this day forward, husband and wife, one corporate flesh to the glory of Mammon and to the devastation of all the earth and its resources.

Corporate Person and Angela may your children become sacrifices in war for greater market gain, may your wealth be without end, may your desire for more always be insatiable. May you begin every day in expectation of profit, and end every night resting secure in each other’s bank accounts. May your continuous lies never be revealed, may your lawlessness never be held accountable, may your theft be forgiven, and may you own this nation lock, stock and barrel until freedom is no more.

You may kiss and merge --- and we may applaud.

Rev. Rich Lang (rich@utemple.org) is Pastor of University Temple United Methodist and a columnist for Real Change. www.utemple.org

Initiative 103 Statement on the Supreme Court's Reversal of Montana Supreme Court Ruling on Citizens United

The following is a statement by the organizers of Initiative 103 on today's Supreme Court reversal of the Montana State Supreme Court's ruling on American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, No. 11-1179:

    Today's Supreme Court ruling allows nearly unlimited, unregulated spending by wealthy individuals and corporations in our elections to continue unabated. Our democracy, already compromised, is at great risk.

    For forty years (1897-1937), the Supreme Court routinely overturned minimum wage and labor laws across the United States. In 1935, a Wenatchee chambermaid Elsie Parrish and her husband sued the West Coast Hotel Co. for violating the state's minimum wage laws (then a minimum of $14.50 per 48 hour week). The trial court initially ruled against the Parrishes based on Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923) but was later reversed by the State Supreme Court and upheld by the United States Supreme Court, see West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937). 

    In other words, Washington State's minimum wage law shifted the tide of history and became a foundation on which Supreme Court support for wage laws would be built on. Similarly, Initiative 103 can spark turning the tide against unlimited, unregulated campaign spending by corporations.

    Thomas Linzey, the Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, says it best: "...the only way substantive change like this is going to happen - especially change that runs counter to the interests of a relatively small handful of corporations - is a revolt from the bottom, from the municipal level."

    If enacted, Initiative 103 would create a Right to Fair Elections, making such campaign contributions illegal in Seattle. If passed by voters, Initiative 103's restrictions on corporations would go into effect immediately. Corporations would not be able to spend money on elections in the city or fund signature gathering or advertising to city residents in state elections. 

    And, it would be the first time that more than 300,000 municipal voters literally call on the courts to change federal laws around corporate campaign spending and corporate speech "rights". 

    Prior to this decision, Supreme Court approval ratings were at a 25 year low and 65 percent of citizens of both parties disapprove of Citizens United. The next president may appoint as many as three Supreme Court justices. Change is just around the corner.

 

Seattle Police Department Tactics in Question After Capitol Hill March of the Student Debt Noise Brigade

As Initiative 103 includes the Right to Citizen Oversight of the Seattle Police Department, we take note of reports of concerns of police enforcement tactics.

Information is still coming in from tonight's Student Debt Noise Brigade march on Capitol Hill last night - so it's too early to draw any clear conclusions. However, it does appear that last week the SPD allowed marchers to proceed peacefully down the center of Broadway with bike escorts. Then, tonight, police cars moved in and attempted to arrest one person starting a melee. They eventually arrested a different protester (not the original one).

Last week:  

This Week:

After more than an hour of peaceful marching throughout Capitol Hill ... watch the video below and  you can see radically different police enforcement at work:

It seems clear from the video that the police's decision to first rush one marcher (with the bullhorn) and then begin to make the first arrest rather than allow the march to proceed peacefully instigated the broader disruption. This video shows more.

I marched with this group on June 7th and it was entirely peaceful - and it included the same portion of the route where the police made the arrest. From what I heard and saw pictures of, last week's march was entirely peaceful - even escorted by the Seattle Police along this same section of the route. There appears to be no apparent reason for the change in SPD enforcement ... and the above footage shows the police cars closing in sideways on protesters prior to any verbal warning being announced. The noise brigade has been marching a portion of Broadway before retiring for the evening for a bbq in Cal Anderson Park. It's likely if the police had provided the same latitude as the week before, that this march would have been peaceful for a third week - and it does not appear that there was any violence prior to police engagement.

The Department of Justice has raised concerns of Seattle Police Department's handling of protests and crowd control in the past:

Separately, we are aware of recent incidents involving the use of Oleoresin Capsicum (“OC”) spray to disperse the so-called “Occupy Seattle” protesters on November 2, 2011 and November 15, 2011. Although these incidents concern us, we do not directly address them in this letter because they occurred outside of the timeframe of our review. However, we note that Seattle has previously been criticized for its response to demonstrators, including incidents related to the World Trade Organization meetings in 1999. In reviewing SPD’s response to the WTO demonstrators, the Police Executive Research Forum noted: “There is a balance to be struck between, on the one hand, First Amendment rights and other civil liberties, and on the other hand, the interventions required to protect public safety and property.”

The inconsistency between last week's police enforcement and this week's raises questions about tactics and their ability to communicate their intentions clearly to the public.

Initiative 103 provides the following with regards to police oversight:

Whereas, the United States Department of Justice finds that the Seattle Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and patterns of racially biased policing which include excessive use of force; 

Section 4 ... (d) Rights to a Citizen Managed and Accountable Police Force. All residents of the City of Seattle have a right to a police force held fully accountable by its citizens. The Seattle Police Department’s Office of Professional Accountability will now report to the Mayor. 

Currently, the investigative and disciplinary arm of the police department reports to the Chief of Police, not a civilian.

Photos from last week courtesy of Alex Garland Photography.

 

How Phonebook Companies Are Wasting Seattle Taxpayers' Money

    Thud... Thud... Thud! That's the sound of phonebooks you opted out from landing on your porch in the near future if Seattle loses a lawsuit brought by phonebook publishers. The case is a perfect example of big business using "corporate personhood" to waste taxpayer money and intimidate the city council from passing common sense regulation.

    Since the phonebook opt out program took effect in May 2011, more than 75,000 homes and businesses have stopped nearly 40,000 unwanted phonebook deliveries, saving 375 tons of paper.

    The city won the initial lawsuit in just two months with help of outside counsel Summit Law Group but the phonebook companies' appeal has dragged on for more than a year. Cost to taxpayers of defending the law to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has likely exceeded a hundred thousand dollars, if not much more. If it loses, the city could be required to pay the phonebook companies' lost revenue and legal fees as well.

Corporate Personhood and Free Speech

    The companies allege in their complaint that the phonebook ordinance, "denies [their] rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution." (free speech and due process). If not for the legal concept of "corporate personhood", the phonebook companies wouldn't be able to sue Seattle to assert Constitutional rights originally written only for people.

    The word corporation doesn't appear in the Constitution but the U.S. Supreme Court first granted personhood protections to corporations in 1819 and then began extending human rights to them under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1886.

    The Fourteenth Amendment was actually added to the Constitution to remedy discrimination against freed slaves and was the legal basis used to end segregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In other words, the phonebook companies are using anti-discrimination laws of the post civil war era as the legal foundation to sue Seattle.  

    The rules of our legal system are now rigged to favor corporations. Rather than ask the question, "are the phonebook companies people?" and "do they have the right to free speech?" the courts have focused largely on whether the content in the phonebooks (advertisements and phone listings) represent free speech which can't be regulated or commercial speech, which can be.

    The phonebook lawsuit is ridiculous on its merits as well. The companies claim, "The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits government from ... enforcing the desire of citizens to avoid communications [and] from prying into citizens' preferences regarding communications they seek to avoid." Oh, really?

    Dex, Supermedia and the Yellow Pages are trying to use law made in the 19th century to force their failing 20th century business model down the throat of our 21st century city.

Making Law in Seattle the Corporate Way

    These kinds of cases put the city council in a defensive posture concerned that its actions could provoke other expensive lawsuits. What kind of democracy do we have when the city council is afraid to regulate local nuisances and environmental harms?

    In the past month, the city council issued advisory resolutions on two major issues (Citizens United and escalating coal train traffic) rather than write binding legislation which would actually protect our community.

    Over the past few years, we've seen corporations take several approaches to influence what happens in Seattle:

• When the Seattle City Council created a 20 cent fee on plastic bags in 2008, the American Chemistry Council spent $1.4 million dollars sponsoring a referendum to overturn the law. 
• When Costco wanted to privatize liquor sales in Washington State, they spent $22 million promoting Initiative 1183.
• When Chris Hansen wanted to build a new NBA arena, he secretly lobbied Mayor McGinn for months to garner a pledge for $200 million in city funds.

    The phonebook lawsuit is just one more way corporations leverage "corporate personhood" and free speech "rights" to sue the city or spend money on elections to manipulate the law in their favor. 

How Initiative 103 Reigns in Corporate Abuses

    If Initiative 103 is enacted by voters, corporations wouldn't have personhood rights or free speech rights. They wouldn't be able to spend money on elections or pay signature gatherers on initiatives within the city limits. And, they wouldn't be able to lobby public officials behind closed doors. 

    I103 emphasizes our Right to Self Government and the elevation of peoples' rights over corporate rights:

5. (e) Corporate Preemption Powers. (1) Corporations in violation of the rights or prohibitions established by this ordinance, or seeking to engage in activities prohibited by this ordinance, shall not possess the authority or power to enforce State or federal preemptive law against the people of this municipality, or to challenge or overturn municipal ordinances adopted by this municipality, when that enforcement or challenge interferes with the rights asserted by this ordinance, or interferes with the authority of the municipality to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its residents.

I103 also provides Rights for Nature which would provide additional authority to stop the production and delivery of unwanted phonebooks.

    If I103 passes, it would be the first time 300,000+ voters in a major metropolitan city tell the courts to eliminate corporate personhood and judge-made constitutional "rights". 

    Please help qualify Initiative 103 on the ballot: print out the petition and gather signatures from your family, friends and colleagues, volunteer with us at summer festivals and share us on Facebook. Questions? Check out our FAQ or email us.