[WestMALocals] Fwd: [shays2] Shays2-June 28-David Cobb speaking

[Owen Broadhurst]

David Cobb shall be speaking in Northampton on June 28.

Measure T to be focus of discussion.

OB

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carolyn Toll Oppenheim <carolyn at publicpurposecommunications.com>
Date: May 28, 2006 6:13 PM
Subject: [shays2] Shays2-June 28-David Cobb speaking
To: Shays2 <shays2 at lists.riseup.net>

Strategies for Building Effective Democracy in the Face of Corporate
Hegemony:
The story of a California County's struggle for local control
With featured speaker, David Cobb

Wednesday, June 28th, 7:00 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Society of    Northampton and Florence
220 Main Street, Northampton

Nationally-known democracy activist David Cobb will speak to Shays 2 and
strategize with us on building our political movement for real democracy in
Western Mass.

Cobb will be fresh from Measure T, an all-volunteer effort of ordinary
people, local citizens dedicated to protecting their right to local control
of their community. It is a "popular uprising against corporate rule in
Humboldt County that can serve as a model for other communities across the
United States," according to The Progressive Populist.

Measure T is a ballot initiative, backed by the Humboldt Coalition for
Community Rights campaign in California, to protect local control by barring
outside corporate money from Humboldt county elections.

It is a challenge to the l978 US Supreme Court decision (Bellotti vs. First
National Bank of Boston) that overturned a Massachusetts law forbidding
corporate funding of issue-oriented referenda. The landmark Bellotti case
played a major role in defining the legality of corporate political Spending
and supporting the legal doctrine that a corporation must be treated as a
"person" with vested constitutional rights.

Mass. Attorney John Bonifaz --who just spoke for Shays 2 in May -- has
called this initiative "one of the most important local democracy efforts
happening anywhere in the United States. If this passes, it will have
profound ramifications for campaign finance reform efforts across the
country." Bonifaz believes the US Supreme Court decision left an opening
they hope to capitalize on.

While striking down the Massachusetts statute prohibiting corporate spending
on referendum campaigns, the Supreme Court also declared that it would have
considered arguments against corporate spending if there had been evidence
showing that corporate advocacy imminently threatened to undermine
democratic processes.

Shays 2 will explore with David Cobb the possibility of revisiting that
Bellotti U.S. Supreme Court decision in our own state.

Cobb is a public interest attorney whose legal career has been dedicated to
challenging illegitimate corporate power and to creating democracy.

In 2004 David Cobb ran for President on the Green Party ticket. As a
presidential candidate, Cobb demanded the recount of the Ohio presidential
vote, working with lead counsel, Mass. Attorney John Bonifaz (who spoke for
Shays 2 in May).

In 2002 he ran for state Attorney General in Texas on a platform to use the
office to revoke the charters of corporations that break the law and
challenge corporate ability to manipulate the legal system at the expense of
the people. He is a volunteer member of the Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt
County Steering Committee (one of the groups working on Measure T). He has
worked intimately with the POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and
Corporations), the Center for Voting and Democracy, and Reclaim Democracy.
He currently serves on the Sierra Club's national Corporate Accountability
Committee and as a Fellow for Liberty Tree: Foundation for the Democratic
Revolution. He is also a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors for
the Green Institute.

Join us! JOIN OUR ACTION COMMITTEES! We are part of a nation-wide movement
to build real democracy in America. Explore how growing corporate "rights"
undermine our Constitutional rights and democracy Š and how we can resist
together, advancing our diverse issues as activists and citizens.









-- 
Owen R. Broadhurst
Candidate for State Representative
Third Hampden District
http://www.owenbroadhurst.org