Source: https://jeffreifman.com/2013/11/04/how-things-change-as-constitutional-rights-contract-and-expand-for-people-and-corporations/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 19:49:50+00:00

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People often ask whether a proposed Seattle law such as Initiative 103 could actually impact the Supreme Court’s interpretation of corporate personhood and speech rights. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a law from Washington State turned the tide of Supreme Court precedent and history in the process.
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)).
This decision marked the end of the Lochner Era, a forty year period of Supreme Court hostility to state and federal minimum wage laws and labor standards. 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. There’s fundamentally no reason Seattle’s Initiative 103 and related initiatives in Bellingham and Spokane can’t become a spark for turning the tide against corporate constitutional rights.
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 (nor advertising to city residents in state elections) and their lobbying would be restricted to public forums. It might be some time before these restrictions were challenged in court. For example, no drilling corporations have yet challenged Pittsburgh’s 2010 ban on fracking. The Rights for Nature granted by Initiative 103 would immediately grant the City of Seattle the legal right and power to restrict coal trains from passing through the city.
By the adoption of this ordinance by this municipality, the people call for changes to state and federal law that would result in the recognition of a fundamental and inalienable right to community self- government throughout this State and the United States. The people also declare their support for changes to state and federal law that would eliminate certain corporate constitutional rights and powers that currently interfere with, and prevent, the exercise of local self- governance. Those rights and powers include corporate authority to preempt community lawmaking, corporate “rights” as “persons” under the State and federal constitutions, and corporate “rights” under other sections of the State and federal constitutions.
The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolishes slavery.
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) extends Due Process and Equal Protection for all persons.
The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) provides the right to vote for women.
Dartmouth College v. Woodard (1819) – Granted Constitutional Contracts clause protections to Corporations for the first time.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (1886) – Granted Constitutional rights for the first time to Corporations and created the concept of corporate personhood.
Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company v. Beckwith (1889) – Granted Due Process protections to corporations.
Hale v. Henkel (1906) – Grants Corporations Fourth Amendment protections for unreasonable search and seizure.
First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) – Grants First Amendment protections to corporations. Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010) expands these protections.
It turns out that the way the Constitution changes is by local groups pushing forth new laws such as Initiative 103 which may ultimately be challenged in and sanctioned by higher level courts.
In fact, the Initiative 103 effort parallels the evolution of the women’s suffrage movement: “In addition to the strategy to obtain full suffrage through a constitutional amendment, reformers pursued state-by-state campaigns to build support for, or to win, residence-based state suffrage. Towns, counties, states and territories granted suffrage, in full or in part, throughout the 19th and early 20th century.” These local battles played out for fifty years before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. “By 1920 when women got the vote nationwide, Wyoming women had already been voting for half a century.” Similarly, as Northwest and other cities fight to limit corporate legal powers, the national Move to Amend effort is pursuing a longer term Constitutional Amendment.
Supreme Court decisions tend to trail cultural sentiment by many years. But we believe that change is occuring with regards to corporate “constitutional rights and corporate speech. Supreme Court approval ratings are at a 25 year low and that 65 percent of citizens of both parties disapprove of Citizens United. The rise of the Occupy movement and the 99% theme also indicate growing support for peoples’ rights over corporations.
Initiative 103 is one way that things can change. And, this may be the opportune moment to be challenging corporate rule in law.
We expect the combined work of Spokane, Bellingham, Seattle, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and other cities will begin to have a growing and measurable impact around the country.

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