We did it!
Tonight at Town Meeting the voters in Sudbury, VT were presented with the usual list of items, including
* approving the school budget (we did)
* approving the town budget (check)
* electing a town clerk, treasurer, school directors, select board members (done)
* electing fist and second constables (did that too, though I'm not exactly sure what they do.)
And then, near the end of the agenda, there appeared the following motion:
In light of the United States Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that equates money with speech and gives corporations rights constitutionally intended for natural persons, shall the town of Sudbury vote on March 6, 2012 to urge the Vermont Congressional Delegation and the U.S. Congress to propose a U.S. Constitutional amendment for the States' consideration which provides that money is not speech, and that corporations are not persons under the U.S. Constitution, that the General Assembly of the State of Vermont pass a similar resolution, and that the town send its resolution to Vermont State and Federal representatives within thirty days of passage of this measure?
And it passed! Unanimously!!
Since I was the one who collected the required signatures to get the motion on Town Meeting agenda (5% of the registered voters, or 22 people-- did I mention it was a little town?), it was especially gratifying to see such support for this measure. Vermont may be more liberal than most states in this country, but we do have a sizable number of right wingers in town so I wasn't sure if there would be some push back.
As it happened, not one person spoke against the measure. I hope it is because people are starting to realize that corporate personhood and money=speech are not left-right issues-- they are fundamental to our democracy.
Similar motions are also on the agendas in ~50 towns in Vermont-- by tomorrow we'll know how many of them passed.
But for now, I'm so, so proud of little Sudbury! Oh, and I almost forgot the icing on the cake:
We voted unanimously to designate March 12, 2012 "Girl Scouts Day".
