This is a press release they just sent out about the effort to undo the absurd idea that “cor­po­ra­tions are peo­ple, my friend”:

TOPEKA – Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Antho­ny Hens­ley, of Tope­ka, House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Paul Davis, of Lawrence, and Rank­ing Demo­c­rat on the Sen­ate Com­merce Com­mit­tee Tom Hol­land, of Bald­win City, announced today that they plan to intro­duce a res­o­lu­tion for­mal­ly urg­ing Con­gress to end cor­po­rate personhood.

In Jan­u­ary 2010, the Unit­ed States Supreme Court ruled in Cit­i­zens Unit­ed v. Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion that cor­po­ra­tions have the same first amend­ment rights as nat­u­ral­ly born per­sons, and that cor­po­ra­tions can spend unlim­it­ed amounts of mon­ey on elec­tions. This has led to the devel­op­ment of “Super PAC­s”, and yield­ed unprece­dent­ed influ­ence in polit­i­cal cam­paigns, as evi­denced by the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial Primary.

“Cor­po­ra­tions don’t live and breathe or go to war or rebuild after tornadoes,” said Hens­ley. “They are sim­ply not peo­ple and do not deserve the same rights as people.”

The res­o­lu­tion urges Con­gress to pass a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to abol­ish cor­po­rate per­son­hood by estab­lish­ing that the term ‘person’ refers only to nat­u­ral­ly born per­sons. Six­teen state leg­is­la­tures have intro­duced resolutions/legislation of this nature.

“Citizens Unit­ed is wrong because it con­fus­es peo­ple with cor­po­ra­tions and speech with money,” said Hol­land. “Speech is an expres­sion of the peo­ple, while mon­ey is an expres­sion of cor­po­ra­tions. It is speech and peo­ple that the First Amend­ment is con­cerned with, not mon­ey and cor­po­ra­tions. Amend­ing the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion is the only way to begin return­ing our inalien­able rights to those they were intend­ed to pro­tect – we the people.”

This res­o­lu­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly time­ly as the Kansas Leg­is­la­ture embarks on a major tax reform debate. Cit­i­zens Unit­ed opens the flood­gates between cor­po­ra­tions and the politi­cians who sup­port them. Both the Brown­back and House Repub­li­can tax plans will ulti­mate­ly lead to the elim­i­na­tion of tax­a­tion on cer­tain busi­ness enti­ties. Addi­tion­al­ly, both Gov. Brown­back and Speak­er O’Neal have indi­cat­ed that they want to even­tu­al­ly elim­i­nate the cor­po­rate income tax in future years. The Brown­back Agen­da, com­bined with Cit­i­zens Unit­ed, will give cor­po­ra­tions more pow­er over pub­lic pol­i­cy in Kansas than ever before.

“Gov. Brown­back wants to cut tax­es for those at the top at the expense of schools and the mid­dle class,” said Davis. “We have already wit­nessed the impact of cor­po­rate give­aways on the lives of ordi­nary work­ing Kansans through­out this reces­sion. If cor­po­ra­tions have free reign to influ­ence elec­tions, it will just be anoth­er nail in the cof­fin for mid­dle class Kansans who work hard and play by the rules. This is the time to stand up and say that enough is enough.”

“I find it awful­ly con­ve­nient that Gov. Brown­back wants to elim­i­nate the income tax this year,” said Hens­ley. “Businesses and the state’s wealth­i­est cit­i­zens will be rak­ing in record prof­its just in time to return the favor to Gov­er­nor Brown­back in the 2014 Election.”

The Kansas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty could sure­ly use your help with this effort.