Community Bill of Rights
Description
"When you search for an answer of who decides in your community and why you come across something very complex. As a community – citizens and elected officials alike – you find that you are virtually powerless no matter if the issue is labor, neighborhoods, or the environment. The federal constitution, state preemption, Dillon’s rule, regulatory laws, and corporate constitutional rights (corporations are seen as “persons” under the law) supercede community decision making and ultimately shape what our communities look like whether we like it or not. It is set up this way in order to allow commerce to lord over everything else no matter the true cost. And commerce today is almost exclusively the playground of giant corporations. The term “corporate state” is quite accurate, especially when you see how laws get made, whom those laws favor, and how politicians and municipal attorneys end up upholding an oppressive system.
The folks in Spokane understood that stepping into this existing structure of law was suicide. Moving forward they needed to focus on what was truly important in attempting to create a democratic, healthy, and sustainable Spokane. What it meant was restructuring the system of law that values people, neighborhoods, workers, local economy, and nature over corporate power. Fragmentation of the issues does not allow for an overhaul of the existing system, which they understood is unsustainable." (http://stirtoaction.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/what-do-we-want-and-who-decides/)
Example
"Out of the defeat in 2009 has evolved a different version of the Community Bill of Rights. This version is more condensed, to the point, and highlights the issues that garnered the most support even from those who voted against the Community Bill of Rights in 2009.
The three amendments plus the enforcement amendment aim to do the following:
• Allow neighborhoods greater control over certain proposed development; • Strengthen protections for the Spokane River and our drinking water; • Protect workers constitutional rights; • Limit corporate special interests when they conflict with community rights
Envision Spokane will be collecting signatures during the spring to qualify the initiative for the November 2011 ballot. Also, because of what happened in Spokane, other communities have and will be following suit. In the last five months alone three communities have adopted Bill of Rights for their community’s. The most significant coming in November 2010 when Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania passed an ordinance that contained a Bill of Rights recognizing the right to self-government and rights of nature as well as banning natural gas drilling and a provision that stripped corporations of their status as “persons” to keep them from trying to overturn the legislation. Communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, Illinois, Oklahoma, and New Mexico are looking at following what started in Spokane. Two city’s in Washington state – Bellingham and Seattle – have efforts currently forming that could see their versions of a Community Bill of Rights going to the vote of the people in the next year or two." (http://stirtoaction.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/what-do-we-want-and-who-decides/)