[Sustain] [SFGP-A] Prop H: Regardless Of The Final Vote We Have Already Won!

Fri Nov 7 07:18:02 PST 2008

That is an excellent idea.

Rita

--- On Thu, 11/6/08, Joe Lynn <joelynn114 at hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Joe Lynn <joelynn114 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [SFGP-A] Prop H: Regardless Of The Final Vote We Have Already Won!
To: "Eric Brooks" <brookse32 at aim.com>
Cc: "GPSF Sustainability Working Group" <sustainability at sfgreens.org>, "Green Active list" <active at sfgreens.org>
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2008, 10:11 PM

I’ve mentioned the resonance between the Dred Scott decision and the Southern Pacific case, which granted to corporations the personal rights guaranteed by the Constitution.  In his debates with Sen. Douglass, Lincoln addressed the role of the public in confronting the Dred Scott decision.  He believed the Constitution invested the other branches of government a role in challenging antidemocratic Supreme Court decisionson questions involving personhood.   Perhaps a challenge to Southern Pacific would draw on his savvy lawyering. There’s plenty of recent precedent with right wing movements attempting to overrule a Supreme Court decision.

On 11/6/08 8:31 PM, "Eric Brooks" <brookse32 at aim.com> wrote:

It's already happened in individual communities. That's the whole point. To challenge corporate personhood on the local level because states and the Feds won't do it..

Rita Goldberger wrote: 

  Ending corporate personhood is one of Ralph Nader's
 chief proposals. I don't think it can be done on a local
 or even state level.  I think it requires a constitutional
 amendment on the national level.  On a local level,
 however, we could pass a non-binding resolution 
 calling on Congress and the Senate to pass such an
 amendment.

 Rita Goldberger

--- On Thu, 11/6/08, Susan King <funking at mindspring.com> <mailto:funking at mindspring.com> wrote:

From: Susan King <funking at mindspring.com> <mailto:funking at mindspring.com> 
Subject: Re: [SFGP-A] Prop H: Regardless Of The Final Vote We Have Already Won!
To: "Joe Lynn" <joelynn114 at hotmail.com> <mailto:joelynn114 at hotmail.com> 
Cc: "GPSF Sustainability Working Group" <sustainability at sfgreens.org> <mailto:sustainability at sfgreens.org> , "Green Active list" <active at sfgreens.org> <mailto:active at sfgreens.org> 
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2008, 9:03 AM

 I'm interested in taking part of this discussion. Let me know if something is set up for further discussion/action. 

 peace
 susan
  On Nov 5, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Joe Lynn wrote:

Corporate personhood is enshrined in the Southern Pacific case before the Supreme Court circa 1870-1880.  I’ve always seen the case as the flip side of the Dred Scott decision.  In the Southern Pacific case the rights of a person were given to propert.  In the Dred Scott case the rights of a person were denied to a person because he was property.  That said, the Southern Pacific case blocks reform along these lines, at least with a Roberts/Alito Suspreme Court.

I am convinced that public financing is the only remedy that makes sense.  It may be possible to set up a public finance program to wage ballot-measure campaigns.  Public finance is an extension of Benjamin Franklin’s principles of a public library.  In both cases, the public treasury may be used for ideas not embraced by the majority under the principle that dissemination of ideas to a free-thinking people is critical to democracy.  There are a lot of kinks to work out for such a program, but a reactionary Court has ruled that regulation of money entails regulation of speech.  This raises a profound obstacle to reform efforts.  In addition, administration of regulatory schemes presumes administrators committed to the political philosophy that gives rise to the regulation.  As we have seen in San Francisco, that presents an even more fundamental practical problem for reformers.  Along these lines, Oliver Luby, the Campaign Fines Officer at the
 SF Ethics Commission, has an op-ed piece in Tuesday’s Chronicle relating Ethics decision to give major donors ($10,000 or more) a free ride on disclosures.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/04/ED2813T8OR.DTL&hw=luby&sn=001&sc=1000 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/04/ED2813T8OR.DTL&amp;hw=luby&amp;sn=001&amp;sc=1000> 

On 11/5/08 12:41 PM, "Eric Brooks" <brookse32 at aim.com> wrote:

It would be a gutsy and very difficult move, but I'm thinking we might launch a campaign as CELDF has in smaller towns to pass a Charter amendment striking down corporate 'personhood' in San Francisco County.

On a more practical and doable level, we need to sit down with some good attorney's and pass a Board ordinance with the strongest limits possible on independent and corporate election expenditure behavior that we can come up with. It will take some deep boiler room consensus meetings to make it happen.

Joe Lynn wrote: 

I'd be very interested to hear your ideas on how to control PG&E type
spending on a ballot measure initiative.  Particularly when the Supreme
Court is controlled by Roberts/Alito style thinking.

On 11/5/08 11:42 AM, "Eric Brooks" <brookse32 at aim.com> <mailto:brookse32 at aim.com>  wrote:

Remember all, that though the vote itself was lost, we have already won.

We have forced PG&E to spend more money than has -ever- been spent on a
San Francisco campaign. And, after both Lennar corporation's $7 million
ballot deception to force toxic gentrification on the Southeast side in
the last election, and now PG&E's even more outrageous moves to buy this
election at an even higher (ludicrous) price, it is a -very- good bet
that we will easily pass a strong corporate and independent expenditure
campaign finance reform measure in the next year.

And we have now built a strong and angry coalition of progressives and
Supervisors who are -pissed- at PG&E.

PG&E's days are numbered.

So we have already won ;)

But most importantly, the Community Choice renewable energy project (the
first 51% referred to in Prop H) is already moving forward regardless of
Prop H and PG&E is going to attack it as well. Our campaign has helped
strongly reveal all of the tactics that PG&E will use to attack
Community Choice, and we will now be ready for them. And those attacks
will carry much less weight, both because Community Choice is much less
vulnerable to them in the way it is worded, because State law actually
forbids PG&E from attacking Community Choice, and because the angry core
of organizers that PG&E has just attacked on Prop H, are now primed and
ready to kick PG&E's ass on a much more level playing field with
Community Choice.

We will need all of you to help us win the Community Choice fight; which
will -absolutely- bring us that 100% clean energy by 2040 regardless of
last night's outcome. Prop H simply would have made it easier too get there

To see why Community Choice is so important and why it will need your
help, go to:
 http://our-city.org/campaigns/communitychoice.html
and
 http://communitychoiceenergy.org/

Note that Community Choice has already passed as law, and it is now
going out for bids to contractors. The key fight will be to get
customers to stick with Community Choice and not opt out for PG&E over
the next year. This is a fight that we definitely can win, if we stay on
it with a sharp focus.

If we win this fight San Francisco -will- go 100% renewable and soon.

Note also that there are two more appointments to be made to the SF
Public Utilities Commission (which is overseeing Community Choice) and
the Supes now have the power to leverage those appointments and make
sure that they will support Community Choice; and also support closing
down the city's remaining polluting power plants.

So we have actually won our first battle by getting fully up in PG&E's
face! and forcing its bullshit out in to the light of day.

Now let's win the war for Community Choice which will kick PG&E the hell
out of the City, and lead the world to save the planet.

peace

Eric Brooks

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