[OccupyCU] Move to Amend petitioning update, reactions to "We're from Occupy"

[Colan Holmes]

Hi all,

*The basic (from Facebook):* Chandler, Pat and Gabe petitioned yesterday,
gathering a total 40 signatures to place a vote regarding corporate
personhood and election finance on the agenda of the Cunningham and City of
Champaign townships' April 10 public meetings (see below for the
resolutions' formal wording). The petitions will be submitted to the
Township Clerks in a week, allowing for more to sign in support. Mostly
positive responses to statements we were from Occupy CU. Streets covered
were Nevada, from Lincoln to McCullough, and Church, from Wright to 1st.

*More detail:* We have plenty of signatures from Urbana, but are one short
for the required 15 needed to put the proposal on the City of Champaign
township meeting agenda. Surpassing the 15 required signatures shouldn't be
to hard to do in one week though.

When I submit the paperwork, I will get the date and time of any township
meetings that would probably be a good idea to attend: the April 10 meeting
is certainly a must (to be present to vote), but there may be another,
March meeting in which the Township Boards (City Councils) decide on
whether the resolution is "proper business" for people to vote on on April
10.
*
Reactions to the statement that we were from Occupy CU:* We talked with
about 60 people. There were no outright negative reactions, perhaps due to
the petitioning routes being in progressive areas. Two people did mention
they were afraid of increasing violence within Occupy, but they both signed
the petition. One man in Northeast Champaign (Church St) challenged me to
explain how the petition was relevant to everyday working people like
himself -- after pulling some statistics/the graph from Michael Weissman's
flier and juxtaposing corporate power with everyday worker's rights
(unions, pay, benefits) he shook my hand and wished me luck. A woman in the
same area was very happy to hear we were doing something locally, and said
she was going to tune in to Occupy The Air when I mentioned it was
currently on.

"Thank you for doing this. Godspeed, you. I will pray you all are
successful."

Solidarity,
Chandler

The proposed resolution(s):
The U.S. Supreme Court held, in "Citizens United v. FEC", that corporations
have the rights of real human citizens and are entitled to spend unlimited
amounts of money in support of political campaigns. To undo that decision,
the people of the [Cunningham Township/City of Champaign Township] support
an Amendment to the United States Constitution to establish that:

1. A corporation does not have the same rights as an actual person, and

2. Money is not speech and, therefore, regulating political spending is not
equivalent to limiting political speech.

We further request that our city, state and federal representatives enact
resolutions and legislation to advance the two positions proposed as part
of the Amendment, with reference to the need for an Amendment.
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