Move to Amend Organizers Expect to Get On Salt Lake City Ballot

(KCPW News) A local initiative decrying corporate personhood is gaining traction. Thousands of Salt Lake City residents have signed the Move to Amend petition, calling for a ballot initiative this November that would ask state and federal officials to uphold that money is not speech, and that only humans have constitutional rights.

Jim Judd, President of the Utah AFL-CIO, says the 2010 Citizens United ruling, which led to the creation of Super PACs accepting unlimited political contributions, turned the political environment in the United States into a millionaires-only game.

“If we’re going to elect quality people who don’t have millions of dollars of their own money to spend or the backing of corporations to do their bidding, we’re going to have to have public financing of campaigns to put politics back at a level where ordinary people can be represented and represent people within the political structure in our country,” he says.

Move to Amend Salt Lake will announce the final number of signatures it has gathered on Monday and hand them in to the city recorder’s office. It needs more than 7,100, but is hoping to get 9,000. The petition has the support of Mayor Ralph Becker and City Council Chair Soren Simonsen.