About 30 members of the Occupy Charlottesville movement participated in a demonstration Friday afternoon downtown outside a federal courthouse to protest the anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court ruling which has been thrust into the national spotlight in the heat of the Republican Party's race to reclaim the presidency.
The local Occupy group, which has existed in a diminished capacity since its expulsion from Lee Park last month, convened Friday to protest the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the court ruled that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to place limits on corporate funding of political activities independent of campaigns.
That 2010 ruling, critics say, has allowed campaign spending to run amok in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and led to the formation of controversial "super PACs," a popular subject for political satire on TV shows like Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."
The closely-watched 5-4 Supreme Court decision stemmed from an appeal of a 2008 case disputing whether the not-for-profit organization Citizens United could fund a documentary criticizing then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, It also repealed sections of the McCain-Feingold Act.
A 2010 poll by The Washington Post and ABC News found that about 80 percent of Americans opposed the ruling, with little variation between political parties.
The Occupy movement coordinated nationwide with Move the Amend, an organization seeking to amend the Constitution to specifically reserve constitutional rights for individuals.
Specifically, the proposed amendment reads: "The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only. Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law."
The amendment resonates with occupiers, who denounce the court ruling as consonant with corporate greed.
"[The ruling] essentially means that you can buy a vote rather than having people think for themselves," Occupy member Shining Crawford said.
Move to Amend is currently circulating a petition for the amendment.
"Just as it was necessary in the past to specify who was a person, such as women and children, now we have to specify that a corporation is not a person," said Erin Rose, a member of Move to Amend. "One has to question how the court could diverge so radically from the people's opinion, from tradition and from the spirit of this democracy"
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