To: The California State House, The California State Senate, and Governor Gavin Newsom
Corporations Are Not People Too
State law establishes the rights and responsibilities of corporations. States can overrule the U.S. Supreme Court decisions giving corporations the right to free speech (Citizens United v. FEC) and religious freedom (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby) simply by amending their Corporations Codes to deny corporations those constitutional rights that are clearly meant for individuals.
Why is this important?
In Citizens United (for-profit corporations given the right of free speech) and Hobby Lobby (for-profit corporations given the right of religious freedom), the Supreme Court fundamentally changed the relationship between corporate interests and individual interests, increasing by orders of magnitude the power of corporations over our lives and our government. The most expeditious way to address this imbalance is to deny those individual rights to California corporations and corporations doing business in California (i.e., the 5th largest economy in the world).