(1) Free and fair elections, as well as honest representation, are essential to self-determination and self-governance as described in the Declaration of Independence and established in the Constitution of the United States.
(2) The American people have lost faith in the political process because their voices are not heard and their interests are not represented. Thus, an ever smaller percentage of Americans is motivated to vote.
(3) The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of corporations or other artificial entities; there are no provisions extending rights to such entities. However, through a series of decisions equating a "corporation" with a "person," the U.S. supreme court extended to corporations the constitutional rights and protections intended for people only.
(4) Unlike human beings, corporations can exist in perpetuity and in many countries at the same time. As a result many large corporations, both foreign and domestic, invest in campaigns to invalidate or bypass regulatory law intended to protect the public. Thus, corporate participation in the political process often conflicts with the public interest.
(5) Money is property; it is not speech. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is money equated with speech. Because advertising is limited and costly, equating the spending of money with free speech gives those with the most money the most speech.
(6) Whenever special interests, including very wealthy individuals, are able to spend unlimited amounts of money on political speech, candidates and officeholders can be corrupted and intimidated, and the free speech of most citizens is drowned out and denied. Monopolizing public speech neither promotes nor protects free speech.
(7) Anonymous contributions and spending for political gain promote dishonesty and corruption, preventing voters from assessing the motives of the speaker. The public must be able to hold funders of political speech accountable when their messages prove false or misleading. Full and prompt disclosure of funding sources is essential to an informed electorate, fair elections, and effective governance.
(8) Article V of the U.S. Constitution empowers the people and the states to use the amendment process to correct egregious decisions by the U.S. supreme court that subvert our representative government.
[ 2017 c 1 § 2 (Initiative Measure No. 735, approved November 8, 2016).]