Acting Locally: Update on the Community Rights Movement

We the People 2.0

Directed by Leila Conners (2018)

Film Review

This documentary is about the community rights movement. It profiles grassroots groups all over the US fighting federal and state laws that usurp the ability of local government to protect the citizens they represent against the toxic and environmentally destructive activities of corporations.

Close to 10,000 US communities have established grassroots community rights groups. Two hundred local jurisdictions have passed community rights ordinances that allow them to restrict toxic and environmentally destructive corporate activities. Examples include fracking (near schools and homes), strip mining, toxic sludge disposal, fly ash* dumping, giant hog factories and mountain top removal.

Pittsburgh City Council was the first local authority to pass a community rights ordinance in 2010. In addition to guaranteeing all Pittsburgh residents the right to clean air, fresh water, freedom from chemical trespass,* and the right to local self-governance, the ordinance also prohibits oil and gas extraction within Pittsburgh city limits.

The national Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has been assisting local communities in starting community rights organizations since 1995. Where local residents can’t persuade officials who supposedly represent them to pass community rights laws, they campaign to vote them out of office or enact community rights ordinances through ballot initiative

Their International Law Center (see https://celdf.org/law-library/international-law-center/) assisted Ecuador, the first country to recognize the rights of nature, in amending their constitution in 2008. They are also helping NGOs in India to pass a national Ganga River Rights Act.

CELDF is among a growing number of grassroots groups calling for a peoples constitutional convention to amend the US Constitution. They believe the 1789 Constitution has allowed the US to become a corporate state as opposed to a republic. See https://celdf.org/2017/05/blog-us-constitution-1789-time-serious-overhaul/

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*Fly Ash – is a toxic byproduct of coal combustion in electric power plants.

**Chemical trespass – is a legal term for the involuntary exposure of human beings to toxic chemicals.

The film can be viewed via most public libraries at Beamafilm

How a Few Rich Bastards Hijacked the US Constitution

Local Community Self Government

Excellent talk by Thomas Linzey, executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

Highlights for me included the hidden history of the US Constitution, including the secret meetings George Washington and others held at Mt Vernon and elsewhere prior to the formal Constitutional Convention.

The goal of the Constitutional Convention, according to Linzey, was to create a framework in which property and commerce rights would take precedence over the local self-government. Even at the time, observers maintained that constitutional government was totally inconsistent with democratic government.

He goes on to explain historical court rulings that give corporations more rights than local government, as well as outlining the great work of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in helping local communities battle corporations that threaten their health and safety with fracking, factory hog farms, toxic sludge, aquifer mining (by bottled water companies) and other environmental destructive enterprises.

I was particularly interested to hear about movements that are amending state constitutions to restore the right of local self government, as well as a national group fighting for a US Constitutional amendment that guarantees the right of local self-government.

Because I have a really slow connection, I had difficulty playing the embedded video.

People can also see the presentation at
https://marioncommunityrights.wordpress.com/tag/thomas-linzey/

The Battle for Home Rule

While the federal government remains hopelessly mired in endless wars and draconian trade treaties like TPPA, TTIP and TISA, at the local level community rights activists are systematically reclaiming the right to govern themselves. Over the past 20 years, hundreds of communities have passed local ordinances banning factory farms, toxic sludge, GMOs, fracking, toxic contamination, depletion of local aquifers and other corporate abuses.

Some activists have chosen to battle corporate infringement on their communities by establishing their legal right to home rule. At present, 31 states have constitutional amendments that grant cities, municipalities and/or counties the ability to pass laws to govern themselves (so long as they obey the state and federal constitution). The number is constantly growing, with Nevada becoming a home rule state in July 2015.

Most non-home rule states use Dillon’s rule to determine the bounds of a local municipality’s legal authority. Dillon’s rule, written by a federal judge in 1968, states that municipalities only have powers expressly granted to them by state government.

Home Rule for Mendocino County

In California, Mendocino activists are presently circulating a petition to become a charter county. They must collect 4,000 signatures by January 15 to place a citizens initiative granting their county home rule on the November 2016 ballot.

Mendocino wants to join fourteen other California charter counties (Alameda, Butte, El Dorado, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Tehama). Acts passed by charter counties are the equivalent of laws passed by the Californian legislative. The California constitution even allows home rule counties to pre-empt state law where significant local interest is served. In contrast, ordinances passed by general or non-charter counties are subordinate to the will of the state legislature.

Other California charter counties are using home rule to ban fracking and to keep toxic pesticides out of their wells and surface water. As a charter county, Mendocino would also have the power to create a publicly owned bank like the Bank of North Dakota.

Preserving their Anti-fracking Ban

The charter initiative is a project of the Community Rights Network of Mendocino Network. In 2014, they successfully lobbied the board of supervisors to pass an ordinance that makes it illegal to engage in fracking in Mendocino County. By becoming a charter county, this ordinance assumes the force of state law. This makes it much harder for the oil and gas industry to overturn in court.

The four part video below features anti-globalization activist Vendana Shiva speaking about Gandhi’s campaign for Indian home rule (if you click on the first link, parts 2-4 will play automatically when the previous segment finishes).

For more information about the community rights movement see Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund