SOLUTIONS
Know the Story of Citizens United
by Annie Leonard
Occupy points to the need for greater corporate accountability
by Kelle Louaillier
Corporate Accountability International
We strongly supports the Occupy Wall Street actions and demonstrations sweeping non-violently across the globe calling for an end to all manner of corporate abuse. This movement underscores peoples' demand for change. It is vibrantly and creatively raising issues critical to the U.S. and the world, including:
• Extreme economic inequity. Today, unemployment, under employment and poverty rates threaten people’s health and well-being. At the same time, executive salaries on Wall Street and beyond continue to soar at grossly disproportionate rates. While the most highly profitable corporations evade paying their share of taxes, essential public services are being cut due to budget shortfalls. Global corporations, at large, shoulder the public with the burdens of their abuses: economic as well as social.
• The corrupting of democracy. With the recent Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court ruling, corporate dollars flow into elections like never before. These corporations remind policymakers daily of their “investments” with heavy-handed lobbying at every level of government.
At the heart of our campaigns is challenging the power and influence of transnational corporations. Occupy Wall Street signals a broad, growing movement toward a future where people and democratic institutions are in the driver’s seat. As more and more people grow disenchanted with our current political and economic affairs, structured campaigns challenging corporate abuse and protecting people are a central driver of change.
We can no longer settle for window dressing – addressing the symptoms of corporate influence over our democracy, while failing to strike the problem at its root. We need a world where major decisions affecting people and the environment are made democratically--not secretly in corporate board rooms. To that end, we call on corporate decision-makers to change course and abide by a high set of standards of political conduct in these areas:
• Lobbying: Corporations must fully and publicly disclose all lobbying activities around the world, including through trade associations and public relations campaigns.
• Political Contributions: Corporations must end financial contributions to political candidates, parties and referenda worldwide.
• Political Access: Corporations must not trade favors with or buy access to local, national or international public officials.
• Safeguards: Corporations must follow the precautionary principle and must not interfere in the development or implementation of global, national or local policies affecting human rights, health or the environment. Corporations must also require their subsidiaries and suppliers to abide by such policies.
• Independent Oversight: Corporations must respect the independent authority of and refrain from "partnering" with institutions that set standards affecting their business.
• International Institutions and Agreements: Corporations must accept policies that protect people, human rights and the environment and must not use trade agreements or governing institutions (such as the World Trade Organization) to preempt such policies or use them for private gain.
• Local Control: Corporations must honor local control over natural and financial resources.
In the U.S. and around the world, this is the time for policymakers to take a hard look at models for divorcing corporate interference from today’s politics – even if it means jeopardizing campaign contributions in return for the public’s support.
We need safeguards against the revolving doors between industries and agencies that govern them, against corporations writing policies aimed at reining in their abuses, and against the flow of corporate dollars into democratic institutions to curry favor with public officials.
People around the world are calling for a new political culture that has the backbone to stand-up to powerful, abusive interests that government exists to counterbalance. We must act together, now.