The Humanist Hour #195: David Cobb on Corporate Personhood

David Cobb is a lawyer and co-founder of Move to Amend, a coalition dedicated to winning a constitutional amendment to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. He has sued corporate polluters, lobbied elected officials, run for political office himself, and been arrested for non-violent civil disobedience. He believes we must use every tool available to effect the systemic social change we so desperately need. In 2002, David ran for Attorney General of Texas, pledging to use the office to revoke the charters of corporations that repeatedly violate health, safety, and environmental laws. In 2004, he ran for President of the United States on the Green Party ticket and successfully campaigned for the Ohio recount. At the AHA’s 2015 Annual Conference in Denver, David discussed the legal doctrine of "corporate constitutional rights" and the idea that money should be treated as speech. He contended that these illegitimate, irrational, court-created concepts have allowed a small ruling elite to hijack the social, political, and economic institutions of this country. He described the growing efforts of Move to Amend, a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, intergenerational mass movement demanding a constitutional amendment to abolish these doctrines. David also made the case that humanists are uniquely positioned to attack and discredit these concepts. He provided concrete ways members of the AHA might get involved as individuals or through their existing local chapters. In this week's show, we bring you the audio from David's speech to introduce him and his ideas to a broader audience.