This week Monday Move to Amend: Southeast Wisconsin held a press conference> and rally to try to get Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele to sign a resolution to put a referendum on this fall’s ballot asking Congress to amend the United States Constitution stating that corporations are not a persons and money is not speech.
Despite the efforts of the folks from Move to Amend: Southeast Wisconsin, County Executive Abele has chosen to veto the County Board’s request for an advisory referendum on Citizens United, a request that passed by a 14-4 supermajority vote. Abele has cited the cost of such a referendum as the reason he’s opposed to seeing it on the ballot, and while I can certainly appreciate Abele’s concern for how Milwaukee County’s tax dollars are spent, the cost of adding an advisory referendum to this fall’s ballot would total about 1/60,000th of the County’s yearly budget.
Then, as if to add insult to injury, Abele went on to compare an advisory referendum voted on by the citizens of Milwaukee County to a Facebook poll (Abele’s comments start at about the 2:00 mark).
While I’d act surprised at Abele’s opposition to a citzens’ referendum, in recent weeks he’s made it clear he’d rather support and defend his corporate friends, regardless of how those friends might be treating the “little guy.”
That’s a speech that would have fit in seamlessly at the RNC convention. Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Again.
“Unsurprising but still disappointing.”
Four words I’m sure we’ll hear a lot of in regards to Chris Abele’s time as County Executive.
MoveToAmend.org has grown to tens of thousands across the country and has passed referrendums in over 200 cities and counties since 2009. But ALEC has now seen it as a threat after having to deal with so many other issues. We in the Chippewa Valley Move To Amend organization easily got the referrendum on the county ballot by allowing conservative members of the board to include “PACs and Unions” along with “Corporations” are mot people in ours. But I suppose even that concession will no longer be enough. We will press on for the middle class and the small and medium businesses of this nation who are being gobbled up by monied foreign interests like Adleson Casinos and Koch, Exxon, Shell, Walmart and other foreign invested conglomerants.