FAYETTEVILLE — Matthew Petty, Ward 2 alderman, wants fellow City Council members to take a stand against a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to give money to political candidates.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission broadened those groups’ ability to make political contributions as a form of free speech.
AT A GLANCE
Council Resolution
Fayetteville’s City Council is set to consider:
“A resolution to support the ‘Move to Amend’ campaign by joining with other communities around the country to defend democracy by amending the United States Constitution to ensure only human beings, not corporations, have constitutionally protected free speech rights.”
Source: City Of Fayetteville
The City Council on Tuesday will consider a resolution by Petty and fellow Ward 2 Alderman Mark Kinion to throw the city’s support behind the Move to Amend Campaign. That national campaign seeks an amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensuring only individuals have First Amendment rights.
The problem with that kind of symbolic stance is local governments don’t have the authority to amend the Constitution, said Bobby Ferrell, Ward 3 alderman.
“We’re elected to take care of local affairs and vote on those,” Ferrell said. “We have people in Washington, D.C., that we elect in a representative democracy to vote on national issues.”
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution can only be added by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or through ratification by two-thirds of all 50 state legislatures.
Petty, at an agenda-setting session last week, argued multiple constitutional amendments, including women’s suffrage and the repeal of prohibition, came into existence after a groundswell of support from the state and local governments.
He noted 120 other municipalities have adopted the resolution Fayetteville aldermen will consider. More than half of those were enacted in Vermont, where the state legislature opposed “corporate personhood” earlier this year. According to information from Move to Amend, a national coalition opposing the Supreme Court’s ruling, no resolutions have come from Arkansas cities.
Other cities represented in the list included with Petty and Kinion’s proposal are in California, New York and Colorado.
Petty said he’s resisted sponsoring symbolic resolutions on national issues during his first three years on the City Council.
This year is different, he added, because “every once in a while there’s something that’s just so important that you have to take some sort of local action on it, and I think this is it.”
Petty said his re-election effort this year isn’t a factor in his decision to bring the measure forward. He plans to run for another four-year term in November.
He pointed to results of an October 2009 Gallup Poll that found 76 percent of Americans favor limits on the amount of money corporations or unions can give to political candidates. More recent national surveys have shown consistent opposition to the Citizens United ruling by the majority of those polled.
“This isn’t a particularly divisive issue,” Petty said. “Almost everybody in this country thinks there needs to be limitations on outside spending in elections.”
Janine Parry, a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, said, “It’s not uncommon for communities to express their sentiment on an issue of the day, even if it’s something over which they don’t have any control.”
But the impact those stances can have on the national stage is unclear, Parry said.
“Even symbolic things are a lot more than that,” she said. “They can reinforce a communities’ values ... or tick people off, too. There can be a risk.”
Don Zimmerman, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal League, which advocates for local governments, said individual cities’ stances can make a difference, particularly when “there’s a huge outrage against a decision or in support of a decision.”
Tuesday won’t be the first time the council has considered weighing in on a national issue.
In 2001, aldermen rejected a proposal by Randy Zurcher, then Ward 2 alderman, that would have opposed oil drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge.
Former Mayor Dan Coody, who chose not to break a tie by voting on Zurcher’s proposal, said at the time he didn’t want the council chambers to become a stage for national political debates.
Aldermen will consider the resolution co-sponsored by Petty and Kinion at their 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain St.