Editor, The Spotlight:
Democracy is for People, Malta will hold a public forum at the Saratoga Springs Public Library on Saturday, January 21 to discuss the consequences of a Supreme Court decision detrimental to the public interest and what can be done to repeal that decision. The court’s ruling, made on January 21, 2010, said that corporations are people who have a First Amendment right to spend as much money as they want to promote or defeat political candidates. Since then, corporations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to run ads and engage in other activities to sway voters to support candidates who serve the interests of those corporations. The panel discussion/educational forum will run from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the library’s H. Dutcher Community Room. The library is located at 49 Henry St. Democracy is for People, Malta, made up of business professionals, retired military, and community activists, also will conduct informational picketing in front of the Saratoga Springs post office prior to the forum at 11:30 a.m. By simply threatening to spend an enormous amount of money on campaigns, corporate lobbyists will have even more leverage over elected officials than they had prior to the court decision. As a result, it’s going to be much harder to advance a public interest agenda on any issue affecting corporations – whether it’s healthcare, climate change, regulating Wall Street, or protecting workers’ and consumers’ rights, to name just a few. Kathy Koebrich
Executive director, Democracy is for People, Malta, NY