When I began in 1996 to build a new organization in Humboldt County, CA, focused entirely on challenging corporate rule, it never occurred to me that tangible wins were possible to achieve in the first few years. I assumed that many years of hard work--locally educating, tabling, speaking, writing, pounding the pavement, etc.--would be required before anyone could claim definitively that a cultural and legal shift was actually afoot in America. I was wrong! I proudly present for your reading pleasure a rare bit of good news in this closing year of the millennium: six actual examples that We The People of the United States of America are beginning to awaken from our hundred-year slumber since large corporations began to overwhelm our democratic institutions in the late 1800s.

1. In May 1998, New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco initiated corporate charter revocation proceedings against the non-profit Council For Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute Inc., calling them "shills" for tobacco corporations. Both chartered as educational tax-exempt non-profits, Mr. Vacco accused both groups of posing as non-profit groups while, at taxpayer expense, they "fed the public a pack of lies in an underhanded effort to promote smoking and addict our kids." In October, he won the revocation of the council's charter, forcing it to close its doors and forfeit most of its assets, which will be turned over to a NY state university and a public institute. The other case is still pending.

On November 3, 1998, New York voters unexpectedly removed Mr. Vacco and replaced him with Eliot Spitzer, who campaigned on a platform unheard of since the last century:

"When a corporation is convicted of repeated felonies that harm or endanger the lives of human beings or destroy our environment, the corporation should be put to death, its corporate existence ended, and its assets taken and sold at public auction ... During the 1840s and 1850s, companies lost their charters routinely for committing serious violations ... In the late 19th century, New York State led the way in revoking the charters of oil, match, sugar, and whiskey trusts when these companies created criminal acts and exceeded the powers of their charters."

2. In October 1998, the elected Council of the Township of Wayne, PA, passed into law an ordinance which prohibits corporations from doing business in Wayne which have a history of consistently violating regulatory law at the municipal, county, state, or federal level. The ordinance also prohibits corporations from doing business in Wayne which have on their board of directors any person who currently sits on the board of any other corporation which has a history of consistently violating regulatory law. Regulatory law includes environmental law, labor law, occupational safety and health law, tax law, consumer law, etc.

When an individual commits three felonies, he or she gets an automatic life sentence (or is put to death). When a corporation commits a string of serious violations of regulatory law, they are merely fined over and over again. There is no cumulative impact of the violations. And their fines and legal fees are tax-deductible (i.e., we pay a portion of these costs through our taxes). Many giant corporations have long histories of violating regulatory law. The people of Wayne have decided to demand that corporate leaders be fully accountable for the actions of their corporate entities. (The full text of the law can be found on the Democracy Unlimited web site: www.monitor.net/democracyunlimited.)

3. In June 1998 in Alabama, circuit court judge William Wynn applied as a private citizen for a writ of Quo Warranto. Quo Warranto hearings (Latin for "by what authority") call corporations to account for their harms or failures, and if found Ultra Vires ("beyond their authority"), their charters can be amended or revoked. Quo Warranto hearings were commonplace until the 1890s, but have only rarely been used in this manner in the 20th century--until the extraordinary case in New York described above. The Alabama judge's writ was against the same four tobacco corporations that 46 states signed a deal with, demanding that Alabama revoke their charters to do business in the state. His application cited state child abuse laws that were broken in targeting "minors ... to use, consume and be affected by dangerous, addictive and lethal tobacco products." The four corporations have requested that the hearing be moved to the federal courts, where they expect they'll get a more favorable response.

4. In September 1998, 30 organizations, including our local Democracy Unlimited, joined together (under the leadership of the CA chapter of the National Lawyers Guild) to petition the Attorney General of California, then Dan Lundgren, to initiate charter revocation proceedings against Unocal corporation (Union Oil of California). Mr. Lundgren refused to do his legal duty. The new attorney general will soon be handed the 129-page petition. (A copy is available for perusal at our office, and via our web site listed below.) The petition identifies ten counts of significant harms caused by Unocal, including: environmental devastation in California and Southeast Asia; complicity in crimes against humanity--and cultural genocide--in Afghanistan, Burma, and Canada; illegal labor practices in California; usurpation of political power in Burma, Afghanistan, and the US; and deception of the courts, shareholders and the public.

5. Until the turn of the century, it was common for state constitutions to contain specific corporate rules and prohibitions, such as: no corporation may own another corporation; no corporation may make a financial contribution to a candidate for office or a charitable or civic organization; all corporate directors and stockholders are to be held personally liable for all harms and debts; etc. In California, most of these rules were removed from our state constitution in 1930 and 1972. In the Midwest, citizens are beginning to reverse this trend.

In many Midwestern states, farmers have been organizing for the past twenty years to prohibit corporations and other limited liability entities from engaging in farming and the ownership of farmland. Nine states (North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) now have such prohibitions under law. All of the state's laws are found in statutes, except for Nebraska.

In the state of Nebraska in 1982, citizens collected enough signatures on an initiative petition to place on the ballot a proposed Constitutional Amendment banning "non-family farm corporations and syndicates" from owning farmland or engaging in farming or ranching. The proposed amendment received over 56% of the vote, and is now a part of the state's constitution (Article XII, Section 8). It has been challenged in both state and federal courts and both times the law's legality has been upheld. On November 3, 1998, the people of South Dakota went to the polls attempting to pass a similar Constitutional Amendment. (I don't yet know the outcome of the vote.)

6. It is only appropriate that I conclude this survey by mentioning Measure F: the Arcata (CA) Advisory Measure on Democracy and Corporations, which won almost 61% of the vote last November. It was organized by Citizens Concerned About Corporations (CCAC), a spin-off project of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, CA. For the first time in the history of our country, citizens are asking their elected city council to assist them in launching a city-wide discussion on the proper role of corporations in our society.

By the time you read this, the City Council will have created a Task Force to organize town hall meetings. The Measure F Steering Committee will continue to meet to ensure that this extraordinary hidden American history is made widely available to all Arcatans via house-party study sessions, a city-wide educational mailing, and much more. Both town hall meetings will take place from 10 AM to 3 PM on two Saturdays (April 10 and May 1), at the Arcata High School.

In all of the examples I have listed, the central goal is the same, and can be summed up with a single question: "In our democracy, who's in charge: citizens or corporations?"

Our nation's founders were quite clear about the answer. We The People were to have sovereign authority over all of our institutions, be they government or corporate. The work of Democracy Unlimited (and its spin-off project, CCAC) is educating and organizing to reclaim citizen authority over our corporate creations. We invite you to become active wherever you live as we continue the essential work of reclaiming our democracy from giant absentee corporations.

May next year's news be as sweet.

For more information about Democracy Unlimited or its spin-off project, Citizens Concerned About Corporations, please send at least $2 to us at P.O. Box 27, Arcata, CA 95518, or check out our new web site at http://www.monitor.net/democracyunlimited. Or better yet, join Democracy Unlimited for a mere $25 ($15 low income) and receive four newsletters, and discounts on a plethora of articles, books, and audio tapes.

Paul is the founding director of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, based in Arcata, CA. He can be reached at 707-822-2242 or cienfuegos@igc.org. Currently a Seattle group is forming to propose a resolution similar to Arcata's. To get in touch with the Seattle group, contact Paul at his phone number or e-mail address listed above.