Coalition of Politicians and Corporations Moves Statewide Effort to Ban Democracy in Colorado.

By Cliff Willmeng

April, 2014

Undaunted by the power and special interests of nearly five million Colorado citizens, a coalition of politicians and industrial and corporate leaders are steadily advancing a bold campaign to ban democracy and community rights in the hotly contested state. Democracy, a long-debated idea between multinationals and common human beings, has increasingly become a household discussion in the mountain state, giving rise to corporate fears that perhaps the concentrations of democratic decision making statewide may pose too great of a risk to vulnerable living standards of CEOs and shareholders. Through their statewide campaign, the grassroots network of State and corporate interests will seek to protect what they consider their fundamental rights, and move beyond the regulation of democracy, so as to eliminate it from public life altogether.

The industrial movement has added incentive and urgency this year, as controversial state ballot measure number 75, the “Colorado Community Rights Amendment”, heads ever closer toward the signature gathering effort needed to place it to a direct vote of the Colorado people in 2014.  The measure, advanced by regular, unpaid citizens, threatens the very fabric of corporate power, and goes so far as to grant communities and individuals, “…the power to enact local laws protecting health, safety, and welfare by establishing the fundamental rights of individuals, their communities, and nature...”. The measure goes further, and grants these same individuals and communities, “…the power to enact local laws establishing, defining, altering, or eliminating the rights, powers, and duties of corporations…”, an assertion seen a contradictory to the established interests of CEOs and their friends in government.

For industry, the perceived threats to corporate rights have recently been on the rise in the Colorado. Exemplified by the incursion of front-range communities in the most recent elections, people and communities took advantage of Colorado law using local ballot measures to delay or prohibit the relatively powerless clientele of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association from drilling within their city limits. Prior to the elections of November, 2013, the Colorado Mining Association found itself under similar threat, as Summit, Gilpin, Conejos, Castillo, and Gunnison Counties all enacted local laws prohibiting the use of cyanide in mining there. In the view of these small but passionate corporations, it was only the determination and leverage of the Colorado Supreme Court that could restore justice and right the situation. In the case of Summit County, the ban on cyanide was found offensive to State authority, and in a 2009 ruling, was fully overturned. Attempting to build on that victory, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association has filed similar lawsuits against the communities of Longmont, Lafayette and Fort Collins. The results of that litigation are still pending.

  Among the major concerns for today’s CEOs is what they believe to be a direct relationship between democracy and community rights, a belief they feel is exemplified by opposition documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the speeches of the powerful Martin Luther King Jr..  Drawing from historic examples, industry leaders point to what they consider to be America’s dark past, where the freedoms of wealthy entrepreneurs and individuals came under perceived threat by efforts ranging from the abolitionist movement to strikes and marches by fringe elements like working people in the 1930s. If left to themselves, the CEOs and politicians contend, people may eventually have the power to make informed decisions, and communities may eventually grow so bold as to create entire sustainable economies, all at the cost of the common Goldman Sachs Chief Economic Officer, or even Wall Street itself.

  House Majority Leader Dicky Lee Hullinghorst, D – Boulder was quoted by the Denver Post on January 21^st of this year, speaking to the growing problem of democracy in her state. “When you do things at the ballot box, I think you frequently make a lot of mistakes that create difficulties in the future.” This view was shared by some of the founding fathers themselves like John Adams, for example, who stated that democracy is, “the tyranny of the majority”, and James Madison who asserted that government, “…ought to be constituted so as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority”. These are the traces of a true Corporate Rights Movement, according to transnational organizers, who seek to embody its historical traditions.

  These are truly days of shifting and dynamic politics in the State of Colorado, and only time and the changing grounds of political allegiance will tell what is next on the Forture 500’s horizon. Organizers say that regardless of the power of common people, and the relatively unpopular idea of a full Corporate State, they will forge on, overturning local ordinances, consuming vast sections of the environment and economy, and keeping the commoners far from any perceived rights to health, safety, welfare, self determination or other such inherently dangerous ideas.