Penn Township Vote to Strip Corporations of Rights

This is THE Way to Fight the Multi-National Mining Corporations Here in Virginia !!!!!

(From www.rachel.org 01/17/08)


Concurrently Adopts Ordinance to Strip Corporations of "Rights" Joins Growing List of Communities to Recognize the Rights Of Nature

On December 18, 2007, the Board of Supervisors in Donegal Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania voted 2-1 to adopt an Ordinance banning corporations from mining within the Township. Passed to confront concerns about corporate longwall coal mining, the new Ordinance prohibits corporations from engaging in mining activities.

In doing so, the Supervisors took a stand with neighboring Blaine Township, which passed a similar Ordinance on October 16, 2006. In addition to prohibiting corporations from mining, the Donegal Supervisors adopted a second Ordinance that strips corporations of constitutional protections within the Township. The Township thus becomes the ninth municipality in the nation to refuse to recognize corporate constitutional "rights," and to prohibit corporate "rights" from being used to override the rights of human and natural communities.
The Ordinances adopted by the Donegal Township Board of Supervisors also (1) recognize the rights of natural communities and ecosystems to exist and flourish within the Township, and provides for the enforcement and defense of those rights, (2) prohibit corporate contributions to candidates for elected office within the Township, (3) prohibit mining corporations from purchasing mineral rights or land for mining, and (4) prohibit mining corporations from interfering with the civil rights of residents, including residents' right to self-government.
The Ordinances were drafted by Donegal Township residents in conjunction with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit law firm. Thomas Linzey, the Executive Director of the Legal Defense Fund, applauded the vote of the Board of Supervisors, declaring that "for too long, a handful of powerful men have controlled the fate of communities in Western Pennsylvania, using large corporations to impose surface and longwall mining on people wanting to stop the harms caused by mining in the region. Those few, who benefit from the privileges bestowed on corporations, routinely use State law to preempt municipalities from protecting their residents. With adoption of this Ordinance yet another Pennsylvania community is exercising the governing authority of community majorities, and eliminating the governing authority of a corporate few."
============== The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has worked with communities resisting corporate assaults upon democratic self-governance since 1995. Among other programs, it has brought its unique Daniel Pennock Democracy Schools to communities in Pennsylvania and twenty-five other states where people seek to end destructive and rights-denying corporate acts routinely permitted by state and federal agencies. Over one hundred Pennsylvania municipalities have adopted ordinances authored by the Legal Defense Fund.
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund Thomas Linzey, Esq. 675 Mower Road Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17202 (717) 709-0457 tal@pa.net
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