Activists push amendments to restore community rights

COLUMBUS » Activists in Ohio are joining efforts around the country that supporters say are aimed at restoring rights to communities to challenge a growing list of corporate incursions.

The campaign to pass an Ohio Community Rights Amendment stems from mounting frustration among environmental groups that have failed for years to push anti-fracking measures onto local ballots. But the latest effort is broader, said spokeswoman Tish O’Dell.

State laws are making it increasingly difficult for communities to regulate predatory lending, puppy mills, wireless equipment location, minimum wages, pesticide treatments and a host of other issues, O’Dell said.

“Only a century ago, we the people wrote laws that corporations followed,” said O’Dell, a community organizer with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. “That’s what it should be again: The people should be writing laws that corporations follow, non-living entities. It’s like we’ve created a Frankenstein that we now can’t control.”

Two constitutional amendments proposed in Ohio would prevent further setbacks from election officials, courts and the state’s Republican-led state Legislature, O’Dell said. Similar efforts are underway in Oregon and New Hampshire. An earlier attempt failed in Colorado.

The first would extend the right of initiative and referendum enjoyed by residents of municipalities to those living outside them, in counties and townships. The second, dubbed the Ohio Community Rights Amendment, would secure localities’ rights to self-government on issues of the health, safety and welfare of humans and the environment.