Two lawmakers in the Ohio House of Representatives have introduced a non-partisan resolution calling on state and federal legislators to support an amendment to the U. S. Constitution “that would abolish corporate personhood and the doctrine of money as speech.”

State Reps. Kent Smith (D­8 Euclid) and Nickie Antonio (D­13 Lakewood) today announced the introduction of House Companion Legislation to Senate Resolution 187.

House Companion Legislation corresponds to Ohio Senate Resolution 187 introduced in 2015 by Senator Mike Skindell (D­Lakewood). Both resolutions follow the spirit and the letter of the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution advocated by Move to Amend (MTA), a national non­partisan coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals.

 “Ohioans are sick and tired of pay­to­play politics and corrupt corporate influence on our elected representatives at state and federal levels, so we are very pleased that Representatives  Smith and Antonio are responding to voters’ concerns in a concrete way by co­sponsoring this legislation” says Madelon Watts, an activist with the Ohio Move to Amend Network who lives in Kent Smith’s House district.

To date, 17 states and over 700 municipalities in the United States, including 20 in Ohio, have approved resolutions or voted for ballot initiatives calling for a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to affirm only human beings have constitutional rights and money is property, not speech.

Sufficient signatures of registered voters have been collected and verified to put the Move to Amend Amendment on the November 2016 ballot in the cities of Newark, Shaker Heights and South Euclid, Ohio. The city of Cleveland received enough signatures to put the Amendment on this November’s ballot, and will soon consider doing so, but not until 2017.

Brecksville, Chagrin Falls, Cleveland Heights, Defiance, Kent, Mentor, Newburgh Heights, and Toledo have enacted ordinances supporting the Move to Amend Amendment after voters passed ballot initiatives directing those cities to do so.

Athens, Barberton, Bedford Heights, Canton, Dayton, Fremont, Lakewood, Lorain, Oakwood Village, Oberlin, Oxford, and South Euclid have passed city council resolutions supporting the Move to Amend Amendment.

Co-sponsors of House Companion Legislation to Senate Resolution 187 include John Bocciere (D-59), Kristin Boggs (D-18),Janine Boyd (D-9), Mike Curtin (D-17), Greta Johnson (D-35), Dave Leland (D-22), Michele Lepore-Hagan (D-58), Debbie Phillips (D-94), John Rogers (D-60), Michael Sheehy (D-46), and Fred Strahorn (D-39).

movetoamend.org/ohio