you
[Music]
there we go
okay so this I promise this is the
beginning of a joke so the Supreme Court
2010 court case Citizens United Disney
World in the city of Columbia they’ll
have a really important thing in common
I promise that they do so in the essence
of the concept of citizen we’ve had this
tension over the years of individual
rights versus corporate rights and in
2010 there was a landmark Supreme Court
case called Citizens United
in that case citizens united in on part
is a nonprofit organization in 2008 it
wanted to provide these politically
targeted advertisements that were going
to air just days before the 2008
Democratic presidential preference
primary and at the time the
mccain-feingold law which provide which
prevented any kind of nonprofit any kind
of corporation in any kind of Union from
putting those targeted ads on spending
any of their money to do that was was a
challenge for them and they sued trying
to get the right to be able to do that
so in a landmark decision the Supreme
Court said no no they’re well within
their rights to do that Citizens United
can pay for any kind of political ad
that they want in fact if we try to stop
them that’s actually infringing on their
free speech rights and the reason for
that they said is that all that
corporations are are a loose Association
of citizens and citizens of course have
the right to free speech so there’s of
course public backlash and a lot of
calls for a constitutional amendment to
overturn citizens united and there’s
been increasing popularity of that kind
of a constitutional amendment both
presidential candidates last year were
asked both said that they actually
supported overturning Citizens United
and polling for overturning citizens
united is at something like seventy
percent of all Americans so is this
really the crux of what corporate rights
are we’ve really been led to believe
with the way that we have public
discourse on
rights versus corporate rights that this
is really the end-all-be-all that if we
just overturn citizens united then we’ll
be fine we’ll go back to a situation
where individuals have power they can
influence the government but but that’s
really not true I mean when you look at
the individual and corporate rights you
have to look at places like Disney World
and Disney World is one of the most
magical and beloved places on earth but
it’s also a very carefully curated and
very tightly controlled private
government so in the night in the early
sixties when Walt Disney wanted to
create Disney World he started buying
land in Florida and he created several
shell companies to also buy some of this
land in Florida and when they did that
he went to the Florida Legislature and
convinced them to turn it into a
political subdivision one that he could
have complete control over and he built
the resorts within the land he built two
small cities that live in better in the
land and the sole citizens in both of
these cities are employees of Disney
they’re hand selected by Disney and
within all of this area he created this
district called the Reedy to really
create Improvement District and the sole
purpose of this district is to provide
for the infrastructure of the area
provide for everything that a local
government would provide for and
importantly provide for taxes so every
year Reedy Creek Improvement District
brings in over seventy million dollars
that go directly to Disney to do
whatever they want to do with it
so really when we’re looking at Disney
through this corporate lens this is the
kind of struggle between individual and
corporate rights that we need to look at
we need to look at these places where
instead of influencing through corporate
money corporations and are just stepping
into the role of corporate government
bodies and taking over these powers and
this isn’t really something new either
in the in the 1960s Disney might be the
most popular and largest of these kinds
of districts but over the course of time
all 50 states have adopted laws that
allow these kinds of districts to happen
and all major municipalities have them
and that includes Columbia Columbia has
dozens of these little districts they’re
called anywhere from
Community Improvement Districts too
taxing tax increment financing subsidies
or transportation development districts
all different kinds of districts that
are created either through unilateral
decisions through businesses or through
municipal government wanting to create
some kind of a public-private
partnership so really when we’re talking
about these corporate and individual
rights
we’re not just looking at things like
citizens united we’re not just looking
at these large federal powers we have to
start looking at what’s happening in our
backyard in the transportation
development district area for example
you look at the state of Missouri and
just this week the auditor released that
there are a number of improvement
districts that are not actually
complying with the law but Missouri law
doesn’t actually have a way for them to
be punished for that so we have no
recourse to be able to do anything about
that does getting rid of that law
actually do anything more either what I
would say is that what we also need to
remember in the struggle between
corporate and individual rights is not
just to look at the corporations it’s
not just to look at what kind of
corporations have rights what kind of
powers that we’re giving to these
corporations it’s that we need to look
at what kind of rights we still have for
ourselves because while we’re waiting
for things like a Citizens United
overhaul where we’re waiting for things
like the legislature to change laws in
the state of Missouri we can enact or we
can we can use our own rights we can use
our own powers as individuals we still
have our own right to free speech we
have our own right to vote we have our
right to sunshine request we have our
right to go to public meetings and all
of these things happen on a daily basis
all of these districts provide the
avenue for corporations to come in and
add additional taxes in each
transportation district additional taxes
are put on things like grocery stores
and hotels and restaurants and things
that we use every day and we can
sunshine records that deal with those
kinds of things and we can use the
powers available to us to learn more
about them
and learn not just what they do but also
whether they’re going to be new ones
what is happening with the ones that we
have now are we having problems with the
ones that we have no there are there are
avenues to get into these these
struggles between individual and
corporate rights and it’s important to
remember that one of these things that
citizens united Citizens United has
reminded us is that we have a very
important power of speech and using it
to raise our voices and ask these hard
questions and talk to each other and
talk to our elected representatives all
of these things are important and even
the smallest of us with our freedom of
speech have the ability to use our voice
and so I would encourage everyone to use
it
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
there we go
okay so this I promise this is the
beginning of a joke so the Supreme Court
2010 court case Citizens United Disney
World in the city of Columbia they’ll
have a really important thing in common
I promise that they do so in the essence
of the concept of citizen we’ve had this
tension over the years of individual
rights versus corporate rights and in
2010 there was a landmark Supreme Court
case called Citizens United
in that case citizens united in on part
is a nonprofit organization in 2008 it
wanted to provide these politically
targeted advertisements that were going
to air just days before the 2008
Democratic presidential preference
primary and at the time the
mccain-feingold law which provide which
prevented any kind of nonprofit any kind
of corporation in any kind of Union from
putting those targeted ads on spending
any of their money to do that was was a
challenge for them and they sued trying
to get the right to be able to do that
so in a landmark decision the Supreme
Court said no no they’re well within
their rights to do that Citizens United
can pay for any kind of political ad
that they want in fact if we try to stop
them that’s actually infringing on their
free speech rights and the reason for
that they said is that all that
corporations are are a loose Association
of citizens and citizens of course have
the right to free speech so there’s of
course public backlash and a lot of
calls for a constitutional amendment to
overturn citizens united and there’s
been increasing popularity of that kind
of a constitutional amendment both
presidential candidates last year were
asked both said that they actually
supported overturning Citizens United
and polling for overturning citizens
united is at something like seventy
percent of all Americans so is this
really the crux of what corporate rights
are we’ve really been led to believe
with the way that we have public
discourse on
rights versus corporate rights that this
is really the end-all-be-all that if we
just overturn citizens united then we’ll
be fine we’ll go back to a situation
where individuals have power they can
influence the government but but that’s
really not true I mean when you look at
the individual and corporate rights you
have to look at places like Disney World
and Disney World is one of the most
magical and beloved places on earth but
it’s also a very carefully curated and
very tightly controlled private
government so in the night in the early
sixties when Walt Disney wanted to
create Disney World he started buying
land in Florida and he created several
shell companies to also buy some of this
land in Florida and when they did that
he went to the Florida Legislature and
convinced them to turn it into a
political subdivision one that he could
have complete control over and he built
the resorts within the land he built two
small cities that live in better in the
land and the sole citizens in both of
these cities are employees of Disney
they’re hand selected by Disney and
within all of this area he created this
district called the Reedy to really
create Improvement District and the sole
purpose of this district is to provide
for the infrastructure of the area
provide for everything that a local
government would provide for and
importantly provide for taxes so every
year Reedy Creek Improvement District
brings in over seventy million dollars
that go directly to Disney to do
whatever they want to do with it
so really when we’re looking at Disney
through this corporate lens this is the
kind of struggle between individual and
corporate rights that we need to look at
we need to look at these places where
instead of influencing through corporate
money corporations and are just stepping
into the role of corporate government
bodies and taking over these powers and
this isn’t really something new either
in the in the 1960s Disney might be the
most popular and largest of these kinds
of districts but over the course of time
all 50 states have adopted laws that
allow these kinds of districts to happen
and all major municipalities have them
and that includes Columbia Columbia has
dozens of these little districts they’re
called anywhere from
Community Improvement Districts too
taxing tax increment financing subsidies
or transportation development districts
all different kinds of districts that
are created either through unilateral
decisions through businesses or through
municipal government wanting to create
some kind of a public-private
partnership so really when we’re talking
about these corporate and individual
rights
we’re not just looking at things like
citizens united we’re not just looking
at these large federal powers we have to
start looking at what’s happening in our
backyard in the transportation
development district area for example
you look at the state of Missouri and
just this week the auditor released that
there are a number of improvement
districts that are not actually
complying with the law but Missouri law
doesn’t actually have a way for them to
be punished for that so we have no
recourse to be able to do anything about
that does getting rid of that law
actually do anything more either what I
would say is that what we also need to
remember in the struggle between
corporate and individual rights is not
just to look at the corporations it’s
not just to look at what kind of
corporations have rights what kind of
powers that we’re giving to these
corporations it’s that we need to look
at what kind of rights we still have for
ourselves because while we’re waiting
for things like a Citizens United
overhaul where we’re waiting for things
like the legislature to change laws in
the state of Missouri we can enact or we
can we can use our own rights we can use
our own powers as individuals we still
have our own right to free speech we
have our own right to vote we have our
right to sunshine request we have our
right to go to public meetings and all
of these things happen on a daily basis
all of these districts provide the
avenue for corporations to come in and
add additional taxes in each
transportation district additional taxes
are put on things like grocery stores
and hotels and restaurants and things
that we use every day and we can
sunshine records that deal with those
kinds of things and we can use the
powers available to us to learn more
about them
and learn not just what they do but also
whether they’re going to be new ones
what is happening with the ones that we
have now are we having problems with the
ones that we have no there are there are
avenues to get into these these
struggles between individual and
corporate rights and it’s important to
remember that one of these things that
citizens united Citizens United has
reminded us is that we have a very
important power of speech and using it
to raise our voices and ask these hard
questions and talk to each other and
talk to our elected representatives all
of these things are important and even
the smallest of us with our freedom of
speech have the ability to use our voice
and so I would encourage everyone to use
it
you
[Music]
you
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