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Sep 2, 2015
Residents from across Ohio protest outside a luncheon where Ohio Secretary of State Husted is speaking today. Mr. Husted is attempting to block Home Rule county charter initiatives in Athens, Medina, and Fulton Counties from being on the November ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsSep 2, 2015
Citizens from Medina, Fulton and Athens counties in Ohio are gathering in Columbus today to protest Secretary of State Jon Husted’s ruling that those counties’ citizens may not vote on their own county charter initiatives, despite meeting requirements to place those initiatives on the November ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsSep 1, 2015
Three Ohio counties argue in their filing to the Ohio Supreme Court that the Secretary of State overstepped his authority in removing their county charter initiatives from the ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 31, 2015
Community Bills of Rights (CBOR) come in a variety of forms, including municipal or county ordinances, home rule charters, charter amendments, state legislation, and state constitutional amendments. The community decides which form to use, depending largely upon the types of local government and the tools for exercising local government allowed by your state constitution.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsAug 31, 2015
The Three G’s of Organizing
Wondering how to get started on the road to local self-government in your community? You’ll need:
A Goal,
A Group,
and Get out of “The Box” by asserting your Right to Local Self-Government
Aug 31, 2015
What is it that keeps us from getting what we want in our communities? Why can’t we say, “No!” to harmful activities? The short answer is: THE LAW. A handful of legal doctrines make it illegal for communities to govern on important issues like fracking, factory farms, large-scale energy infrastructure projects and commercial water extraction.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsAug 31, 2015
The system is broken! At CELDF we hear this all the time from communities asking for our help. Yet, to our eyes, the system is actually working just fine for those who created it; it’s been fixed to work on behalf of corporations that are protected by our state and federal governments.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsAug 31, 2015
The true story of one community’s struggle to save their heritage watershed. And the corporations actively trying to destroy it.
Read More | Community WiresAug 31, 2015
Ohio residents will demonstrate in downtown Columbus on Wednesday, against Ohio Secretary of State’s recent decision to remove three Home Rule county charter initiatives from the November ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsAug 31, 2015
The National Community Rights Network backs Barrington, NH’s Community Bill of Rights Ordinance banning resource extraction as a violation of residents’ rights to clean air, water, and scenic preservation. Residents are bringing the measure forward for a vote at Town Meeting in March 2016.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsAug 31, 2015
The story of one Pennsylvania community gaining community rights.
Read More | Community WiresAug 31, 2015
Chapter I, from “Jefferson, Corporations and the Constitution” originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review, 1936
Read More | Resource LinksAug 30, 2015
I answer not to falsehood or abuse, but proceed to the defects of the English Government. I begin with charters and corporations.
Read More | Resource LinksAug 30, 2015
MERCERSBURG, PA: On August 12, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) took an unprecedented step, for the first time suspending the issuance of a state frack wastewater injection well permit on the basis of a local ordinance banning injection wells.
Read More | Community WiresAug 28, 2015
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Aug 28, 2015
How Public Relations Sold Sewage Disposal as Agricultural Recycling
Read More | Resource LinksAug 27, 2015
The Oregon Secretary of State refuses to certify a duly qualified state constitutional amendment that would secure the right to democratic local self-government. This writer points out the dangerous precedent established by such action if allowed to stand.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 27, 2015
The Worker Bill of Rights is the fourth initiative from Envision Spokane, now operating under Envision Worker Rights, to qualify for the ballot. It would grant new protections and rights to workers in Spokane, a prospect that has the business community worried.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 27, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN, OH: A week following Ohio Secretary of State John Husted’s ruling which stripped residents in three counties of their right to vote on Home Rule Charter initiatives, the Mahoning County Board of Elections voted to do the same to Youngstown residents. The Board refused to place a proposed Charter Amendment on the November ballot, even though all requirements for qualifying the amendment to the ballot were met, and the Board’s own attorney advised placing the amendment onto the ballot.
Read More | Community WiresAug 27, 2015
With the Mahoning County Board of Elections unanimously voting to keep a Youngstown anti-fracking charter amendment proposal off the Nov. 3 ballot, backers of the initiative are unsure of their next step.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 26, 2015
Communities across the country – threatened by harmful carbon extraction – are leveraging community rights and lessons from indigenous peoples to use rights-based legal strategies, working to overcome unjust western legal doctrines.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsAug 26, 2015
While The Spokesman-Review got it right that all qualifying citizens’ initiatives should make it onto the ballot, the editorial board continues to get it wrong on corporate rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 25, 2015
A natural gas driller suing Highland Township in federal court claims attempts by outside parties to intervene in the case, one involving a municipal ban on wastewater injection wells, are both “befuddled” and baseless, asking the court to refuse their inclusion, in a statement filed on Monday.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 24, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN — City council voted today to put an anti-fracking charter amendment proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot, and the Mahoning County Board of Elections could do the same as early as Wednesday.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 24, 2015
People who oppose having their communities transformed into corporate resource colonies are familiar with the Halliburton Loophole, a secretly drafted edict that places the oil and gas industries above the law, exempting them and no one else from obeying the clean water act, the clean air act, the safe water drinking act, and others. Now, Ohio Sec. of State Jon Husted has unilaterally placed those same corporations above the Ohio State Constitution.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Press Releases & BlogsAug 24, 2015
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has been sued by 10 residents of Fulton, Medina and Athens counties after he invalidated hydraulic fracturing ballot proposals.
The group is challenging Husted’s decision to remove a series of ballot questions that contain bans on fracking-related oil and gas drilling projects, such as wastewater injection wells used during the fracturing process.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 24, 2015
Coloradans advance their campaign for a statewide community rights state constitutional amendment for the 2016 ballot. Residents across the state refuse to remain resource colonies for corporate profits, and are working to codify their right to local self-government.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 23, 2015
City council will vote Monday to put an anti-fracking charter amendment proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot, and it appears the Mahoning County Board of Elections will do the same in a couple of weeks.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 22, 2015
Activists will take another crack at passing the Colorado Community Rights Amendment, a proposed ballot initiative designed to give localities a veto over corporate activity, starting with the oil and gas industry.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2015
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted blocked the initiatives in Athens, Fulton and Medina counties on Nov. 13, 2014, saying local governments cannot get around state law that allows fracking. He acted under a section of Ohio law that allows the secretary of state to respond to election complaints (EnergyWire, Aug. 17).
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2015
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has filed a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted for his recent decision to invalidate petitions in three counties across the state that sought to ban oil and gas development.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2015
The second of two legal challenges filed in opposition to a proposed “community Bill of Rights” relating to energy production and consumption in Columbia County was resolved Friday, Aug. 14.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2015
COLUMBUS, OH: With the oil and gas industry already reveling in a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision stripping local control on fracking and other extraction activities away from communities, the Secretary of State has now handed the industry another victory, opening the door for fracking infrastructure projects to spread even faster across Ohio.
Read More | Community WiresAug 21, 2015
With the oil and gas industry already reveling in a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision stripping local control on fracking and other extraction activities away from communities, the Secretary of State has now handed the industry another victory, opening the door for fracking infrastructure projects to spread even faster across Ohio.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2015
A Medina County environmental organization Wednesday sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted after he threw out a fall ballot issue last week that would have placed restrictions on oil and gas projects within county lines.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2015
Opposition to Northern Pass – a 180-mile proposed route through NH of high transmission wires and steel towers reaching 140 feet in height – remains strong. CELDF partner, the New Hampshire Community Rights Network, stands strong to protect residents’ right to decide whether or not Northern Pass sites here.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 20, 2015
Residents of Medina, Fulton and Athens counties filed a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted this week for blocking local votes on county charter initiatives to stop natural gas pipelines and injection wells.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 20, 2015
Representatives of committees in Athens County and two other Ohio counties seeking passage of anti-fracking county charters are asking the Ohio Supreme Court to order Secretary of State Jon Husted to dismiss protests against the measures and allow them to make the Nov. 3 general election ballots in the three counties.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 20, 2015
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Residents in three Ohio counties contend in a lawsuit that Secretary of State Jon Husted violated their rights when he invalidated ballot proposals they offered that would have restricted development projects related to the gas-drilling technique known as fracking.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 19, 2015
A state constitution is the governing document of a U.S. state, like as the United States Constitution is the governing document of the United States. Then, a county charter can rightly be compared to a constitution at the local level. It spells out the powers, duties and structures of government and the rights of county citizens.
Read More | Community WiresAug 19, 2015
In Colorado, local governments cannot raise the minimum wage, pass rent control laws, or ban fracking. A system of state “preemption”—a favorite tool of the fossil fuel industry—stands in their way.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 18, 2015
Blogger David Bollier sees Community Rights Networks as an antidote to corporations forcing themselves into communities and causing harm.
Read More | UncategorizedAug 17, 2015
Community activists submitted the wording Monday for a proposed Colorado constitutional amendment that would allow local governments more power over oil and gas regulations and over the setting of a minimum wage.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 17, 2015
Fulton County residents will not vote on a charter government Nov. 3 because the submitted proposal flies in the face of state law, according to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 17, 2015
Ohio blocked three counties from holding elections that could ban oil and gas or pipeline development, but organizers said they may go to court to get the proposals back on the ballot, and at least one local election could still go forward.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 16, 2015
The Athens County Bill of Rights Committee, along with similar committees in Medina and Fulton counties, plans to appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court after Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted rejected the groups’ anti-fracking charter government proposals for the ballot this November.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots