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Newsletters
Feb 27, 2016
Today marks the one year anniversary of the passing of our friend, mentor, and colleague, Gail Darrell. We at CELDF join the NHCRN in celebrating her life, mourning her passing, and expressing gratitude for her legacy of service to community and democratic rights.
Read More | Community WiresFeb 21, 2016
Community Rights state constitutional amendment in New Hampshire receives outpouring of support from residents, and disregard from the legislative committee. The measure advances to the House for debate with unwaivering commitment from Granite Staters.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 21, 2016
For the first time in the U.S., a state legislative committee held a public hearing on a Community Rights state constitutional amendment. Residents from across New Hampshire testified in support of the measure as they face an onslaught of harmful corporate projects in their communities.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsFeb 18, 2016
The Ohio Community Rights Network partners with Medina County residents to stage The People vs. the Corporate State. Check out the David vs. Goliath production.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 17, 2016
The Ohio Community Rights Network presented a street theater production prior to the Ohio EPA’s public meeting on the proposed compressor station, which is part of the NEXUS Gas Transmission project
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 16, 2016
Broadview Heights, OH, residents’ strong stand to block new drilling wells keeps fracking out and oil and gas companies away.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 16, 2016
As NH communities are threatened with unsustainable development, they are advancing community rights at the state level to ensure their right to protect themselves is recognized. The House Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution 14 (CACR 14), the NH Community Rights Amendment, will be considered at a hearing by the House Legislative Administration Committee in Concord today, 2/18, at 9:00 am.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 10, 2016
Article 40, Right of Local Community Self-Government, would amend the New Hampshire Constitution to empower people and their local governments to enact local laws that protect and expand the rights of real people, communities and nature at the municipal level.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 13, 2016
Broadview Heights, OH, residents’ CELDF attorney presents oral arguments on the people’s inalienable right to protect their communities from fracking over the corporate claimed “right” to frack.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 13, 2016
Communities across the U.S. are stripped of their right to local self-government, and the right to protect themselves from corporate harms and the corporate state. Read how we are “Slaves in all but Name” in Community Rights Paper 11 – and what is possible with the Community Rights Movement.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 11, 2016
A class action lawsuit filed by CELDF on behalf of Broadview Heights residents to uphold their inalienable right to local self-government – including their right to protect clean air and pure water – is heard last week by a Court of Appeals in Ohio.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 11, 2016
The NHCRN and CELDF partner with New Hampshire communities to advance community rights – today manifesting in a state consitutional amendment that has bi-partisan support in the legislature.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 7, 2016
The National Community Rights Network supports New Hampshire’s efforts to secure the right to local, community self-government, protecting community rights from state preemption and corporate control.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 3, 2016
As a pipeline project cutting through New Hampshire threatens a number of communities, several pieces of legislation are being proposed at the state level – including the New Hampshire Community Rights Network’s Community Rights state constitutional amendment. If adopted, the measure would secure the right of Granite Staters to protect their communities from harmful corporate projects by banning them.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 2, 2016
Rather than being the cornerstone of democracy, our U.S. Constitution is the cornerstone of oligarchy – as evidenced by corporate projects forced into communities, such as the proposed Jordan Cove LNG export terminal in Coos County, OR.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 30, 2015
What does a property and commerce driven U.S. Constitution mean for native Hawai’ians? Through a relentless and inexorable colonization process over many decades, including superimposing the U.S. Constitution on the people of the islands, community decision making was effectively swept away and put into the hands of corporations and the U.S. government.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 29, 2015
In the U.S., laws securing civil rights, worker rights, and environmental protections have been pinned not on Congress’s authority to protect people or nature, but on its authority to regulate commerce. The U.S. Constitution was written to protect property and commerce, rather than human and nature’s rights. The Community Rights Movement is working to change that.
Read More | Community WiresDec 19, 2015
As communities move beyond slowing down unwanted fossil fuel projects such as pipelines, and begin using local community self-governance to stop them, they are bumping into their own local agencies acting against them. Medina County, OH, and other communities across the country turn to Community Rights to protect themselves and create the communities they envision.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 14, 2015
CELDF responds to inaccuracies presented by the general counselor to the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association regarding Community Bills of Rights and our organization.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 11, 2015
New Hampshire’s Community Rights state constitutional amendment securing the right to local, community self-government for all Granite Staters, moves forward for the 2016 Legislative Session.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 11, 2015
While the state and the oil and gas industry work together to force fracking activities into communities, those same communities are working to reclaim their right to local, community self-government, just as the American Revolutionaries did against the British state in the 1700s.
Read More | Community WiresDec 8, 2015
New Hampshire Community Rights Network Coordinator Michelle Sanborn asserts the state’s Community Rights Amendment – co-sponsored by several state legislators – has its roots in American revolutionary history, and expands fundamental rights for people, communities, and nature.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 5, 2015
The Oberlin Review urges Oberlin, OH’s City Council to stop working to reroute the NEXUS pipeline, and stand behind its Community Bill of Rights banning new pipeline construction within the city: unsustainable energy projects should be stopped, not moved.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsDec 4, 2015
Mary Russell of Carbondale, CO, advocates for community rights as a tool for the people to make self-governing decisions in their communities, and urges support in gathering signatures for the Colorado Community Rights Network’s rights-based ballot measure.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 30, 2015
New Hampshire state representative Susan Emerson sponsors the NH Community Rights Network’s community rights state constitutional amendment, aimed to protect rights to democratic, local self-governing authority.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 29, 2015
The New Hampshire Community Rights Network, supported by growing numbers of Towns across the state, receives legislative endorsement for a state constitutional amendment securing the people’s right to local self-government.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 17, 2015
Rather than protecting people’s rights to local self-government and clean air and water, our legal and governing structures are designed to protect corporations as they cause harms to our communities. What can we do? Revolt.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 13, 2015
As the NEXUS pipeline threatens residents of Oberlin, OH, community groups join together, using community rights to assert their local self-governing authority to stop construction.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 11, 2015
Coloradan Merrily Mazza distinguishes between frack ban efforts that neglect to address people’s community right to local self-government, and those that place that right as central to protecting communities from fracking and other harms.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 10, 2015
After City and corporate interests kept Spokane residents’ 2013 Community Bill of Rights off the ballot, CELDF argues before the Washington Supreme Court to recognize the right of the people to initiative.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 9, 2015
Representatives in the New Hampshire state legislature endorse a statewide Community Rights state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the rights of the people to democratic local self-government supersede corporate claimed “rights.”
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 7, 2015
Medina County, OH, residents attend a standing-room-only meeting about a proposed NEXUS pipeline that would cut through their communities. Residents declare they will continue to pursue a rights-based county charter that would include a ban on pipelines.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 4, 2015
Grant Township, PA, residents refuse to accept a federal judge’s ruling in favor of a fracking corporation that wants to site an injection well. Instead, they adopted their own community rights home rule charter, which includes a frack waste ban.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 4, 2015
Youngstown, OH, community rights supporters came within 345 votes of adopting their rights-based charter amendment banning fracking, and are ready to press forward.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsNov 4, 2015
Grant Township is the first community in the U.S. to draft and adopt their municipal charter based entirely on community rights. In so doing, they reinstated a fracking ban that had been overturned by a federal judge.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 3, 2015
The people of Grant Township, PA, adopt the first rights-based charter in the country banning frack wastewater injection wells, two weeks after a federal judge overturned portions of a Community Bill of Rights ordinance banning the wells.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryNov 3, 2015
Youngstown, OH, residents supporting a Community Bill of Rights charter amendment banning fracking, recognize that regardless of election results, their advancing of rights is building towards a movement.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 2, 2015
Coos County, OR, resident urges a rejection of projects with short term benefit and long term environmental and economic harm. Instead, the Coos County Sustainable Energy Future Ordinance empowers the people of Coos County to create a sustainable future through codifying their community rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 31, 2015
Grant Township, PA, residents will vote this week on becoming a home rule township through a rights-based charter. The charter establishes the residents’ rights to clean air, water, and local self-government, and bans frack wastewater injection wells.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 30, 2015
State preemptive action to quash local initiatives that are advancing environmental and worker rights are multiplying – and may be the catalyst for rights-based efforts to join together to confront these preemptive attacks on the right to local self-government.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 26, 2015
With union and labor backing, as well as endorsements from local groups and nationally renowned Noam Chomsky, Spokane, WA’s, Worker Bill of Rights charter amendment will be voted on by residents next week. The bill of rights establishes a family wage, equal pay for equal work, and protection from unjust firings.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 26, 2015
Residents supporting the Worker Bill of Rights in Spokane, WA, call out fear tactics used to dissuade voters, and press forward with their efforts to raise minimum wages, assure equitable pay standards, and protect against unfair firings.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 25, 2015
The rate of climate change demands urgent action. Athens, OH, resident and professor urges community members attend a November 13th event: CELDF’s Thomas Linzey speaking on community civil disobedience to protect our health, safety, and welfare.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 21, 2015
Jackson County, IL, residents doggedly pursue a Community Bill of Rights ordinance banning fracking and protecting their rights to clean air, water, and local self-government, as their own local government attempts to avoid advancing the rights-based ordinance.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 20, 2015
As the fracking industry pushes into communities against the will of the people, growing numbers of communities across the U.S. are using community rights in their grassroots organizing to challenge our existing structure of law and bring democracy back to the people.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 17, 2015
Reporter Simon Davis-Cohen provides in-depth reporting on state and industry efforts to keep fracking and pipeline initiatives off the ballot in Ohio – including the state’s use of oil and gas industry law firms.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 16, 2015
While a federal judge finds in favor of the oil and gas industry to force frack wastewater into Grant Township, PA, the decision also reveals to growing numbers of people the unjust structure of law and governance ruling over communities. Grant residents are considering an appeal.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 15, 2015
NCRN endorses Youngstown, OH’s Community Bill of Rights Charter Amendment. The initiative advances the rights of residents and prohibits fracking activities that would violate community rights to clean water, air, the peaceful enjoyment of their homes, and their right to be free from chemical trespass.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 14, 2015
CELDF’s Chad Nicholson presents on community rights in Potter County, PA, where residents face fracking.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 11, 2015
A Portuguese energy company edges forward on harmful industrial wind projects in towns in New Hampshire. Residents are determined to decide for themselves what projects site in their communities, and are working through the New Hampshire Community Rights Network to codify that right.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots