Ordinance Banning Genetically Modified Crops, and Vindicating Local Self-Government.
AN ORDINANCE BY THE SECOND CLASS TOWNSHIP OF ________, _________ COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, PROHIBITING THE PLANTING OR TRANSFERRAL OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEEDS; PROHIBITING CORPORATE INVOLVEMENT IN FARMING WITH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SEEDS; AND ELIMINATING LEGAL PRIVILEGES FROM CORPORATIONS DOING BUSINESS WITHIN _______ TOWNSHIP TO PROTECT DEMOCRATIC SELF-GOVERNMENT
Section 1. Name. The name of this Ordinance shall be the "Genetically Modified Seed Planting and Transferral Prohibition and Democratic Self-Government Ordinance."
Section 2. Authority. This Ordinance is adopted and enacted pursuant to the authority granted to _______ Township by all relevant state and federal Constitutions and laws, including, but not limited to, the following:
The Declaration of Independence, and the traditions of the American Revolution against tyranny, which established the foundation for our rule of law - namely that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are unalienable rights secured by Governments instituted by people;
The Constitution of the United States, which declares that the People of the United States created governments to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility. . . promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty";
The Constitution of Pennsylvania, Art. 1, § 2, which provides that all power is inherent in the people, and that all free governments are founded on the peoples' authority, and are instituted for the people's peace, safety, and happiness;
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
The Constitution of the United States, Article IV, §4, which requires the federal government to guarantee a Republican Form of Government, in which the few are prevented from governing the many;
The Constitution of Pennsylvania, Art. 1, §26, which prohibits Township governments from denying to any citizen the enjoyment of any civil right, and prohibits Township governments from discriminating against any citizen in the exercise of those rights;
The general authority granted by the Constitution of Pennsylvania and the Second Class Township Code to make and adopt all such ordinances, bylaws, rules, and regulations as may be deemed expedient or necessary by Township Supervisors for the proper management, care, and control of _________ Township and its finances and the maintenance of the health, safety, peace, good government, and welfare of ________Township; Pennsylvania Statutes, Tit. 53, Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations, §66506, which authorizes _____________ Township to enact ordinances necessary for the proper management, care, and control of the Township and its finances and the maintenance of peace, good government, health, and welfare of the Township and its citizens, trade, commerce, and manufacturers.
Section 3. Findings and General Purpose. The ________ Township Board of Supervisors recognizes that:
(1) It is the belief of the community we are elected to represent that it is morally wrong, and destructive to the natural environment and local, family-farm based communities, to splice foreign genetic material into plant genes - or copy or delete genes from the same organism - thus altering the basic processes of life and reproduction, and resulting in new organisms that could never arise in nature;
(2) Farmers, scientists, and other people have concluded that corporate-created, genetically engineered crops contaminate other crops and plants through cross-pollination, thus producing "superweeds" difficult and expensive for farmers and communities to eradicate. Cross-pollination also displaces existing species of plants - destroying local ecosystems and eradicating biodiversity;
(3) Corporate-created, genetically engineered foods and crops are likely to cause long-term damage to the environment by encouraging pesticide use through the development of corporate bio-engineered "herbicide-tolerant" crops. Studies have shown that many farmers planting corporate-created, herbicide-resistant crops use up to two to five times more herbicides than traditional family farmers, and that activated toxins within crops are harmful to beneficial insects and persist for many months after pesticide-producing plants are harvested;
(4) The planting of corporate-created, genetically modified crops accelerates the development of resistant pest populations, thus limiting the types of pesticides and herbicides that can be used in the future to control those pests;
(5) The planting of corporate-created, genetically modified crops destroys the ecological basis of organic farming, because organic farmers routinely rely upon natural methods of pest control. Those natural methods are rendered ineffective by corporate modification of plants that create pests resistant to those natural methods of pest control;
(6) The development and use of corporate-created, genetically engineered foods and crops threaten the viability of rural, family farm-based communities by making farmers personally liable for the long-term damages that will be caused by the use of those genetically engineered seeds;
(7) Corporate-created, genetically engineered foods and crops may cause serious harms to human health by increasing the toxicity of some foods. There is a dearth of longterm studies of the impact of genetically modified foods on humans; and short-term studies show that genetic engineering can change the chemical composition of crops and food;
(8) Democracy means government by the majority of people, with citizen rights secured to all natural persons;
(9) The residents of _________Township never requested, nor did they have an opportunity to debate, discuss, or vote on the creation, sales, transferral, or planting of, genetically modified seeds and crops. The creation of those seeds and crops was purely the result of internal decisionmaking by agribusiness corporations, not a public decision as it must be. Purchasing, transferring, and planting of corporate-created genetically engineered seeds in this jurisdiction shall not be secret or contractual decisions, but public decisions governed by democratic processes;
(10) Agribusiness corporations creating and distributing genetically modified seeds are mere creations of law chartered and operated by the express permission of the people of _________ Township - as citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania;
(11) State officials have chartered agribusiness corporations - enabling those corporations to create and distribute genetically modified seeds - thus inflicting harm on family farmers, rural communities, human health, organic farming, and the environment;
(12) Such enabling is fundamentally incompatible with this nation's framework of governance - in which governments are created solely to protect the rights of people, not to create corporations with special privileges that enable corporations to deny the rights of people and communities, and cause harm;
(13) People's attempts to stop corporate agribusiness assaults on farmers, communities, and the environment have been met with assertions - by both corporations and State officials acting on their behalf - that bans on the planting and distribution of corporate-created, genetically modified seeds and crops would violate the constitutional "rights" of agribusiness corporations;
(14) U.S. Supreme Court justices have defined corporations as "persons" within the Constitution, thus protecting corporations with constitutional powers and freedoms originally intended solely for people and people's governments, thereby stripping people of constitutional remedies to stop corporate assaults that have been enabled by law;
(15) U.S. Supreme Court justices have extended the protections of the Commerce Clause (Article I, §8 of the Constitution of the United States) and the Contracts Clause (Article I, §10 of the Constitution of the United States) to corporations, thereby enabling corporations to assault communities through the rule of law;
(16) Such illegitimate judicial bestowal of civil and political rights upon corporations enables corporations to use the Courts to override the passing of certain laws within _________ Township. It thus usurps unalienable human and constitutional rights guaranteed to the people of ___________Township, including the right to protect themselves from harms caused by the planting and transferral of genetically modified seeds. Bestowal of civil and political rights upon corporations is incompatible with democratic processes.
Section 4. Specific Purpose. The specific purpose of this Ordinance is to ban the planting and transferral of corporate-created, genetically engineered seeds in the Township, to eliminate corporate involvement in farming with genetically engineered seeds, and to eliminate corporate claims to constitutional rights that empower corporations to nullify local laws. Within this Ordinance, "planting" shall mean the placing of a seed in a medium for growing. "Transferral" shall mean the conveyance or removal of a seed from one person or place to another. "Corporate-created, genetically engineered seeds" shall mean those seeds that have been patented by corporations, whose native intrinsic DNA have been intentionally altered or amended with DNA spliced from another source. The phrase shall also include all seeds that have been intentionally altered or amended by copying or deleting genes from the same organism or species of organism. The phrase shall not include seeds created through traditional breeding or hybridization.
Section 5. Statement of Law. The planting of corporate-created, genetically engineered or genetically modified seeds within the Township of ________________is hereby prohibited. The transferral of corporate-created, genetically engineered or genetically modified seeds within the Township of ___________is hereby prohibited. Within the Township of __________, corporations shall be prohibited from engaging in farming with genetically engineered seeds.
Section 6. Statement of Law. Corporations shall not be considered to be "persons" protected by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania within the Second Class Township of _______, __________ County, Pennsylvania.
Section 7. Statement of Law. Corporations shall not be afforded the protections of the Commerce Clause (Article I, §8) of the United States Constitution; or the Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution (Article I, §10) and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Article I, §17), as interpreted by the Courts, within the Second Class Township of __________, ____________ County, Pennsylvania.
Section 8. Enforcement. Any violation of this Ordinance shall be considered a criminal summary offense and shall give rise to a mandatory duty on the part of the Supervisors to enforce this Ordinance. The Board of Supervisors authorizes a fine of up to $1,000.00 per violation, and the planting and/or transferral of each genetically modified seed shall be considered a separate violation. In addition, each day of non-compliance shall be considered a separate violation of this Ordinance. The Township may also file an action in equity in the Court of Common Pleas of ________ County, Pennsylvania, or any other Court of competent jurisdiction to abate any violation defined in Section 4 and Section 5 of this Ordinance. If the Township fails to bring an action to enforce this Ordinance, any natural person residing in the Township shall have standing in front of the Court for enforcement under the authority of Section 9 of this Ordinance.
Section 9. Citizen Suits. This Ordinance hereby creates and vests a right in all citizens of the Township of __________ to sue to compel compliance with this Ordinance. All actions shall be filed in the Court of Common Pleas for ___________County. Citizen-Plaintiffs shall notify the Township Supervisors of their intent to sue, and shall give the Township Supervisors three (3) days to initiate an action to enforce the provisions of this Ordinance. Action by the Township Supervisors following that notice shall supplant the ability to file a citizen suit, but if the suit does not demand injunctive relief against a violation of this Ordinance, or if the Township Supervisors do not diligently pursue the litigation, the right of the Citizen-Plaintiffs to initiate a suit shall not be impaired by the actions of the Supervisors.
Section 10. Severability. The provisions of this Ordinance are severable. If any section, clause, sentence, part, or provision of the Ordinance shall be held illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional by any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision of the court shall not affect, impair, or invalidate any of the remaining sections, clauses, sentences, parts, or provisions of this Ordinance. It is hereby declared to be the intent of the Board of Supervisors of __________ Township that this Ordinance would have been adopted if such illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional section, clause, sentence, part, or provision had not been included herein.
Section 11. Effective Date. This Ordinance shall take effect five days after enactment by the Board of Supervisors of _________ Township.