LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | Lauderdale sadly joins Emerson

I attended the Island County commissioners meeting on Monday, July 23, to witness an important vote by our commissioners. Simply put, this was a vote on a resolution in support of a Constitutional amendment against “Corporate Personhood.”

To the editor:

I attended the Island County commissioners meeting on Monday, July 23, to witness an important vote by our commissioners. Simply put, this was a vote on a resolution in support of a Constitutional amendment against “Corporate Personhood.”

To a human being like me this makes perfect sense. I thought that the commissioners would vote unanimously to pass the resolution, there would be a short celebration for the commissioners by the citizens for doing the right thing and the citizens there in support would go home.

What surprised me was Commissioner Kelly Emerson spoke briefly against this resolution to stop unlimited money from buying our elections. Emerson prattled about this issue coming up as a surprise, how could this be as I’m not even a commissioner and I knew about it, and that there should be more public debate, she mentioned something about “a guy back in Washington, D.C., named Sanders, a congressman or something, that has been speaking to this issue, I think he’s a socialist or something.”

Then it hit me, this is Kelly Emerson. She seems to be ignorant of issues that are larger than her frivolous lawsuit problems over county zoning and building codes. To clarify for Emerson, Bernie Sanders is a senator. He is an independent. He believes in “democracy” unlike some people that believe it should be “one person, a million dollars, a million votes.”

But the most amazing thing that I witnessed was the comments by the candidate for commissioner, Jeff Lauderdale. He came up and said that “this issue was supported by maybe 1 percent of the people and really should have more time for public input” and that he was against it also.

The facts are this: According to the polling firm Hart Research Associates: 87 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of independents and 68 percent of Republicans are in favor of amending the U.S. Constitution to affirm that corporations are not people.

Either Mr. Lauderdale is very ignorant about the issues of import today or he was purposely trying to sell a notion that seemed to be made up on the spot.

I want to publicly thank Commissioners Angie Homola and Helen Price Johnson for standing up for “We The People.”

I also want to say that this coming election for Island County is a very important one. We have important issues to deal with and the last thing we need are commissioners of the Kelly Emerson ilk, like Jeff Lauderdale. We need smart, deft leadership, like Helen and Angie, not another “buyers’ remorse” situation like we have with Kelly Emerson.

Dan Freeman

Clinton