The group hit a snag in plan­ning almost imme­di­ate­ly when the Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion (GSA) denied a protest per­mit request­ed by Jar­ret Wolf­man, a mem­ber of the OWS sub­group to End Cor­po­rate Per­son­hood. The rea­son giv­en by the Act­ing Nation­al Relo­ca­tion Coun­selor for the GSA, Wes­ley French, was a ​“morn­ing cit­i­zen­ship swear­ing in, and a 4:00 p.m. install­ment of a fed­er­al judge.”

New York’s event, the ​“Res­o­lu­tion to End Cor­po­rate Per­son­hood,” approved by the NYC Gen­er­al Assem­bly of Occu­py Wall Street, was sched­uled to take place out­side the Daniel Patrick Moyni­han Unit­ed States Cour­t­house in the evening, cul­mi­nat­ing in a march and ral­ly at Foley Square with speak­ers such as Rus­sell Sim­mons, Rev­erend Bil­ly, and Christo­pher Hedges.

Specif­i­cal­ly, pro­test­ers are seek­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to over­turn Cit­i­zens, and the group claims that pro­test­ers will be mak­ing that demand out­side fed­er­al cour­t­hous­es in over 110 cities.

Move To Amend , a coali­tion ded­i­cat­ed to end­ing the ​“ille­git­i­mate legal doc­trines that pre­vent the Amer­i­can peo­ple from gov­ern­ing [them­selves],” is plan­ning a one day occu­pa­tion of fed­er­al cour­t­hous­es Jan. 20 across the coun­try, includ­ing the U.S. Supreme Court, to mark the sec­ond anniver­sary of the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed v. FEC decision.

Move To Amend coun­tered imme­di­ate­ly by fil­ing a law­suit Jan. 18 against the GSA via the Nation­al Lawyers Guild. In the mean­time, orga­niz­ers have tem­porar­i­ly changed the gath­er­ing loca­tion for the protest to Zuc­cot­ti Park.

​“We have asked Gideon Oliv­er and the Nation­al Lawyers Guild to take what­ev­er steps are nec­es­sary to legal­ly chal­lenge the GSA’s trans­par­ent attempt to stop this protest from hap­pen­ing,” said Stephen Justi­no, Nation­al Action Coor­di­na­tor for Move to Amend’s Occu­py the Courts. ​“And, we sup­port the deci­sion by Jar­ret Wolf­man, and the orga­niz­ers of OTC — NYC, to tem­porar­i­ly change the gath­er­ing loca­tion for their protest from the Fed­er­al Cour­t­house to Lib­er­ty Plaza (Zuc­cot­ti Park) in order to guar­an­tee that New York­ers have the chance to par­tic­i­pate in this impor­tant nation­al day of action.”

Occu­py the Courts is part of a nation­al back­lash against the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed deci­sion. In Boul­der, Col­orado, vot­ers approved Que­stoni 2H in Novem­ber 2011, deny­ing cor­po­ra­tions per­son­hood sta­tus, and Auro­ra res­i­dents also protest­ed an effort by Gay­lord Enter­tain­ment, a com­pa­ny seek­ing to build a mas­sive new hotel com­plex, to gain the right to vote.

In Dec. 2011, the Los Ange­les City Coun­cil vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to sup­port a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that would assert cor­po­ra­tions are not peo­ple, not enti­tled to con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, and that mon­ey is not the same as free speech. That res­o­lu­tion was backed by Move To Amend.

​“Move to Amend’s pro­posed amend­ment would pro­vide the basis for over­turn­ing the recent Supreme Court deci­sion in Cit­i­zens Unit­ed v. Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion,” stat­ed Mary Beth Field­er, Co-Coor­di­na­tor of LA Move to Amend. ​“The Supreme Court has no legit­i­mate right to grant people’s rights to cor­po­ra­tions. We must clear­ly estab­lish that it is we, The Peo­ple, who are meant to rule.”

City Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Eric Garcetti agrees with that sen­ti­ment, which is why he spon­sored the res­o­lu­tion, remark­ing that ​“big spe­cial inter­est mon­ey” is behind much of the grid­lock in Washington.

​“The flood of mon­ey since Cit­i­zens Unit­ed is lit­er­al­ly drown­ing out our voic­es,” said Garcetti, who is run­ning for may­or in 2013. ​“If we’re going to be mov­ing for­ward in this coun­try, we need less spe­cial inter­est mon­ey in the polit­i­cal process.” Coun­cil­man Richard Alar­con, who also sup­port­ed the res­o­lu­tion, said cor­po­ra­tions are ​“try­ing to take over every aspect of our lives.”“ Cor­po­ra­tions are at the wheel of Amer­i­ca,” Alar­con said. ​“And they are dri­ving us to destruction.”

Mis­soula, Mon­tana, South Mia­mi, Flori­da, and New York City have all vot­ed to get rid of cor­po­rate personhood.

In NYC, Res­o­lu­tion 1172 for­mal­ly expressed dis­ap­proval of Cit­i­zens, and urges Con­gress to take action against the deci­sion that allows cor­po­ra­tions to enjoy the same pro­tec­tions afford­ed to human beings.

The bill was spon­sored by coun­cilmem­bers Brad Lan­der, Melis­sa Mark-Viver­i­to, and Steve Levin, mem­bers of the Pro­gres­sive Caucus.

The group released the fol­low­ing state­ment after the vote: