Introduces Legislation Preserving Legal Personhood for People
Madison – Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart), chair of the Assembly Committee on Environment, introduced legislation for cosponsorship last week that will prohibit a governmental entity from granting or recognizing legal personhood in certain categories of nonhumans. This includes natural resources such as lakes, streams, rivers, and bodies of water.
“There is a growing trend in the far-left ecological communities to imbue legal personhood on non-human entities, such as rivers, lakes, and other natural resources or geological formations. This legislation will preserve the credibility of our court system and ensure that humans are the entities availing themselves of their judicial rights, and not nebulous entities without constitutional rights or standing.
“This legislation is fundamentally about ensuring our foundational rights are protected as human beings. Our Founding Fathers recognized this from our earliest days. The US Declaration of Independence explicitly says ‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’. All men and women, all humans have intrinsic rights, not plants, trees, and water,” shared Rep. Goeben.
Individuals or groups of individuals will not be prevented from bringing a cause of action or lawsuit in regards to environmental concerns, just as they have always been able to do in the past.
“I am hopeful we can move on this commonsense legislation, and clarify these fundamental principles to ensure our judicial system is operating in the parameters set out for it in our Constitution,” concluded Rep. Goeben.
