Under normal circumstances, when people talk about amending the Constitution, I just roll my eyes. But, this is different:
Today, Senator Chuck Schumer announced that the Senate will vote this year on a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court rulings in Citizens United and McCutcheon v. F.E.C.. The idea would be to give back states and the federal government the power to regulate campaign contributions that was taken away by those rulings.
Yes, I know that it won’t go anywhere anytime soon. But you have to start somewhere. And making the bastards vote for plutocracy in the most explicit way possible is a smart thing to do. The movement to pass this amendment, should one arise, would attract people for all sides of the political spectrum. After all, we have 99% of the population to choose from.
This may be the most important issue of our time. I could see an effective movement rising up around this because to vote against the amendment is so indefensible. The campaign ads write themselves.
Congress could go a long way toward fixing Citizens and McCutcheon if it would require disclosure of all donors no matter whether the money goes to a candidate or a pac. Such a law would pass muster with the scotus and might get through the senate and could be used to tar house members who vote against it.
For anyone who is not aware, there is a Move to Amend organization that has affiliates in most states except for the ultra conservative middle belt of the country. https://movetoamend.org/map/groups
Why do you think SCOTUS or rather, Roberts, would allow it to stand?
It’s a constitutional amendment. People are pursuing that strategy specifically because Roberts et al have no authority to overturn an amendment. The best they can do is interpret it in a way that makes it ineffective, but hopefully the actual wording would be explicit enough to make that difficult. You don’t want the constitution to read like a bumper sticker, but “Corporations are not people and money is not free speech” would be a good place to start from in creating the gist of it.
I believe MNPundit was referring to a prospective law forcing disclosure of the identity of donors; not a constitutional amendment turning back Citizens United and McCutcheon.
Parallax is right, I meand the disclosure law. It was claimed that would pass the SCOTUS, but I wondered why Roberts and the money conservatives would allow it to stand.
However if you recall historically the SCOTUS can defacto ignore parts of amendments (as they did with Privileges and Immunities for a century) if they so desire so I suppose it kind of counts for both though I doubt they’d be that brazen since the court lacks an army.
I believe in the CU ruling they specifically said that disclosure would be allowed, but I might be mistaken.
The DISCLOSE Act did pass the Senate in the last Congress and was killed by the House.
His prior opinions indicate that he would. The problem is more that Republicans won’t allow it to pass.
The citizens united decision upheld disclosure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/disclosure-may-be-real-legacy-of-citizens-united-case.html?_r=0
Why not force Repubs to vote against both an amendment AND a statutory disclosure patch? Make them defend plutocrats and their moneyed influence and their buying of elected officials time after time after time. Hang their pro-plutocrat votes around their necks.
And anyway, if we can’t even get 1/3 of a loaf, why not work to lay the groundwork for the whole loaf?
I’d ike to see the text of such an amendment before I committ, considering it’s Schumer (D-Israel and Banks) it might in fact make things worse.
Alternately, Schumer got permission to offer this as cover since everyone knows it will never pass and this way he can screw the consumer in another way and say “It’s okay I supported the amendment!”
But regardless, the sentiment is something I can rally around and if the amendment isn’t a poison pill I will support it (hell I might support it even if it is a poison pill because it won’t pass) because it’s a failure I want to go on record as supporting.
See @neonnautilus’ comment above. The movement to amend CU has been gathering momentum in much of the country for the last couple of years, and there’s a wording proposal attached to it. The question is simply whether Schumer is using this existing wording, or creating his own.
How about Montana, for example, Brian Schweitzer’s state, I might point out, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77788.html
I would certainly support the kind of amendment Schumer is talking about but I’d much prefer something based on Geov’s suggestion:
I Corporations are not people and do not have rights accorded to people by the Constitution.
II Spending and donating money is not free speech and not protected in any way by the First Amendment.
Of course, Citizens United never said that corporations are people. It said that freedom of association means that groups of people have the same speech rights as individuals and that corporations are associations of individuals.
Do you foresee any complications with the interpretation that spending and donating money for the purpose of art is not free speech and protected in any way by the First Amendment?
I think proposed constitutional amendments get a jaundiced eye from lib’ruls because for quite some time it was only the bug-eyed “conservative” movement that proposed them, all stupid and universally disastrous like their “balanced budget” amendment.
The Founders thought the constitution could and should be amended when needed. As usual, the rise of the nay-saying “conservative” movement has gone a long way to stymieing any needed changes, such as abolishing the preposterous electoral college, an amendment that Dems should also have long ago made their own, but of course failed to do.
Reversing Roberts Repubs’ catastrophically wrong and nakedly partisan Citizens United and its progeny should spark a classic amendment movement. The issue polls very well, and most objective people can understand how subversive and perverted it is. Plutocrat apologist Rmoney was essentially mocked for defending the Corps-are-People view.
The question is why on earth it has taken Dems so long to get behind some language, start having votes on it and force Repubs to make clear they support the new regime of unlimited Plutocrat/CEO money polluting all elections across the country. Why wasn’t this amendment proposed and voted on in 2010, the year Roberts Repubs made up this new “right” and Dems controlled Congress?
Instead, they put their eggs into the inadequate statutory “disclosure” basket, and Repubs filibustered it, if I remember right. Then it was forgotten as Roberts followed Citizens with several more radical rulings essentially deregulating campaign finance and allowing every Plutocrat to be a “constituent” of every politician in the country.
Reversing Citizens United and every appalling case following it should now be a permanent plank in the Dem platform, and as they should hold as many votes as they can engineer on the issue. Repubs vote to repeal Obamacare every other week, it seems. This should become just as signature an issue for Dems.
Carthago delenda est!
That is to say, I agree; Dems should never shut up about this issue.
Well, they’ll never be able to rival the greatest political slogan of all time, but they should at least try!
Money is not speech. Agreed. But it takes money to make effective speech. I can sit on a street corner and talk all day and how many people hear me?
Direct donations (bribes) should definitely be limited. But I have no objection to spending millions on ads that say,”I’m David Koch and I’m backing Mitt Romney because …”. I DO object to ads paid for by David Koch that say something like, “Vote for Mitt Romney because … paid for by Citizens for a Stronger America”, where Citizens for a Stronger America , like Americans For Prosperity, is in reality just David Koch. I guess I’m saying I object to AstroTurf.
This is very good.