Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mi) and chair of the House Judiciary Committee today introduced an amendment to the Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in Citizen's United that gave corporations the right to spend unlimited funds in election campaigns as a matter of free speech.
Edwards, a brilliant first term legislator with a long commitment to free elections, quoted Justice Lewis Brandeis: 'We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.' It is time we remove corporate influence from our policies and our politics. We cannot allow corporations to dominate our elections, to do so would be both undemocratic and unfair to ordinary citizens."
"The ruling reached by the Roberts' Court overturned decades of legal precedent by allowing corporations unfettered spending in our political campaigns," said Congresswoman Edwards. "Another law will not rectify this disastrous decision. A Constitutional Amendment is necessary to undo what this Court has done."
Judiciary Chair Conyers concurred and co-sponsored the amendment, noting that ""The Supreme Court's idea that corporate political is no different than an individual citizen's political speech was not the law when the Constitution was written, was not the law before the Supreme Court's decision two weeks ago, and should not be the law in the future."
Senator John Kerry announced a plan to introduce a similar amendment in the Senate
A broad coalition of groups are joining together to push the drive for the amendment, while supporting legislation to limit the Court's ruling.
This should lead to campaigns in every state to pass the amendment - and force legislators to decide which side they are on: Should corporations be guaranteed the same free speech rights as American citizens?
The Supreme Court's decision - imposed by the gang of five activist conservative justices - is wrong on the law, wrong on the history, wrong on the principles of a Republic (as opposed to the interests of Republicans). Scorning decades of precedent, and dozens of settled federal and state laws, the right-wing majority imposed a power-grab every bit as egregious as the decision in Bush v Gore that made Bush president by shutting down the vote count in Florida.
If citizens begin to understand the stakes, then this decision may well backfire on the Gang of Five and their conservative allies.
See amendment and Edwards and Conyers' statement here.
See Edwards' floor speech on issue here.
For more information go to www.freespeechforpeople.org.
So who's to stop congress or states from allowing generous amounts of funding for equally generous campaign contributions? I smell a rat here. Nothing short of removing human rights from corporations and public financing of campaigns will suffice. But I am afraid its too late for that.
You are kidding, aren't you? The "liberal" media died during the assault of the right wing against any ideas with a liberal slant when the fairness rules were scuttled by the GOP during their "modernization" period.
Shorten the election-cycle to 4 months, and disallow all tv advertising.
If we can get to publicly-funded elections, the lobbying and other forms of corporate contributions should be less necessary - and they would then be viewed as what they are, bribes.
I did and I was blown away by far by sen R-TX John Cornyn...
he has offices locally at Chase Tower in Austin TX, Bank of America in Harlingen TX, Wells Fargo in Lubbock tx, and Regions Bank Building in Tyler TX.
the issue i have with this are lobbyist and a bank officials have direct access to our (my) elected officials with the benefit of not signing in because they own the building... he also has MANY other offices and my question is how does a civil servant pay for all his office space?
how is that democracy in action? The corporation has direct access to the officials we elect because they own the buildings... why should we introduce a constitutional amendment when we can't even keep tabs on who is actually influencing who!.
This over-reaching, arrogant decision can be a blessing and disguise. By creating a compelling need, the mechanism used to address it can serve even greater purpose. At minimum, a constitutional amendment should declare that money is not speech. Why not ban corporate political funding altogether? Or maybe requiring expulsion of members of Congress who do not recuse themselves from voting on legislation that would have an impact on a campaign contributor? Why not include general limitations on corporate "personhood", allowing CEOs and board members to be held liable for all kinds of corporate actions? Or, I don't know, just eliminate them entirely.
I'm not a lawyer or constitutional scholar but this is clearly a golden opportunity for establishing more encompassing remedy than the resolution envisions. Any other ideas?
What's good for corporations should be good for the Unions!
Besides, a corporation can outspend and outpower an union anyday.
The bill of rights was created to provide specific rights to people to avoid the travesties under British rule - such as illegal search and seizure of a person's house and person without a warrant. Freedom to practice religion without government interference. Freedom of association without government interference. Freedom of speech without government interference.
The constitution does not recognize corporations and nothing about citizenship should be extended to a corporation or for that matter any association.
Mandate free prime time and a travel budgets for all candidates on the ballot.
Bring Democracy to the USA Plutocracy.
True enough, but today, all major newspapers are corporate monoliths.
Further, it adds an additional political element to the judiciary which would be used as a threat to any judge contemplating making a "judicially correct" but politically unpopular decision.
The thieving CEOs, of shareholders investments, are enabled by the puppets in elective office.
No one should forget, EnRon and Kenny-Boy's relationship with 'W'.