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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Public Citizen / People for the American Way Angela Bradbery, Public Citizen (202) 588-7741 Drew Courtney, PFAW (202) 467-4999 |
Dozens of Congressional Candidates Pledge to Support a Constitutional Amendment Overturning Court Ruling Enabling Corporations to Swamp Elections
Candidates From Throughout Country Agree That Supreme Court’s Citizens United Ruling Subverts Democracy
WASHINGTON - August 27 - Dozens of candidates for Congress have pledged to support a constitutional amendment to overturn a controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling and thereby help ensure that elections are not hijacked by corporations. The candidates responded to a call from People For the American Way and Public Citizen, which last month launched the pledge drive at www.PledgeForDemocracy.org
The Supreme Court in January ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations can spend unlimited amounts to influence elections. Upcoming congressional elections are expected to be swamped with ads and fliers paid for by corporate interests. Already, new organizations have been formed to take advantage of the ruling.
At this early stage of the pledge campaign, 48 congressional candidates already have signed the pledge to support such an amendment - 35 candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and 13 candidates for U.S. Senate. They are competing in races in more than two dozen states, ranging from Alaska and Idaho to Florida and Illinois. A complete list of candidates who have taken the pledge is below.
"Americans are fed up with government that responds to corporate money, not the needs of ordinary Americans," said Michael B. Keegan, president of People For the American Way. "The depth of feeling is palpable. We've already seen that candidates who want to serve their constituents have been eager to sign onto this campaign. More are signing on every day, and we're confident that pace will only increase."
Added Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, "Corporations already rule the roost in Washington. Witness the oil industry's free pass to drill offshore without adequate environmental scrutiny or the health insurance industry's enormous influence over the outcome of the health care debate, to name just two of countless examples. The Supreme Court's decision threatens to make a bad situation exponentially worse. We applaud candidates who stand up and say that this must be stopped."
In 2008, to take just one example, ExxonMobil's profits amounted to more than $85 billion. If Citizens United had been the law in that year and the company had spent a modest 10 percent of its profits - $8.5 billion - to elect its friends and defeat its enemies, it would have amounted to more than was spent by the Obama campaign, the McCain campaign, every U.S. House and Senate candidate, and every state legislative candidate in the country combined. If mega-corporations want to flood elections with money to promote or defeat candidates, they have the cash to do so.
While interim measures - such as disclosing the identities of campaign ad funders and giving more power to shareholders over corporate political expenditures - can help, the only way to overturn the decision is through a constitutional amendment. Public Citizen and People For the American Way support an amendment spelling out that corporations, with the exception of the media, do not have the same First Amendment rights as people.
At PledgeForDemocracy.org, voters can use an interactive map to learn who has taken the pledge - and who hasn't. People For the American Way and Public Citizen are calling on voters to contact candidates who have not pledged and urge them to do so.
Candidates who have taken the pledge include: House candidates: Rep. Steve Cohen (D, Tenn. 09), Rep. Donna Edwards (D, Md. 04), Rep. Alan Grayson (D, Fla. 08), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D, Ariz. 07), Rep. John Hall (D, N.Y. 19), Rep. Betty Sutton (D, Ohio 13), Timothy Allison (D, Calif. 24), Kevin Bradley (D, Colo. 05), Macdonald King D'Alessandro (D, Mass. 09), Rafael "Del" del Castillo (D, Hawaii 01), Justin Coussoule (D, Ohio 08), Jeff Gregory (D, N.C. 10), Bill Hedrick (D, Calif. 44), Jim Holbert (D, Ky. 05), Travis Irvine (Lib., Ohio 12), Fred Johnson (D, MI 02), Joseph Krysztoforski (R, Md. 06), Ann McLane Kuster (D, N.H. 02), Brian Lentz (D, Pa. 07), Ed Marksberry (D, Ky. 02), Scott Narter (Independent American Party, Nev. 03), Roy Olson (Green, Wash. 09), Michael Pipe (D, Pa. 05), Nancy Price (D, Nev. 02), Brian Schad (I, Idaho 02), William Scheurer (Green, Ill. 08), David Alan Segal (D, R.I. 01), Perry Steele (I, Tenn. 09), Gary Stein (D, N.J. 02), Katrina Swett (D, N.H. 02), Manan Trivedi (D, Pa. 06), John Waltz (D, Ky. 04), David Whitaker (D, Ark. 03), Dave John White (I, Okla. 05) and Kyle Yarber (I, Mo. 06).
Senate candidates: William Barnes (D, Ala.), Roxanne Conlin (D, Iowa), Chris Coons (D, Del..), Lee Fisher (D, Ohio), Alexi Giannoulias (D, Ill.), John Gray (Grn., Ark.), Frederick Haase (Lib., Alaska), Rep. Paul Hodes (D, N.H.), Daniel La Botz (Soc., Ohio), Elaine Marshall (D, N.C.), Tracy Potter (D, N.D.), Duane Roberts (Green, Calif.) and Rick Staggenborg (Green, Ore.).
8 Comments so far
Show AllWe need to eliminate corporate personhood not just regulate election spending. Go to...
http://movetoamend.org/motion-amend
...and read about a REAL Constitutional Amendment to restore citizen, not corporate, democracy.
Absolutely, Sandy!
Without removing the clause that"humanized" corporations, there is going to be a loophole somewhere in the new amendment that makes use of the corporations' "human rights" to continue as citizens. The U.S. Government could, for example, be sued by corporations for not providing Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness to "corporate citizens."
Wait! I hope I didn't give any corporation an idea for a loophole! Probably not, though;if the corporations were smart enough to fool the entire United States about their agenda (outsourcing jobs and banking billions offshore), I am sure they already know several "moves" to find loopholes in the law.
I AM wondering why I do not see any Republicans in the Senate who were willing to sign this petition. Just two months after the Supreme Court issued this decision, I saw that several polling agencies reported both Republican and Democrat citizens objected to the S.C. decision. Not only that, both parties had almost the same reaction to this ruling": Democrats-86 per cent; Republicans 83-per cent. It is obvious, then, that our Representatives in the U.S. Government do not react to their constituents!
I expected that less Democrats would be "under the thumb" of corporate power, but just 13 Democrats agreed to sign? That is disgraceful! I am glad you listed their names. I expected that a few Republican Senators would sign this petition, but NONE of them did? That is frightening--frightening because we already knew the Republican Senate majority were in favor of corporate power, but NONE? If actual human citizens put all their money together, for a single, political cause, it wouldn't come even close to the amount of money corporations could "plunk" down to DEFEAT our cause!
...and so, the great experiment of Freedom and Democracy in the United States of America will die? "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. -Thomas Jefferson
WAIT! Didn't the Religious Right just take JUST take Jefferson out of the history books? Wow! That is really "far out"! Might it be true that the Religious Right (for instance: Beck, Barton, Gingrich,) are financed by corporations? You think maybe MY idea about corporate power in the Religious Right is too "far out"? Consider this: one in five U.S. citizens do not believe President Obama is a U.S. citizen! Since it has, several times, been proven he IS a citizen, we can safely say, there are millions of people who are now frighteningly "far out."
could delineate the differences between what these guys pledged to support and what you think it needs to say?
Thanx!
In Ralph Nader's book, "Only the Super Rich Can Save us," the citizens decided to become corporations....that might be easier and faster.
I wonder,will the Mormon church send money from Utah to diss anyone that supports equal rights for gay people?.
I wonder if any of the big money flowing into Arizona is from drug cartels?
Neither of my 2 Senators nor my House representative have signed this.Two of the 3 are up for reelection too.
"Oh, what a tangled web," Congress.
i notice Kucinich's name was not on the list ...
And what about funds from groups such as AIPAC?
Maosmom ,
There are, probably, as many people upset about the recent Supreme Court ruling as there are people who were/are against the Iraq War. If our funding came from AIPAC, might the above-mentioned citizens accept funding from AIPAC? Contacting AIPAC, therefore, may present a problem. AIPAC was key in supporting the invasion of Iraq.
What do you think?
It is said that we are all know each other by six degrees of separation. Maybe we could put on our "thinking caps"--even better the SIX HATS method, and among us, find prominent people who would ask for a Senate hearing, each representing and testifying to the rights of "We the People." This would let our Representatives in Washington know of their constituents' complete disapproval of the Supreme Court ruling, that lifted the ban on corporate spending AND also representing us in complete rejection of the concept that Corporations could be made "Citizens of the U.S.A"