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One Year Later, Movement Is Growing to Overturn 'Citizens United'
The theory and practice of the U.S. Supreme Court’s dreadful decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission are incompatible with a well-functioning democracy.
One year and one election after the decision, we know that Citizens United remade the electoral landscape. Not only did it enable corporations to write large checks to affect who would and would not be elected, but it also established that Wild West rules would prevail for campaign 2010. The 2010 campaign and the 2010 election results were influenced quite considerably by Citizens United.
Citizens United has cast a shadow over all policymaking, because elected officials now know that if they cross powerful corporate interests, they face the prospect of an unaccountable, outside campaign to defeat them in the next election.
A growing people’s movement - a movement of real, live, breathing humans, not corporations - is now rising to demand this legal abomination be undone. We are, together, building a movement for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
Today, Public Citizen and allies presented three-quarters of a million signatures to Congress, asking for passage of an amendment. Across the country, there were 100 demonstrations, rallies, theatrical performances, house parties and more - all calling for a constitutional amendment. And a new campaign, Business for Democracy, coordinated by the American Sustainable Business Council and involving Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s, is today being launched to support the citizen movement for a constitutional amendment.
We, the People insist that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free speech rights of people, not corporations. We, the People insist that democracy is “rule by the people,” not corporations.
In 50 years, Americans will look back on Citizens United with the same abhorrence with which we now view of the court’s most ignoble decisions.
The question is not if, but when Citizens United will be overturned. We can’t wait for a majority on the Supreme Court to come to their senses. The fast-growing constitutional amendment movement is committed to asserting the people’s will to restore the First Amendment and rescue our democracy.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllThe Constitutional Amendment path is much longer and more fraught than impeachment and conviction for malfeasance of the SCOTUScum.
If there's enough political unity to push an Amendment thru ratification, there's more than enough to tell the politiscum "clean up the Court or else".
Note that the 26th amendment establishing the national voting age at 18 years old was proposed March 23, 1971 and adopted July 1, 1971.
To be sure the GOP is not likely to support an amendment challenging corporate personhood (more like superpersonhood) but neither are they likely to be persuaded to file impeachment against any of their pet judges.
But how typical was the speed of that reduction in voting age? Not very.
The push for that amendment came at the height of the Viet Nam protests, when 18, 19, and 20yos were pointing out that they could be shipped off to kill or be killed, but couldn't vote against those doing it to them. The lowering of the drinking age occurred during the same period, and for the same reason. (It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there were discussions about how to repeal the amendment after the end of the VN debacle, just as the drinking age was raised when cannon fodder was no longer needed.)
You're right that the politiscum (not just the GOP portion) aren't likely to impeach. My point was merely the practical one that, IF we can put enough pressure on them to put an amendment up for ratification, we can *certainly* put enough pressure on them to impeach the scum on the scotus bench, a housecleaning that would benefit us in a myriad of ways.
Right on Robert ! ! This is the first step in taking back this country from the ruling elite of the planet. That group that knows nothing about loyalty to one's own country....they only care about what group of people they can be exploit next ! Do others realize that as young citizens, in their Civics Class of 11th or 12th grade we were all taught that to be a good citizen, we must VOTE !...but we were never taught what to do if VOTING "doesn't work" !
What recourse do we have if all those elected to public office (including Supreme Court (in)Justices) are puppets and clowns put there by the ruling class to keep the rest of us "at bay" ? We were not taught about the strength in numbers or how to organize or how to work for justice to obtain peace.....
Hey folks, we got to get this act together and if I knew just how to do it, I'd be doing it. We all know this stuff going down is very wrong..morally, emotionally, economically, spiritually, and yet it continues to happen ! ! ! I feel like alot more bad stuff is coming and feel very helpless about how to stop it. (sigh).....
Amen. The only thing I'd suggest is that you do not "ask" them to overturn it, you demand that they do. They work for us-we don't really have to ask them, except out of a sense of decorum and civility. But this horrendous decision must be abolished and now.
The flag pictured says more to me than the well written article. I would suggest that flag be ran up every flagpole in the land as an act of civil disobedience. Of course most american sheep wouldn't understand the negative imagery and would be proud of the corporate representation on old glory.
Key words here are "rule by the people", NOT corporations!!!
followed clodely by the term "INSIST"!!! Ahem --- if corporations are to be equated with personhood, cannot they be killed? Oooooops --- bad word in these times, but maybe one gets the sense of it?
I've sent off for a subscription to =Supreme Court Justice of Fortune=.
Although non-Protestant, and with only three playmates who alternate for foldouts, I think I'm going to like the special historical maps of paleojustice zones, sort of like old ghost towns.
Trylon
This is just another example of the illusion that we "the people" have any valid control of our country. "They" have removed ALL legal methods of redress. Instead of running around putting out little "fires" all the time, we MUST make structural changes and one of the most critical is to remove personhood from corporations.
If you doubt this, visit: http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast...
If you want to take some action, visit: http://www.dontgetrolled.org
The Citizens United ruling is just part of the problem. In order to have truly representative elections I believe we must eliminate all campaign contributions and use public campaign financing. In order to qualify, a candidate would have to gather a certain number of signatures (of living, breathing humans).
Free speech was intended for those with human bodies who . . . . speak! Not for abstract legal constructions. Corporations exist as convenient business and financial entities.
People breathe and speak. Corporations wheel and deal.
My father died in 1979, and he voted Republican ever since.
I have not sen this suggested before- it is a great idea. Something must be done to force some democracy into the USA! Other countries do.
Does Citizens United really make much difference? Before it, we had the Swift Boaters, who legally spent and raised all they wanted. What Citizens United allows future Swift Boaters is the right to advocate explicitly the election or defeat of a candidate. In 2004, the Swift Boaters could only imply that Kerry should lose. Is that a big difference? We knew who they wanted to win.
Notice that corporations, from energy to banks to agriculture, are advertising their views at all times, even when there is no election in sight. Boeing commercials stress national defense, just as energy commercials downplay the feasibility of alternative energy sources. Can we really ever hope to regulate corporate speech? Do we want to make an exception to the First Amendment?
Maybe it's high time for the rich lawyers and labor leaders to get together with students, intellectuals, and retired people and raise money to fight back. 10 million people giving 5 dollars a month would, in a short time, bury the Chamber of Commerce and its ilk. Some, of course, would be rich enough to collectively pool a lot of foundation money. In an affluent country with even a modicum of class solidarity, such an aim would be easy to achieve. South Americans don't seem to be listening to the elite classes at election time. Are we not reputed to be smarter, richer and more advanced than they are? Or perhaps that is the conceit of a country that is itself looking more the third worldish all the time.
I agree with the statement that we have to clean up elections, period. Not only do we need a clean method such as public finance, we need electoral reform so that candidates from third parties have a level playing field.
Elections were problematic before Citizens United so we will need much more than a reversal of this decision, although it is an important step. Clean up the SCOTUS, also.
This is good news, but some of the power of this message is lost when the word "corporation" is used.
Citizen's U ruling gave greatly leveraged influence to a SMALL GROUP OF DEMOGRAPHICALLY HOMOGENOUS INDIVIDUALS who make up the officials and (inter-locking) boards of corporations. Proper framing of the issue would help people understand.
Oligarchy or Plutocracy run by the kind of people who rise through a heirarchy of sociopathic market dominance.
PS: The rising 'xtian crusader' military class may begin to realize that the corporation is a false god.
PPS: Climate Change trumps them both.
PPPS: Love Conquers All.
Thank you so much for that last postscript, Snydly!
If a corporation is a "person" why don't the laws that limit individual contributions apply? If I, as a person, can only donate $2400 to a given congressman's campaign, shouldn't a corporation, since it is a "person" when it comes to campaign law, have the same limitation?
Technically you are correct but I think the Supreme Court decided that a corporation can spend as though it had a civic duty to spend the corporation's and it members money to promote the free speech of the Corporation or how the corporation leaders decide to spend on elections.
It is a monstrous legal Decree that says big money rules and there is nothin you can do.
But there is always rebel with a cause.
To make this work it will take more than promoting the amending as "The People against Citizens United".
Also, "Real Citizens United for Real Democracy" should be right up there because they will make it out that we are not all citizens while the people is a good word but not if used dogmatically and should not be the only word we use to describe the majority of the Real Citizens United for Real Democracy..
"Single Payer" was framed badly and so failed to rouse enough interest and "the People" description now should be reinforced and bolstered so there is no misunderstanding about who we are saying we really are and that should be not only we the people but the "real citizens" of the USA, not the corporations.
In other words if this is framed as a left thing or mostly the people on the Left movement, it will die because all you will here is Left Left Left.
It must sell and be sold strongly to all the People to win.
Be careful about stylistic ideological frames here, this has to be as purely populist as can be to win.
Think Mark Twain but do your own thing.