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Albany Rally to Mark Fifth Anniversary of Citizens United
Activists to Call for New York to Become 17th State to Support a Constitutional Amendment to Curb Campaign Spending
WASHINGTON
WHAT: A rally on the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling. Hundreds of activists will urge the New York Legislature to make New York the 17th state to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision and get corporate money out of politics. New York came close last year with a majority of the Assembly and 28 state senators signing a letter to Congress calling for an amendment.
The disastrous Citizens United decision gave corporations and the wealthy the green light to spend unlimited sums to influence elections. And spend they did. Since 2010, election spending in New York elections has skyrocketed, with the majority of the funds coming from out-of-state organizations - some of which don't disclose their donors - and the rest coming from a very small pool of wealthy donors.
Momentum for a grassroots movement to overturn Citizens United through a constitutional amendment is growing in New York. So far, 20 local municipalities, representing nearly 10 million people, have called for an amendment, including New York City, Albany and Buffalo. On Wednesday, hundreds will rally in the Legislative Office Building then march to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address with their signs and banners.
The rally is part of a day of events being held throughout the country to mark the fifth anniversary of Citizens United and highlight the need to overturn it. Other events include a press conference on Capitol Hill by congressional lawmakers, who will reintroduce measures to curb spending in elections, as well as protests and events throughout the country.
WHEN: The rally will take place at 11 a.m., Wednesday, Jan. 21. Activists will march to the State of the State address at noon.
WHO: New York State Sen. Daniel Squadron
New York Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy
Jan Rhodes Norman, member, American Sustainable Business Council
Joe Mayhew, New York legislative and political coordinator, Communication Workers of America
Jonah Minkoff-Zern, co-director, Public Citizen's Democracy Is For People Campaign
Ansje Miller, eastern states director, Center for Environmental Health
A representative from Capital Area Against Mass Incarceration and the #BlackLivesMatter movement
WHERE: Rally at "the Well" of the Legislative Office Building, 198 State St., Albany; march to the Convention Center, South Mall Arterial, Albany
VISUALS: A large 45-foot by 45-foot Pay 2 Play monopoly board, which depicts the political process, has been traveling around the country and will be at the rally site from 10-11 a.m.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
Dems Call for Prosecution of Corporations Using Trump's Illegal Iran War as Cover to Hike Prices
"As costs soar from Trump’s illegal war with Iran, any attempt by big corporations to jack up prices is unacceptable," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
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Democratic lawmakers are warning corporate America to not use President Donald Trump's unconstitutional war with Iran as an excuse to jack up prices on US consumers.
US Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), along with Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), sent a letter on Tuesday to the Federal Trade Commission demanding that it investigate and prosecute any unlawful price gouging by corporations during Trump's war, which has raised the cost of oil, gasoline, fertilizer, and other essential goods.
While the Democrats acknowledged that Trump's war created "broad supply chain disruptions and widespread uncertainty in the global economy," they warned that "big corporations may capitalize on this uncertainty to hike prices more than is warranted by actual input cost increases, price gouging everyday Americans while enriching executives and padding investors’ pockets."
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The lawmakers also touted the Price Gouging Prevention Act that they introduced in July 2025 that would expand the authority of the FTC and state attorneys general to stop sellers from charging a "grossly excessive price, regardless of where the price gouging occurs in a supply chain or distribution network."
The proposed bill would also require public companies to "clearly disclose costs and pricing strategies" used to justify any price increases during periods of economic disruption.
In a social media post, Schakowsky said that "as costs soar from Trump’s illegal war with Iran, any attempt by big corporations to jack up prices is unacceptable," emphasizing that "we must crack down on price gouging and protect consumers."
The call to stop price gouging comes as concerns are mounting about the major economic damage that Trump's Iran war could produce.
Larry Fink, CEO of hedge fund BlackRock, predicted during an interview with BBC on Wednesday that there would be a "stark and steep recession" throughout the world if the war dragged on and the price of oil hit $150 per barrel, which he said would raise costs on products everywhere.
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CNBC reported on Wednesday that forecasters have been increasing their odds of a recession in the US economy this year, as the Iran war puts a strain on oil prices at a time when job growth in the country has already ground to a halt.
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The Knesset National Security Committee voted to send the bill for its final two readings before the Knesset General Assembly, which are expected to take place next week.
Bill sponsor Limor Son Har-Melech of the far-right Jewish Power Party called the bill's advancement a "moral and necessary step."
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Since then, amendments have been proposed to avoid accusations of discrimination amid the filing of around 2,000 proposed revisions by opposition lawmakers. Language under which Jewish Israelis who kill Palestinians are not subjected to the legislation has been softened; however, critics contend that in practice, the bill would apply predominantly to Palestinian perpetrators.
The bill also retains what critics say is a discriminatory two-track legal regime; one for military courts which have jurisdiction over Palestinians—but not Israeli settlers—in the illegally occupied West Bank, and another for civilian courts inside Israel and East Jerusalem, which, like wider West Bank, has been unlawfully occupied by Israel for nearly 59 years.
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Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—who was ordered last week to remove a video promoting the bill, in which he stands by a gallows at a memorial to Jews executed in the 1930s and '40s for resisting British occupation—called Tuesday's vote "a historic moment of justice for the state of Israel."
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Studies in the United States—the only Western democracy that actively executes people—have repeatedly shown that the death penalty does not deter crime.
Knesset members opposing the legislation—who are believed to be outnumbered by more than 2 to 1—condemned Tuesday's vote.
Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who represents the left-wing Democrats, slammed what he called "an extreme bill that does not exist in any democratic country, with serious moral flaws and profound security recklessness.”
Har-Melech, Ben-Gvir, and other backers of the bill have repeatedly worn noose-shaped lapel bins to show their support for legislation. Ben-Gvir handed out sweets to Knesset colleagues after the bill passed its first reading. Har-Melech recently dressed as an executioner replete with noose and syringe for the Purim holiday, while her husband donned a costume representing what he called the themes of "occupation, expulsion, settlement"—or the conquest, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonization of Palestine.
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Palestinians and their defenders warn that, if passed, the bill could open the door to mass executions.
Hamas, which still rules Gaza despite nearly 29 months of Israeli war and siege, called the bill “a dangerous terrorist step that paves the way for carrying out murder and liquidation crimes against our prisoners."
The Palestinian Prisoners Media Office said Wednesday in a statement: "This dangerous development constitutes an unprecedented escalation in the enemy's policies against our prisoners and represents a flagrant violation of all international laws and conventions. It reveals premeditated intentions to commit an organized crime against the prisoner movement."
The bill has sparked widespread condemnation around the world. United Nations experts have implored Israel to withdraw the bill, arguing it “would violate the right to life and discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory."
The European Union Diplomatic Service said Tuesday that the EU "opposes capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances."
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Democrats on the US mHouse Judiciary Committee on Wednesday demanded that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice "stop the cover-up" of former special counsel Jack Smith's full investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents following his first term, after new material sent to the panel revealed that some documents were stolen to advance the president's business interests.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi about "cherry-picked documents" related to Smith's investigations into Trump's taking of classified documents, which he stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The DOJ has regularly produced documents for the Judiciary Committee as Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has sought to portray Smith as having a partisan vendetta against the president, said Raskin. Smith led investigations into Trump's hoarding of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results during the Biden administration. Last month US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the release of Smith's final report on the documents case.
Raskin wrote Wednesday that even as Jordan has embarked on a "vindictive campaign" against Smith and has sought a narrow selection of material from the DOJ, Bondi had "quite amazingly missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon."
Those documents include a January 13, 2023 memorandum from prosecutors who said the FBI had determined Trump retained documents that "would be pertinent to certain business interests.” The documents "established a motive for retaining them" that related to Trump's businesses.
Trump and his family have garnered condemnation for profiting off the presidency, with the family raking in more than $5 billion in cryptocurrency profits since he took office for a second time, and Trump's two eldest sons investing in a drone company that is vying for Pentagon contracts as the president wages war on Iran.
The prosecutors' memo also says the retention of some of the documents represented "an aggravated potential harm to national security," with one "particularly sensitive document" accessible only by an estimated six people in the US government, including the president, before he took it to his private property.
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Raskin emphasized that without access to the second volume of Smith's final report, the Judiciary Committee cannot confirm what the classified map shows, the relationship between his business interest and the classified documents, or what the especially sensitive material is.
The congressman noted that some facts are known about Trump's activities around the time that he allegedly showed the classified map:
We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into partnerships with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan. A month after this flight, in July 2022, President Trump played golf at Bedminster with Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia—the same official who plied the Trump family with tens of millions of dollars as the family began to run out of money between terms... We also know that there are reports that Donald Trump, at one point while on the phone with his ghostwriter, “made a reference to having classified records relating to the bombing of Iran.” He also reportedly boasted that it was only the hawks who wanted to attack Iran, not him, and that he had Pentagon war plans “done by the military and given to me” about such a potential attack.
"If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, that would amount to an unforgivable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran," wrote Raskin.
"It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses," he wrote. "It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them."
Raskin demanded information from the DOJ regarding who accessed the classified materials, whether any foreign actors were given access, and what the documents contain.
“Every new detail that comes to light about the report Judge Cannon has gone to great lengths to keep hidden underscores the same basic truth: The public is being denied access to critical information about one of the most serious national security scandals in American history,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of the government watchdog American Oversight. “While fragments of the factual record have seen the light of day, the full report remains under seal because Judge Cannon has prioritized the president’s personal interests over transparency. The public has a right to see special counsel Smith’s findings in full. Blocking the report’s release only serves to protect those in power and prevent accountability.”
After Raskin's letter was released, the DOJ took the social media to accuse him and Smith of being "blinded by hatred of President Trump" and pronounce the department "the most transparent in history."
"This letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt, almost as if taking cues from members of the corrupt Jack Smith prosecution team," said the DOJ.
The House Judiciary Committee Democrats retorted that the administration "is doing legal gymnastics to prevent the American people from ever seeing special counsel Jack Smith's full report on how Trump stole classified documents to advance his corrupt business interests."
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