February, 03 2020, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Angela Bradbery, abradbery@citizen.org, (202) 588-7741
Mike Stankiewicz, mstankiewicz@citizen.org, (202) 588-7779
'Hearing, Press Conference on Election Spending Since Citizens United
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman to Testify Before House Subcommittee
WASHINGTON
WHAT: Public Citizen President Robert Weissman will testify Thursday before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on the need to overturn Citizens United. Immediately prior to the hearing Committee, Chairman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) will hold a press conference to discuss election spending in the years following the ruling.
Now 10 years since Citizens United, more corporate money than ever is flooding our elections and eroding our democracy. A Public Citizen report found that since 2010, just 25 ultrarich individuals have poured $1.4 billion into super PACs and corporations have spent at least half a billion dollars to influence our elections.
Public Citizen was on the legal team representing lawmakers in the Citizens United case and has been leading an effort for the past decade to mobilize nationwide support for a constitutional amendment to reverse the disastrous decision.
WHO: U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.)
Robert Weissman, president, Public Citizen
Marge Baker, executive vice president, People For the American Way
Karen Hobert Flynn, president, Common Cause
Tiffany Muller, executive director, End Citizens United
Azor Cole, state manager, American Promise
WHERE: Rayburn House Office Building
45 Independence Ave SW, Washington, D.C.
WHEN: Thursday, Feb. 6.
Press conference - Room 2237 - 9:30 a.m. (EST)
Hearing - Room 2141 - 10 a.m. (EST)
A livestream of the hearing will be available on the committee's website.
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
ICE Plots $100 Million 'Wartime Recruitment' Drive Aimed at Hiring Gun Enthusiasts
The propaganda blitz will be aimed at "people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear," according to the Washington Post.
Dec 31, 2025
The Trump administration is planning a massive propaganda campaign aimed at recruiting thousands of new federal immigration enforcement officers to carry out its mass deportation agenda.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that it had obtained internal documents revealing that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning to spend $100 million over the next year on what the agency describes as a "wartime recruitment" drive.
The propaganda blitz will be targeted at highly specific demographics, including "people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear," according to the Post.
The ICE drive would also use an ad-targeting technique called "geofencing" to send recruitment ads to users' phone browsers if they are in the vicinity of certain locations, such as military bases, NASCAR races, college campuses, and gun shows.
The ads being designed for the recruitment drive will be based around current appeals that depict joining ICE as part of a "sacred duty" to "defend the homeland" from "foreign invaders," the Post reported.
This rhetoric is similar to the language used in a recent ICE job post flagged by University of Wisconsin–Madison sociologist Jess Calarco. The listing asked prospective recruits if they are “ready to defend the homeland” by joining “an elite team dedicated to... securing our nation’s safety.”
Calarco noted that the job post "reads like a video game ad," which she said "is almost certainly by design."
Sarah Saldaña, a director of ICE under the Obama administration, told the Post that it is worrying to see the Trump administration casting such a wide net for people who lack any experience in law enforcement and who may be eager for what the Post described as "all-out combat."
The recruitment blitz comes amid new indications that the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign is falling far short of its goals.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent on Wednesday wrote that immigration arrests this year have fallen far short of the goal of 3,000 people per day set by top Trump aide Stephen Miller, and it seems highly unlikely that Miller will realize his dream of deporting 1 million people per year.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, told Sargent that "it's clear that they have not achieved the shock-and-awe campaign of mass deportations that they wanted, and they are still running into quite a lot of obstacles."
Reichlin-Melnick also predicted that "there will still be millions of people here who are undocumented" after Trump leaves office in 2028, as the administration "will not be able to deport even the majority of undocumented immigrants in four years."
The Trump administration earlier in the year announced plans to entice new ICE recruits by offering them $50,000 sign-up bonuses and assistance with repaying student loans in a bid to double the agency's head count.
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Sanders Backs Push for Billionaire Tax in California as Newsom Raises Money to Fight It
"Yes: We need a wealth tax on billionaires," said US Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Dec 31, 2025
US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday endorsed an effort in California to impose a one-time tax on the wealth of the state's billionaires, a grassroots campaign that has drawn opposition from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and powerful investors.
Sanders (I-Vt.) said the proposed ballot initiative, which is currently in the signature-gathering phase, "is a model that should be emulated throughout the country." The senator said he plans to introduce a proposal for a national wealth tax in the near future.
"In my view, in a democratic society, we cannot continue to tolerate a rigged economy in which 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck—struggling to pay for housing, food, and healthcare while the top 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 93%," Sanders said in a statement posted to social media. "We must not continue a trend in which, over the past 50 years, $79 trillion in wealth in our country has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%."
Yes: We need a wealth tax on billionaires. pic.twitter.com/2OUwSos5De
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 30, 2025
If placed on the November 2026 ballot and approved by voters, the California Billionaire Tax Act would levy a single 5% tax on the wealth of the roughly 200 billionaires who reside in the state. Those subject to the tax would have the option of paying the amount owed all at once or over a period of five years.
Organizers say the measure would generate $100 billion in revenue, which the state could use to avert a looming healthcare crisis fueled by the unprecedented Medicaid cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans enacted over the summer.
“California is facing massive federal healthcare cuts—$20 to $30 billion a year for the next five years," said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, a top supporter of the proposed ballot initiative.
"The billionaire tax would raise dollar-for-dollar emergency funding of $100 billion through a one-time 5% tax on the worldwide net worth of California’s billionaires," Jimenez added. "Any reductions in state income tax would be negligible in comparison to the billions that will be raised by the billionaire tax. And billionaires would still be taxed at lower rates than were in effect under President Reagan."
"We need a tax system that demands that the billionaire class finally pays their fair share of taxes."
Last week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta formally issued the title and summary of the proposed initiative as prominent billionaires—including Peter Thiel and Larry Page—threatened to leave the state over the measure, which would apply retroactively to those living in California as of January 1, 2026. Thiel is facing a potential $1.2 billion tax, while Page would have to pay roughly $12 billion.
The New York Times reported last week that Newsom, "who has been close with people like Mr. Page, is raising money for a committee to oppose the measure."
"The committee received a $100,000 donation from the venture capitalist Ron Conway in November, according to state campaign finance records," the Times added.
Other lawmakers from the state are supporting the measure, including US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley.
Sanders, in his Tuesday statement, applauded Khanna, saying he is "absolutely right to support this effort."
"From a moral, economic, and political perspective, our nation will not thrive when so few own so much while so many have so little," said Sanders. "We need a tax system that demands that the billionaire class finally pays their fair share of taxes."
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In Blow to 'Fetal Personhood' Push, Alabamian Serving 18 Years After Stillbirth Gets New Trial
"I'm hopeful that my new trial will end with me being freed, because I simply lost my pregnancy at home because of an infection," said Brooke Shoemaker, who has already spent five years in prison.
Dec 30, 2025
While Brooke Shoemaker and a rights group representing her in court are celebrating this week after an Alabama judge threw out her conviction and ordered a new trial, her case is also drawing attention to the dangers of "fetal personhood" policies.
"Laws and judicial decisions that grant fetuses—and in some cases embryos and fertilized eggs—the same legal rights and status given to born people, such as the right to life, is 'fetal personhood,'" explains the website of the group, Pregnancy Justice. "When fetuses have rights, this fundamentally changes the legal rights and status of all pregnant people, opening the door to criminalization, surveillance, and obstetric violence."
Since the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling ended the federal right to abortion in 2022, far-right activists and politicians have ramped up their fight for fetal personhood policies. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years after the decision, the number of people who faced criminal charges related to their pregnancies hit its highest level in US history.
Shoemaker's case began even earlier, in 2017, when she experienced a stillbirth at home about 24-26 weeks into her pregnancy. Paramedics brought her to a hospital, where she disclosed using methamphetamine while pregnant. Although a medical examiner could not determine whether the drug use caused the stillbirth—and, according to Pregnancy Justice, "her placenta showed clear signs of infection"—a jury found her guilty of chemical endangerment of a minor. She's served five years of her 18-year sentence.
"After becoming Ms. Shoemaker's counsel in 2024, Pregnancy Justice filed a petition alongside Andrew Stanley of the Samford Law Office requesting a hearing based on new evidence about the infection that led to the demise of Ms. Shoemaker's pregnancy, leading the judge to agree with Pregnancy Justice's medical witness and to vacate the conviction," the rights group said in a Monday statement.
Lee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Tickal wrote in his December 22 order that "should the facts had been known, and brought before the jury, the results probably would have been different."
Shoemaker said Monday that "after years of fighting, I'm thankful that I'm finally being heard, and I pray that my next Christmas will be spent at home with my children and parents... I'm hopeful that my new trial will end with me being freed, because I simply lost my pregnancy at home because of an infection. I loved and wanted my baby, and I never deserved this."
Although Tickal's decision came three days before Christmas, the 45-year-old mother of four remained behind bars for the holiday last week, as the state appeals.
"While we are thrilled with the judge's decision, we are outraged that Ms. Shoemaker is still behind bars when she should have been home for Christmas," said former Pregnancy Justice senior staff attorney Emma Roth. "She was convicted based on feelings, not facts. Pregnancy Justice will continue to fight on appeal and prove that pregnancies end tragically for reasons far beyond a mother's control. Women like Ms. Shoemaker should be allowed to grieve their loss without fearing arrest."
AL.com reported Tuesday that "Alabama is unique in that it is one of only three states, along with Oklahoma and South Carolina, where the state Supreme Court allows the application of criminal laws meant to punish child abuse or child endangerment to be applied in the context of pregnancy."
However, similar cases aren't restricted to those states. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years following Dobbs, "prosecutors initiated cases in 16 states: Alabama, California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. While prosecutions were brought in all of these states, to date, the majority of the reported cases occurred in Alabama (192) and Oklahoma (112)."
This is fantastic news!!I wrote in my book how the medical examiner ruled the cause of the stillbirth "undetermined," but the coroner (who lacks medical training) instead listed cause of stillbirth as mom's meth usage on the fetal death certificate.
[image or embed]
— Jill Wieber Lens (@jillwieberlens.bsky.social) December 30, 2025 at 12:25 PM
"Prosecutors used a variety of criminal statutes to charge the defendants in these cases, often bringing more than one charge against an individual defendant," the group's report continues. "In total, the 412 defendants faced 441 charges for conduct related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth. The majority of charges (398/441) asserted some form of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment."
"As has been the case for decades, nearly all the cases alleged that the pregnant person used a substance during pregnancy," the report adds. "In 268 cases, substance use was the only allegation made against the pregnant person. In the midst of a wide-ranging crisis in maternal healthcare and despite maternal healthcare deserts across the country, prosecutors or police argued that pregnant people's failure to obtain prenatal care was evidence of a crime. This was the case in 29 of 412 cases."
When the publication was released last year, Pregnancy Justice president Lourdes A. Rivera said in a statement that "the Dobbs decision emboldened prosecutors to develop ever more aggressive strategies to prosecute pregnancy, leading to the most pregnancy-related criminal cases on record."
"This is directly tied to the radical legal doctrine of 'fetal personhood,' which grants full legal rights to an embryo or fetus, turning them into victims of crimes perpetrated by pregnant women," Rivera argued. "To turn the tide on criminalization, we need to separate healthcare from the criminal legal system and to change policy and practices to ensure that pregnant people can safely access the healthcare they need, without fear of criminalization. This report demonstrates that, in post-Dobbs America, being pregnant places people at increased risk, not only of dire health outcomes, but of arrest."
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