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The Alaska Dispatch has a new story on foreign corporate spending on our elections. Excerpts are below.

Caveat: while the article accurately notes that it's illegal for foreign individuals to spend money to influence U.S. elections, the article is incorrect in asserting that such spending by corporations is also illegal. Unfortunately for all of us, Citizens United removed such restrictions on corporate spending, which is one of many serious reasons we must overturn it with a constitutional amendment.

Jessica Crist, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Montana Synod, wrote an excellent column endorsing the Montana ballot initiative, I-166, published in the Missoulian today. Here's a brief excerpt, but the whole column is well worth reading:

The Supreme Court’s definition of personhood notwithstanding, our faith tradition teaches that people, not corporations and special interests, are made in the image of God.

Angella Carella

Connecticut Post

October 20, 2012

Excerpt:

"So now money legally talks. It's corporations and special-interest organizations, now each legally a person, that have megaphones. In the political system their voices are loudest, and threaten to drown out the voices of actual persons.

But across the country, actual persons are fighting back."

Our friends at the Avaaz "Elections Not Auctions" campaign have just released a new poll showing strong support for an amendment, across party lines, in these states that have high-profile Senate races.

Click here for Avaaz' press release with the details. 

New Jersey today became the ninth state to call for a Constitutional amendment to overturn the disastrous Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. Its resolution, AR 86, was passed in the Assembly in a bipartisan vote of 50 to 22.

John Bonifaz, executive director of Free Speech For People, made the following statement:

Here's a beautiful, heart-warming video of how 1,000 people got together on Saturday to spell out "Dump Citizens United" with their bodies, on a beach in San Francisco. 

We're proud to have helped make it happen.
 

Here's an excellent story on CNN radio about how Montana's upcoming vote on I-166 ties into so many values Americans everywhere hold sacred.

It's well worth your 10 minutes to listen:

http://soundcloud.com/cnn/cnnradioreportsa10-12-2012-mp3

It's dated October 12th, and it's called "The Biggest Election Fight You're Missing", by Lisa Desjarins of CNN.

Free Speech For People is helping to support the campaign for I-166 in Montana.

Post originally appeared on Corporations Are Not People

Jeff Clements

October 14, 2012
 

Senator McCain (R-AZ), raised his criticism of the Citizens United decision to a new level, calling it the Supreme Court's "worst decision ever" in a speech at Oxford University on October 10th.

Below are excerpts from Huffington Post and Oxonian Globalist reports.

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Note Need for I-166 to Bolster Permanent Protection

HELENA – Campaign finance reform advocates welcomed action by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to stay a lower court ruling that struck down limits on campaign contributions to Montana state candidates just days before Montana’s ballot were mailed. The action means that the limits will be reinstated through the election.