New Hampshire is on the verge of becoming the 17th state to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Read below this powerful op-ed that makes the case as to why it should be.

The people of New Hampshire and across the nation are outraged at corporate and wealthy interests, including individuals from the left and the right, spending billions of dollars to control the politics of our state and our nation. They are understandably opposed to having no right as a state to prevent this money from flooding our elections.

That’s why when polled, they support a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics by a 3 to 1 margin across party lines. And that’s why 54 New Hampshire towns have called for you, the New Hampshire Legislature, to join 16 other states and call for a constitutional amendment.

These individuals did not call for a study committee. They called for action from the Legislature. SB 307 was written with a clear directive: The New Hampshire Legislature calls for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and related cases. It then creates a study committee to review the 16 different amendments that have been introduced in Congress to decide which ones of those, if any, are the right ones to recommend to the New Hampshire delegation (they can be viewed at www.united4thepeople.org).

SB 307 was not written to do what the Senate amendment does: simply study the issue. There is no doubt among the people of New Hampshire and our nation that our democracy is severely corrupted by the influence of big money and that the only way to reduce that influence is for a constitutional amendment to allow government regulation. There is no other way to address this problem, as there is no other way to undo what the Supreme Court has done in releasing a flood of money into our elections with Citizens United v. FEC and more recently McCutcheon v. FEC.

Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that this amendment would attack or undermine the First Amendment. It would make clear that our founders intended to protect speech, not money that amplifies that speech. Further, even if campaign spending were a form of speech, our nation allows all sorts of regulation of speech. I cannot come into a legislator’s office with a megaphone and yell until she or he listen to me. I can’t get up and interrupt a Senate session. I cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater. I am not free to threaten any one. And the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations should not and cannot spend literally billions of dollars to buy influence and power over our nation. That is not a democracy. In fact, a Princeton study just showed that we are now literally living in an oligarchy.

Read the full article on NH Labor News.