Latest Developments

Report: Citizens United ruling accounts for 78 percent of 2012 election spending
Posted on
Challenging Super PACs

By Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian
Monday, September 24, 2012

(Excerpt:)

Almost $465m of outside money has been spent on the US presidential election campaign so far, including $365m that can be attributed to the supreme court’s landmark Citizens United ruling, according to a report released on Monday.

Super Pacs, which came into effect following the 2010 Citizens United verdict, accounted for $272m of the expenditure in the study, conducted by the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organisation devoted to increasing transparency in government.

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Trevor Potter, former FEC Commissioner (R), on Citizens United, why corporations shouldn’t participate in our elections
Posted on
Challenging Super PACs

Bill Moyers’ latest video is an interview with Trevor Potter, a Republican former Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, best known as Stephen Colbert’s attorney and also Senator John McCain’s former General Counsel.

Mr. Potter makes several important points in the 45-minute interview. Here are some of the choicest excerpts, below (not in chronological order):

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8 down, 30 to go: Connecticut becomes 8th state to call for a constitutional amendment.
Posted on
Democracy Amendments

A majority of Connecticut’s state legislators in both chambers — 88 state representatives and 22 state senators — have signed a letter calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

This makes Connecticut the 8th state to call for an amendment, joining California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont, which have all passed legislative resolutions, and Maryland, where a majority of legislators have signed a letter similar to this one in Connecticut.

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Justice Scalia encourages amending the Constitution in response to Citizens United.
Posted on
Democracy Amendments

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a noted conservative who was among the signers of the Court’s 5-4 majority opinion in Citizens United, last week called on those of us — 80% of Americans, according to polls — who disagree with that decision to respond by amending the Constitution.

According to the Las Vegas Sun-Journal, the following exchange took place Wednesday, Sept. 5th between Scalia and Kathy Kama, a law student at the University at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas:

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Federal Appeals Court Strikes Minn. Disclosure Law, Aiding Corporate America’s Political Power
Posted on
Democracy Amendments

Jeremy Leaming

American Constitution Society Blog

September 6, 2012

"A  federal appeals court has provided another victory for corporate America’s efforts to influence politicians, political parties and the nation’s elections. Big business hardly needed such a victory, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC scrapped some significant campaign finance regulation laws thereby making it far easier for corporations to spend boatloads of money on local, state and federal elections of all kinds.

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President Obama Joins Call to Overturn Citizens United with a Constitutional Amendment
Posted on
Democracy Amendments

In a chat with the website Reddit, President Obama called for serious look at a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

"Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change," Obama wrote.

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