Category: Democracy Amendments

The Nation has featured Free Speech for People’s involvement with the movement to overturn Citizens United along with our recent Across the Aisle report that highlights more than 100 Republican officials who support a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s
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Breaking news! Oregon is officially the 16th state to call for an amendment to overturn Citizens United! It has just passed out of the Oregon Senate by a 17-13 vote, after passing out of the House two Fridays ago with a 48-11 vote. More information to come soon.

The states that have called for an amendment to overturn Citizens United are listed below. Don’t see your state on the list? See how you can get involved here.

Delaware

Maine

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Senators Jon Tester (D-MT) and Tom Udall (D-NM) have introduced two historic bills to amend the US Constitution, overturning Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, respectively. Senator Tester’s "People’s Rights Amendment will make it clear that corporations don’t have constitutional rights, as if they were people. Senator Udall’s Political Equality amendment will allow us to eliminate the influence of big money in our political system. Please ask your US Senators to support both bills.
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Senator Tester’s bill is first-ever in US Senate to make clear that constitutional rights are only for people, not corporations

WASHINGTON, DC. – Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) received praise from democracy advocates today for introducing a companion bill to Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern’s “People’s Rights Amendment.”

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Across the Aisle:

The Growing Trans-partisan Opposition to Citizens United

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A bipartisan majority of both houses of Delaware’s General Assembly Members have signed a letter calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

You can read the letter from the DE General Assembly to Senator Thomas Carper in its entirety here: http://www.united4thepeople.org/images/DE.pdf

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"The co-opting of the First Amendment has happened slowly, but not at all by accident. First, it was helped along by questionable court decisions. Today, it is being accelerated by a strange alliance between two groups: a new generation of conservative judges, who have repudiated the judicial restraint their forebears prized, and legendary liberal lawyers, like Floyd Abrams and Laurence Tribe, who, after building their reputations as defenders of free speech, are using their talents to deploy it as a tool of corporate deregulation."

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In light of the tremendous victory in Los Angeles, where 77% of voters chose ‘Yes’ to overturn Citizens United, The Nation Magazine cites our "The Other Scandal" http://TheOtherScandal.com/ campaign with Common Cause as an effort to expand the discussion on the real issue behind the IRS scandal: the lack of rules and regulations governing money in politics. Click for the full story.

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Everyone agrees that the IRS screwed up — but as Chris Hayes of MSNBC makes clear in this video, the real, underlying problem is that the Citizens United decision took our system of fair-play rules that kept tax-exempt groups out of our elections and "blew it out of the water." Watch this video and join us together with Common Cause to demand that Congress focus on the core problem: Citizens United!
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A new letter to the editor from our ally at the American Independent Business Alliance asks, "What’s ‘Pro’ business" in light of a recent article from the New York Times that cites that the Citizens United ruling as benefiting American businesses. 

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