Category: Democracy Amendments

People are starting to take a close, critical look at the National Rifle Association, in the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT on Friday.

The website Legal Ethics Forum points out some salient statistices from OpenSecrets.org:

First Amendment Political Speech, the Second Amendment and the Best Gun Laws Money Can Buy

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Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia has recently come under attack in certain blogs for speaking up for the truth that corporations are not people and do not have the same constitutional rights as people.

Rev. Dr. Samuel has written a spirited defense of Congressman Johnson in the Huffington Post. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s not every day that our political leaders truly do the right thing.

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There’s a terrific new Op-Ed today in the Washington Post from the Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson, president of the Auburn Theological Seminary, an organization we’ve partnered with to support the campaign she highlights.

Her column begins:

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The New York Times’ lead editorial today indicts America’s "Broken Election System". It lays out several necessary fixes, then concludes by saying:

"Ultimately, only a constitutional amendment can counter the misbegotten Supreme Court assertion that money is speech and thus can play an unlimited role in American politics."

For the full editorial, click here.
 

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Paul Blumenthal

November 7, 2012

Excerpt from the Huffington Post: 

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Versions of this Op-Ed have appeared in McClatchy  newspapers including The Miami Herald, Las Vegas Sun
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Here’s some terrific news. With victories yesterday in statewide votes in Montana and Colorado, both by nearly three-to-one margins, we’re now one quarter of the way to amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn Citizens United.

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Montana voters strongly endorsed I-166, the Prohibition on Corporate Contributions and Expenditures in Montana Elections Act, by a margin of three-to-one giving the citizen initiative a vote of 75 percent. I-166 received bipartisan support from prominent Montana political figures. Governor Brian Schweitzer (D), Lt. Governor John Bohlinger (R), and former Secretary of State Verner Bertelsen
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Jim Wallis, the theologian, author, and CEO of Sojourners, has a terrific piece in Politico today.

Here are some of the finest parts:

Our deepest values have no price — our common ground, our common good, caring for our neighbor and looking out for the least and the lost — these are the values that work for us. Sadly, those aren’t the values of the current system.

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Free Speech For People today joined with more than fifty prominent, national organizations to express their concern about two critical threats to our democratic system: corporate influence in elections and laws and official actions that suppress the vote. Under the banner “Money Out, Voters In,” the organizations issued the following joint statement pledging to fight special interest money in politics and to support the rights of all voters:

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