Since we're sounding serious about a Constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United, I thought I'd put together a wish list of other amendments.
I'm not a Constitutional scholar or a lawyer, but I think one strength of our Constitution is that it's brief, to the point, and understandable to a lay person. You don't have to be an expert to get a good idea what the men who wrote it had in mind, and to have a valid opinion about what the Constitution is supposed to mean and how that applies to the world two centuries later.
I'd enjoy any comments or suggestions. These offerings are past half-baked, I hope, but I have no illusions they're fully baked and ready for the dinner table. My proofreader asked, "Do you want to put odds on them?" He doesn't think any of them is very likely, and I can't disagree. Please offer your guess on the odds any of these will be enacted, or even just pass Congress.
Corporations, partnerships, and all such entities that are not "natural persons" should have only those rights that Congress explicitly grants them, and those rights should expire after seven years unless renewed by Congress. This would allow Congress to deprive corporations of any free speech rights, or to limit them -- or to continue them. Perhaps the amendment should also explicitly forbid corporations the right to 'political speech'. Then even a bought and paid for Congress couldn't fail to reverse Citizens United. Congress ought to love this. Every seven years, all the corporate lobbyists would come crawling to them just to keep whatever rights they have for another seven years. That would keep corporate lobbyists busy playing defense much of the time.
Congress should have the power to regulate, limit, and require disclosure of all campaign, lobbying, and other political donations and expenditures. Currently I think anonymously funded political ads are allowed. If we have to continue that, anyone who wants to publish anonymously should at least have to include a prominent passage: "The author of this message has claimed the right under the First Amendment not to be identified." It could become as suspect as "pleading the Fifth Amendment". Courts aren't supposed to infer guilt if someone pleads the Fifth, but voters are free to draw whatever conclusion they like about someone who snipes politically and won't show his/her face.
The term of Supreme Court justices should be 12 years, after which they would revert to their previous position on the Federal bench if they had one, or would become judges on the District of Columbia Circuit if they weren't previously a Federal judge. They could be reappointed to the Supreme Court after an absence of 20 years from it. How many of the current Supreme Court justices could be confirmed by the Senate for another 12 year term? When the country was young, being a Supreme Court justice was an arduous job. Part of the year they "rode the circuit" hearing cases out in the hinterlands. Many of the resigned after a few years. Also, a lifetime appointment wasn't nearly as long, on average, in 1789 as it is now. Making justices rotate off the Supreme Court wouldn't end their lifetime tenure somewhere on the Federal bench, and it might make them a little more circumspect if the judges they reverse this year might be in a position to reverse their decisions a few years down the road.
The code of conduct for federal judges should apply to Supreme Court justices as well. I suppose the Senate could be the judge of whether the code has been violated by a Supreme Court justice. Should the Senate be able to discipline one on a simple majority vote, or at least reprimand?
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court should preside over the Senate in impeachment trials of the Vice President (as well as of the President). If the V.P. is being impeached, he obviously shouldn't be presiding over his own trial. Somewhere I read the suggestion that this is a detail that the founding fathers just didn't think of.
All voter registration for Federal elections should be done by the Federal government, and all elections for Federal offices should be run and judged by Federal officials and courts. States and local jurisdictions should be allowed to turn over running their elections to the Federal election mechanism. Poll taxes were made unconstitutional by the 24th amendment in 1964. Republicans are trying to reinvent them, dressed in drag, 49 years later. It's time to cut the crap. For what it's worth, the 24th amendment only applies to elections for Federal office, but I don't think any state has bothered to try a poll tax for state and local elections. This amendment would probably put all elections into Federal hands.
The President should be elected by national popular vote. Abolish the electoral college.
Drawing of Congressional district lines should be done in a non-partisan way, and the same way in all states. Perhaps states should have a choice of what computer program they want to use to draw district lines, but that choice should not take effect until ten years later, and the state should be stuck with that method. Further, Federal courts should be allowed to throw out any method that seems biased.
An amendment should codify Roe v Wade, or at least the part of it that says a fetus has some rights when it could survive outside the womb, and only the rights the pregnant woman carrying it wants to grant it before that. The part about "only the rights the pregnant woman carrying the fetus wants to grant the fetus" would leave the door open for someone who was three months pregnant to sue someone whose tortious behavior caused her to miscarry.