Now this is what "Taking Your Country Back (to Sanity)" Looks like.
Yesterday, six Democratic senators — Tom Udall (NM), Michael Bennett (CO), Tom Harkin (IA), Dick Durbin (IL), Chuck Schumer (NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), and Jeff Merkeley (OR) — introduced a constitutional amendment that would effectively overturn the Citizens United case and restore the ability of Congress to properly regulate the campaign finance system.
The amendment as filed resolves that both Congress and individual states shall have the power to regulate both the amount of contributions made directly to candidates for elected office and “the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.”
“By limiting the influence of big money in politics, elections can be more about the voters and their voices, not big money donors and their deep pockets,” said Harkin of the amendment. “We need to have a campaign finance structure that limits the influence of the special interests and restores confidence in our democracy. This amendment goes to the heart of that effort.”
So Mayor Bloomberg says the 99% movement should get out and "Make things Better"? I think they just did, even if only by highlighting how much the 1% control so much of the rest of country - and that there truly is an desperate urgent need to get some of that control back into the hands of the people.
Now a Constitutional Amendment is a long, slow, arduous process and deservedly so.
No one should take changing the Constitution Lightly.
Of that doesn't stop the Tea Party Movement who seem to want to abolish or re-write the 14th Amendment to take away the guaranteed right of birthplace citizenship with all their "Anchor Baby" hysteria.
Why don't they go take the subject up with Michelle Malkin since, um, she IS an Anchor Baby?
I mean, they don't even clearly understand the issue. Yes, it's true that courts have denied birthright citizenship under the 14th to Native Americans and to the children of Diplomats - but here's the thing. They're not on U.S. Soil. The Native American Reservations are Sovereign Nations. They may be located within the U.S., but they aren't part of the U.S. The same is true of an Embassy. So you can see how people born there are not born in the United States.
That does not necessarily equate to being able to take away the citizenship of people who WERE born in the United State simply because you don't like the fact their parents crossed a line in the desert without a proper Visa (which they probably couldn't get because there's an arbitrary quota for them set by Congress) before they were born.
In additional to that lunacy they want to overturn or repeal the 16th Amendment which established clarified the Federal Income Tax.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
I can at least understand the Bigoted Natavist Paranoia that drives the attack on the 14th, and the Radical Anti-Tax Mania that drives the criticism of the 16th Amendment - but I don't get this one.
Why is the Tea Party desperate to abolish the 17th Amendment which allows the people to select their Senators directly, not the State Legislatures as they had been before?
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
I just don't get why they want to give power that is now in the hands of the people, to the State Legislatures which as we have seen in the past year - have really made some "great" decisions... Not.
I myself, wouldn't mind seeing portions of the 13th Amendment modified. Specifically the part that continues to allow for people to be Enslaved if they've been convicted of a crime by a judge or a jury.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
This used to mean we had Chain Gangs in the U.S. Now we have privitized prisons with outsourced Call Centers used to break the back of unions and drive down working conditions and wages.
Via the Florida Independent
Private prison companies lost one chance for a big profit last week when one of the largest known privatization campaigns in the country was blocked by a Florida judge for being unconstitutional. But private prison players like The GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America, which would have won big from privatization, and the tactics they use to ensure they stay in good graces with lawmakers have remained in the shadows even as the future of the legislation remains in question.
...
GEO Group is already under investigation for a pay-for-play scandal involving the Blackwater Correctional Facility. An FBI subpeona calls for, among other things, the travel vouchers of former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom, according to legal documents obtained by DBA Press. Sansom resigned amid an ethics investigation in Feburary 2010.
Prominent lawmakers on the national stage, including Sen. Marco Rubio, have also been brought up in connection to the allegations: Sansom was Marco Rubio’s budget chief when he allegedly inserted language creating Blackwater into a Florida budget bill.
Prisons for Profit is always a bad idea when their chief money making commodity - is human beings.
Be all of that as it may, the introduction of this new Amendment is clearly a good thing even if in the end it still IMO may not be enough. As shown here, all the Amendment does is redirect the power to regulate Campaign Finance Back to the Congress and the States, it doesn't necessarily reverse the more dangerous idea of Corporate Personhood with Free Speech Rights.
‘ARTICLE —
1 ‘‘SECTION 1. Congress shall have power to regulate
2 the raising and spending of money and in kind equivalents
3 with respect to Federal elections, including through set-
4 ting limits on—
5 ‘‘(1) the amount of contributions to candidates
6 for nomination for election to, or for election to,
7 Federal office; and
8 ‘‘(2) the amount of expenditures that may be
9 made by, in support of, or in opposition to such can-
10 didates.
11"‘S ECTION 2. A State shall have power to regulate the
12 raising and spending of money and in kind equivalents
13 with respect to State elections, including through setting
14 limits on—
15 ‘‘(1) the amount of contributions to candidates
16 for nomination for election to, or for election to,
17 State office; and
18 ‘‘(2) the amount of expenditures that may be
19 made by, in support of, or in opposition to such can-
20 didates.
21 ‘‘SECTION 3. Congress shall have power to implement
22 and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’’
Corporations are not People. They don't have a "Right" of Free Speech anymore than they have a "Right" of Free Assembly. Yet this is essentially what Citizens United Guarantees by default (although it does not directly address the "Personhood" issue as noted in the comments, it restricted the Powers of Congress), opening the flood gates of more and more PAC and SuperPAC money which slipped through the cracks of McCain-Feingold years ago.
This Amendment addresses controlling the supply of money, but what it doesn't do is address The Demand. I think we can all see from the way the economy has behaved over the last 3 years, that when you dry up demand - an abundance of supply (low taxes, Trillions in available funds) doesn't really make much of a difference.
Instead of just trying to put the leash back on the dog as it chases after the car, maybe we should also try to stop the car.
The principle demand for campaign dollars is to pay for advertising on television. Make airtime available to all qualified candidates FOR FREE and you solve the demand problem. The FCC can do this with a simple rules change for Broadcast TV, that is exactly like the rule that allows them to require local television stations to carry local news "For the Public Good".
Of course, all the broadcast outlets who depend on all those $Billions in ad revenue will squak and cry because they depend on that money, but that can be solved by offerring them an tax credit equal to the cost of the air time donated on behalf of the public benefit. Voila. Instant Public Financing.
Free and Equal Airtime for All Qualified Candidates in exchange for a HUGE MASSIVE Tax Cut to the TV Stations - and nobody needs to be at the beck and call of a lobbyist ever again. Seems like a Fair Deal to me.
Certainly if someone wants to purchase air-time on Cable Stations, where this rule wouldn't apply, that would cost them. If this proposed Amendment Fails to reach a 2/3rd vote in the Congress or a 2/3rd of the State Legislatures to begin the process toward ratification - having the FCC implement a rule of this type would be a good back up plan.
At the very least, this is a beginning. We'll just have to see where it all leads.
What does the 99% Say?
Vyan
11:45 AM PT: Lots of people pointing out lots of flaws with this Amendment in Comments. Have to say I agree with nearly all of them, hence my counter suggestion via the FCC & Offsetting Tax Credits. That wouldn't restrict speech or campaign donations, but it would lower the cost of entering the "speaking market" on TV so that even if you do face $Billions from a Corporation, you can still get your message out and hold your own. Any comments on that?