Eight in ten Americans oppose the Supreme Court ruling,
which allows unlimited corporate spending on U.S. elections. Delaware is
the latest state to demand that Congress step in and overturn it.
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posted Jun 11, 2013
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A protest about Citizens United in Spokane, Wash. Photo by Public Citizen.
Delaware became the 15th yesterday in a chorus of states that are calling on the U.S. House of Representatives to overturn the
Citizens United
Supreme Court decision, which allows unlimited spending on
elections by corporations, unions, and other groups. The case also
represents an expansion of prior rulings that have reasoned that
corporations are people and that corporate election spending qualifies
as protected speech under the First Amendment.
The 15 states
that have issued resolutions or letters constitute nearly 80 million
people, or just over a quarter of the U.S. population.
An increasing number of legislators, activists, and ordinary
Americans believe the decision is so harmful that they’re building a
movement at the state and local levels to pressure Congress to take
action on the issue.
In Delaware’s case, eleven state senators and 24 state
representatives signed a letter about the ruling, which was sent to both
of Delaware’s senators as well as to U.S. Rep. John Carney (D–Del.)
“The United States of America’s elections should not be permitted to
go to the highest bidder,” the letter reads, “and yet this is the risk
that rises from the ashes of the
Citizens United decision.”
The 15 states that have issued resolutions or letters constitute
nearly 80 million people, or just over a quarter of the U.S. population.
Meanwhile, another 16 states have introduced similar legislation, but
haven’t passed it yet. Resolutions asking for the repeal of
Citizens United have also been passed by about 500 municipalities, according to the
Nation.
Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap is national director at the Move to Amend
Coalition, which supports a constitutional amendment to strip
corporations of their personhood rights. In a country where eight out of
10 people disagree with the
Citizens United ruling, according to a
poll by ABC News and the
Washington Post,
she says that resolutions and letters like Delaware’s are a sign that
elected officials at the state level are listening to their
constituents.
She remains skeptical that Congress will respond with action, but
believes that pressure from the state and local levels may become so
strong that Congress will be forced to act. Failing that, there’s
another possibility: if two-thirds of the states in the U.S. call for a
constitutional convention, they can go forward without Congress.
Sopoci-Belknap says that simply raising the that possibility helps to
ramp up pressure on the House.
“Congress doesn’t want to have a precedent of the states going around them,” she said.
Jonah Minkoff-Zern of the nonprofit
Public Citizen argues that state-level resolutions are useful in themselves because they show members of Congress who want to overturn
Citizens United
that their constituents are behind them. He also points to the more
than 125 active members of the House and Senate who have already
called for a constitutional amendment, as well as President Barack
Obama.
“If we’re down the road and we have 38 states that have called for an
amendment and Congress still fails to act,” Minkoff-Zern says, then it
might be time to consider possibilities such as constitutional
conventions. “But we’re still a long way from there.”
Sopoci-Belknap says the Citizens United case has done a lot to raise
awareness about corporate domination of American politics, but cautions
against focusing exclusively on the ruling.
“Ultimately the amendment that passes needs to do more than overturn
Citizens United,” she says. It needs to “make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech.”
Some of the resolutions passed at the state level—such as Vermont’s
and Illinois’s—have asked for wording that would do just that.
Watch for growing momentum around this issue in the coming months, as
state lawmakers and groups like Move to Amend and Public Citizen work
to turn up the heat on Congress.
James Trimarco wrote this article for
YES! Magazine,
a
national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and
practical actions. James is web editor at YES! You can follow him on
Twitter at @JamesTrimarco.
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