Senators Introduce Amendment To Overturn Citizens United

This may come I as a wall of text bit it's an email I got from Sen Durbin

November 15, 2011

Mr. [REDACTED], [REDACTED], Carlyle, IL 62231-6461   Dear Mr. [REDACTED]:  

Thank you for contacting me regarding efforts to reform campaign spending in light of the ruling from Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. I appreciate hearing from you.

  To counteract the influx of corporate contributions triggered by the Citizens United decision, I am an original cosponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 29 (S.J. Res. 29). The resolution proposes an amendment to the Constitution that grants to Congress the power to regulate federal election contributions and spending and to the states the power to regulate state election contributions and spending.  

In the Citizens United case, which questioned whether certain portions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 are constitutional, the Supreme Court overturned a ban on corporate spending on political campaigns. Specifically, corporations may now fund advertisements that explicitly call for the election or defeat of candidates and face fewer restrictions on certain broadcast advertisements.  

This decision is one of the most egregious cases of judicial activism in our nation’s history. Corporations are now free to spend millions on campaign advertisements, without disclosing the source of the funding. If this decision is left unchallenged, people in politics will be forced to spend more time every year chasing money, leaving them with less time to work on solving our country’s problems.  

In addition to supporting the restriction of corporate contributions, I am a strong advocate for publicly financed elections. I will continue to push for passage of the Fair Elections Now Act, which I first introduced in 2007 and reintroduced again in 2011. This measure would make federal funds available to Senate candidates who agree to forgo campaign money from private interests, giving candidates the opportunity to focus on the issues, not on the money.

  I will keep your thoughts in mind as campaign finance reform is debated in the Senate and I will continue to fight to give the people, not corporations, a voice in Congress.  

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch.

  Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin

United States Senator   RJD/ab

edited 16th Nov '11 7:35:54 AM by vanthebaron

I trust that as far as I can throw it (And I can't throw all that good all the time), but I'm glad someone responded to you on this BS.

Same, Durbin is a democrat so is not completely amoral but he has another thing I agree with (replace public schools with magnet schools and scores will go up. Ive been magnet schools and they are extremely good schools).

edited 16th Nov '11 7:44:04 AM by vanthebaron

Hey publicly funded elections? Glad to see I'm not the only one for it.

breadloaf, That's what I really want.

Maybe then we'll actually get HONEST people in power - or we'll throw them out and their precious BS won't be able to keep them around. The way it should be.

For lack of a better topic, Antonin Scalia says not to blame him for his decision on Citizen's united, blame the politicians and voters.

Is there any way to retroactively replace a Supreme Court Justice i.e. kick them out of office and then have each of the votes they cast re-evaluated and recast by there replacement?

You'd have to prove impropriety on their part and impeach them.

How' bout charging them with conspiracy to commit civil rights violations? If you got a left-wing enough Congress after an election, you could hold political impeachments and show trials and kick out all Justices (or all conservative ones). Then it's a matter of replacing them with left-wingers.

edited 23rd Jan '12 3:15:51 PM by SavageHeathen

That's a flagrant abuse more suited to a seizure of state power — the kind of thing that's being done in Hungary by Fidesz. Not anything a truly democratic country would attempt.

Woops, didn't mean to mod mode that. Except to warn you again, Savage, about advocating retribution against public servants.

edited 23rd Jan '12 3:36:47 PM by Fighteer

The President appoints the justices. The executive is not going to take the Congress's bait like that.

If Scalia was going for "blame the constitution", the opinion should've explicitly stated that the court is urging Congress to amend the constitution so that it can continue to regulate campaign financing.

edited 23rd Jan '12 3:39:50 PM by abstractematics

I didn't advocate retribution: You kinda need a conviction in order to remove someone from office after an impeachment.

You don't need to actually punish anybody, though: A slap on the wrist sentence that is suspended kicks the guy out of office all right. You only need the guilty vote in the Senate (3/5ths, IIRC).

I forget. What is the voting requirements for an amendment? 26 states successfully ratifying it?

Usually I would dismiss this off-hand, except I think you might actually have a legal case...

Are the laws we used in the '60s to prosecute civil rights violations still on the books? And would they be valid in this case? Because a political witch hunt is both a waste of time legally—it'll be thrown out—and a flagrant abuse of the system... though I care less and less about that these days, and it would be rather useful depending on who was put in that's new...

I believe it requires a 3/4 majority for the ratification.

This is impossible. All material that would've been copyright of the US Government is by law put into the public domain. All the US Government can hold in terms of IP is trademarks on its own iconography and even then, they had to make exceptions for each of them.

edited 23rd Jan '12 6:57:05 PM by GameGuruGG

I... how do you hold a copyright on a real person's identity? That's not only impossible, that's moronic.