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Home Front: Politix
Dodd introduces constitutional amendment to reverse SCOTUS on campaign spending
2010-02-25
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) introduced a constitutional amendment today to overrule a recent Supreme Court decision on campaign spending.

The court ruled 5-4 last month in Citizens United v. FEC that Congress cannot regulate independent expenditures by corporations and possibly labor unions. The ruling could dramatically increase third party spending on elections.

Dodd's amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) would explicitly grant Congress the authority to regulate campaign fundraising and expenditures for federal elections.

The amendment would also let states regular such activity in their own elections.

"I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court's conclusion that money is speech, and that corporations should be treated the same as individual Americans when it comes to protected, fundamental speech rights," Dodd said in a statement.

Dodd and Udall said they will also support "interim legislative efforts" to damper the impact of the ruling, including requirements that corporations disclose their campaign spending.

To pass, Dodd's amendment must pass both Houses with a two-thirds majority and be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
Posted by:Fred

#10  Murray Hill can't be a public relations firm. It was my telephone exchange. Is nothing sacred?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2010-02-25 21:13  

#9  To what end, Anonymoose?
Posted by: trailing wife   2010-02-25 20:44  

#8  Murray Hill Incorporated, a liberal public relations firm, recently announced that it planned to run in the Republican primary in MarylandÂ’s 8th Congressional District.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2010-02-25 20:29  

#7  Elsewhere, the issue is being brought to a head right now by a corporation on the east coast, which is literally attempting to run for public office

What?
Posted by: john frum   2010-02-25 15:28  

#6  well at least he has his priorities staright
Posted by: chris   2010-02-25 12:53  

#5  this corporation could argue that it has the "right" to an election seat

I can see it now: "The chair recognizes the Senator from Wal-Mart!" Or "the chair recognizes the Senator from GE." He who has the gold rules.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-02-25 12:34  

#4  Oddly enough, and only through very convoluted logic, Dodd has a point. But the issue is not corporate campaign spending, but the entire premise of corporations being treated in the law as citizens with civil rights.

The issue began when an official Supreme Court reporter interpreted a decision to mean that corporations had civil rights, which he confirmed with just the oral opinion of the Chief Justice at the time, that this is what the rest of the court believed as well. That is, there is *no* SCOTUS precedent that establishes corporate civil rights.

Many of the other issues of corporate civil rights were then flushed out by a Lincoln appointed Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Johnson Field, who was on the bench for about 35 years. Often they were piggybacked on to the 14th Amendment.

However, corporate civil rights have now emerged as perhaps the most common primary element of all corporate law today. And therein lies the problem--that they are *not* persons. That they are inherently different from persons.

Elsewhere, the issue is being brought to a head right now by a corporation on the east coast, which is literally attempting to run for public office. In other words, it is no longer a stable concept, but is growing beyond common sense.

Legally speaking, as things stand now, this corporation could argue that it has the "right" to an election seat. To a great extent because much of civil rights law is now based on the 14th Amendment, which was very liberally written.

But back to the new amendment. This is the real amendment that is needed, not just campaign spending limitation, or other such surface gesture, but to address the entire issue of "corporations and other organizations as having civil rights."

Corporations must *not* have civil rights as persons, but they obviously need *some* rights. Corporate rights, as unique and different from civil rights. They need to be split away from any recognition as persons and have their own constitutional amendment.

Yet another reason to have a constitutional convention.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2010-02-25 09:56  

#3  Last time I checked the US Constitution is awfully difficult to amend, not to mention that it is slow and that by November the Democrats will not have the majorities required (2/3 of Congressmen and ratification by 38 states)...
In other words its is just posturing very similar to male chimps trying to impress females.
Posted by: JFM   2010-02-25 09:09  

#2  We don't need no stinking Free Speech*!

*Free Speech copyright of the UAW, SEIU, et al of the Democratic Party.
Posted by: Proocpius2k   2010-02-25 07:25  

#1  Dodd = tool.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike   2010-02-25 04:21  

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