Discussion for article #227409
I hope the Democrats publicize this appropriately - a significant number of voters are seriously bothered by the influence of money on campaigns and elections.
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The proposed Constitutional amendment would benefit all but a handful of Americans; literally, several hundred million people would benefit from this.
Naturally, the Republicans oppose this, as they would naturally oppose anything that’s good for nearly all of us. It’s what they do.
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“…restore the legal right of Congress to establish campaign spending limits…”
The single greatest reason to elect Democrats to Congress.
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This is about changing the quorum of the Supreme Court. When we elect the next Democratic President, we must also give that President a House to work with.
With that President and that House we can end the era of neocon/teabagger politics and put America back on the people’s track and off of the corporation’s free ride.
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Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said Republicans are happy to debate the measure, but “to be clear, there is zero support on our side for rewriting the First Amendment to restrict free speech.”
Once again confusing money with free speech.
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They call it FREE speech. I am curious as to why so much money is needed for it?
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I hope they also publicize this inappropriately, with region-specific ads playing on the nationalism/nativism of the TP crowd. The ads could demonstrate that a foreign person (or company or organization or even a foreign government) can spend a handful of dollars to create a US corporation, which is then able to spend unlimited amounts of money to help elect a candidate or influence the vote on a proposition.
Imagine ads with a shadowy figure, speaking English with an accent, laughing about how “I’m not even allowed to enter the United States, because of my criminal record, but after I spent $300 to create a US corporation Republicans like [insert candidate here] and their supporters call the corporation I control a person. They have gone to court to give me the right to spend as much money as I want to influence elections in the United States. Even better, [candidate] and other Republicans have fought to prevent voters like you from learning if the ads they are viewing are paid for by people like me.”
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But won’t all the corporations move to Canada… oh, never mind.
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Does Canada really want the crybabies, I doubt it.
"Democrats chose to spotlight the issue because the public is on their side. " So republicans are not on the peoples side?
Oh thats right when they say "the American people " they mean the 1% of the American people is who they stand by.
The Constitution guarantees a right to free speech. It does not guarantee the right to purchase influence. They are two very different things. Sadly some justices simply cannot fathom the linkage between buying ads and buying a candidate. For the rest of us it’s pretty obvious.
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Al Franken was just on Lawrence O’Donell asking people to contact their Senator to put the pressure on saying, “that nothing gets their attention like hearing from the public.” I’m not so sure what the public wants gets the attention of Republicans or even Democrats, but it’s worth a try.
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RE: Dan Stewart’s comment on rewriting First Amendment to curtail free speech. That is exactly what the Supreme Court did. If money is speech, there is no free speech.
Also Citizens United destroyed democracy for all voters; Republican and
Democratic alike.
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If money = speech, I demand my free money!
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Make them talk about it.
Make them explain why it’s so important that the Koch Brothers (or the owners of Hobby Lobby or anyone with a shitpot of cash) get to say whatever they want, at whatever volume they want, and there’s no consequences.
Make them do this once a day, every day. it’s not like the House is going to be sending over anything worthwhile to talk about, so you may as well spend your time doing this.
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Deceptive headline. The Senate didn’t “advance” anything.
They voted to debate on it, and Mitch the Bitch has already clued us in that an actual cloture vote for final passage will not happen.
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Limiting the ability of billionaires and corporations to spend vast amount of money to influence elections IS a first amendment issue, because the first amendment rights of everybody who isn’t stupendously rich is being absolutely smothered.
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All this breathless hoo-ha over this one single vote in the Senate is comically irrelevant. There’s a greater chance of Sarah Palin being admitted to Harvard Law than there is of this bill getting anywhere. It’s sad how TPM and DK are pumping this meaningless vote up.
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Yep. This bill is a walking dead person. It’s a zombie delay tactic. The Republicans now get to both 1) claim to support the the limitations on money and 2) vote against those limits. This is actually a vote to help the Republicans in the 2014 election.
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