Fighting the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos is a great political analyst and a talented interviewer (e.g., Harry Reid at Netroots Nation 2010). And she has a good sense for good ideas, as in this post: PCCC/PPP Poll: Voters support amending constitution to overturn Citizens United 11/23/2010: a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision giving corporations essentially free reign on campaign spending.

A constitutional amendment is a tough hill to climb, but "said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the author of an amendment that would overturn Citizens United, there have been times in American history when amendments have caught fire and ripped right through the land. 'The process is very rigorous, and it should be,' Edwards told HuffPost. 'But there have been plenty of examples of amendments to the Constitution that have happened, actually, with fairly rapid-fire when they catch on.'"

Since Citizen's United was partially based on First Amendment grounds, there is obviously a concern about the specifics of the wording and how it might limit the First Amendment or the Fourteenth, which extends the First Amendment to state action.

But the reactionary Roberts Court applied the First Amendment in Citizen's United by holding that corporations were "persons". An amendment that simply undefined "personhood" from corporations would overturn Citizen's United without tampering with the First Amendment itself.

But win or lose, it would create real pressure on the Republican-dominated federal courts and on Republicans in Congress to back away from this trend of opening the floodgates to campaign money. The fight over it would give the Democrats a good chance to cast the Republicans as the Party that wants to let billionaires and faceless corporations buy elections. Sometimes the fight is worth having, even if its a losing one.

Tags: citizens united decision

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