Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced yesterday that he will be introducing a constitutional amendment in the coming days to reverse the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The decision overturned 100 years of precedents to come to the unjustified conclusion that corporations deserve the same free speech protections as individual Americans.
“Money is not speech,” said Dodd. “Corporations are not people. And in the wake of one of the most radical decisions in the Supreme Court’s history of campaign finance jurisprudence, a constitutional amendment is necessary to fully restore the trust and voice of the American people. If corporations – foreign as well as domestic – are allowed even greater and more direct influence over our elections, our democracy as we know it will cease to exist. I won’t stand for that. I urge my colleagues, and the American people, to join me in defense of democracy by supporting this amendment and other interim steps to mitigate the damage done by this decision.”
Dodd’s proposed amendment would authorize Congress to regulate the raising and spending of money for state and federal political campaigns, and to implement and enforce the amendment through appropriate legislation.
I don’t think we need to go so far – I think the amendment should simply say “Corporations are not people and are not entiled to the rights of people under this Constitution.”
