[HCCN] fw: Showdown with Citizens United

Tue Jan 17 20:57:28 UTC 2012

Actions nationwide, including:
Bangor, Friday Jan. 20 at noon, Margaret Chase Smith Federal Bldg, 202
Harlow St (snow date Saturday Jan. 21)
Portland, Friday Jan. 20 at noon, Federal Courthouse, 156 Federal St.

www.movetoamend.org

Two Years Later: Showdown With 'Citizens United'
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/165614/two-years-later-showdown-citizens-unit
ed> 

Katrina vanden Heuvel
<http://www.thenation.com/authors/katrina-vanden-heuvel>   on January 17,
2012 - 12:52pm ET

On December 30, the Montana Supreme Court delivered a New Year¹s gift to the
nation, upholding a century-old ban on corporate political expenditures in
state elections. The decision has gone underreported amidst the hoopla of
the Republican primaries‹even as super PAC
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/voting-rights-super-pacs-and-the-med
ia-cloud-the-election/2011/12/30/gIQAKFI3WP_story.html>  spending skyrockets
and there is an emerging understanding
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-power-of-super-pacs/2012/01/09/g
IQA51zbmP_story.html>  of its corrosive impact‹but the Montana case sets up
the first direct challenge to the disastrous Citizens United decision
<http://www.thenation.com/article/democracy-inc>  as we approach its second
anniversary.

Free Speech For People <http://freespeechforpeople.org/> ‹a national
non-partisan campaign challenging the fabrication of corporate rights under
the US Constitution‹filed a friend-of-the-court brief
<http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/203>  in the Montana case. It led a
coalition that included the American Sustainable Business Council
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/158621/time-new-economy> , a network of more
than 70,000 businesses across the country; the American Independent Business
Alliance; and a local supermarket business and non-profit corporation.

Jeff Clements is the author of the coalition¹s brief. Co-founder and general
counsel of Free Speech, Clements did two stints as Assistant Attorney
General in Massachusetts, litigating in the areas of civil rights,
environmental protection, healthcare, insurance and financial services,
antitrust and consumer protection, and taking on the tobacco industry. He¹s
also the author of a new book <http://corporationsarenotpeople.com/> ,
Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What
You Can Do About It. This is a book that anyone who cares about taking back
our democracy of, by and for the people must check out.

Clements tells a vivid story of how some of the largest corporations
organized to take over our government and Constitution, culminating with the
Citizens United decision. He also lays out a vision of how we can return
democracy to the people.

As Bill Moyers notes in the book¹s Foreword, this isn¹t the first time a
Supreme Court has served as a ³procorporate conservative fortress²: in 1905
it killed a New York state law limiting working hours, and a prohibition
against child labor about a decade later; it ruled against a minimum wage
law in 1923, and early New Deal recovery acts in 1935 and 1936.

³But in the face of such discouragement, embattled citizens refused to give
up,² writes Moyers. ³Every day citizens researched the issues, organized
public events to educate their neighbors, held rallies, made speeches,
petitioned and canvassed, marched and exhorted. They would elect the
twentieth century-governments that restored Œthe general welfare¹ as a
pillar of American democracy.²

Clements book, writes Moyers, describes ³how to fight back²‹as our forebears
have done so many times before‹in this case, through a constitutional
amendment declaring what Clements calls ³the simplest of propositions:
corporations are not people <http://corporationsarenotpeople.com/> .²
(Clements also calls for corporate accountability, and corporate charter and
election law reform, including increased public funding.)

³Citizens United is a corporate power case masquerading as a free speech
case,² writes Clements. ³We do not have to live with this. We can put the
American project back together.²

Campaigns for constitutional amendments demand patience and a great deal of
tenacity, since they must first secure supermajority support from both
houses of Congress and then win ratification by three-quarters of the
states. But as Maryland State Senator Jamin Raskin, professor of
constitutional law and the First Amendment at American University¹s
Washington College of Law, says, ³American citizens have repeatedly amended
the Constitution to defend democracy when the Supreme Court acts in
collusion with democracy¹s enemies, whether they are slavemasters, imposing
poll taxes on voters or the opponents of woman suffrage.²

It¹s a long haul, and groups <http://united4thepeople.org/>  working towards
that end‹including Public Citizen, the Center for Media and Democracy, Move
to Amend, Common Cause, People For the American Way, and others‹would be
smart to agree on exactly what the amendment¹s language is and make it
simple, clear, and appealing. After all, it¹s tough to organize a united
front around the country when there are multiple versions of the same
amendment.

Raskin himself will be introducing a Joint Resolution in the Maryland
General Assembly calling on Congress
<http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/726?t=sbs>  to swiftly pass a
constitutional amendment reversing the Citizens United decision and send it
out to the states for ratification. He hopes his effort will kick off a
national movement at the state level to press the amendment case. Other
local jurisdictions
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marge-baker/overturning-citizens-unit_b_11940
43.html?ref=politics>  are also pursuing that strategy, including the city
councils of Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, Albany, Duluth and Boulder which
have all passed resolutions opposing Citizens United. In Congress, a number
of representatives 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marge-baker/overturning-citizens-unit_b_11940
43.html?ref=politics>  have introduced resolutions seeking a constitutional
remedy, including: Donna Edwards; Senator Tom Udall and Representative Betty
Sutton; Representative Ted Deutsch and Senator Bernie Sanders
<http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/405042/january-03-20
12/bernie-sanders> ; Representative Jim McGovern; Representative John
Yarmuth and Republican Representative Walter Jones; Representative Keith
Ellison, and others. Kudos to these senators and Congressmen for their good
proposals, and‹as with the pro-democracy advocacy organizations‹the more
they are able to agree on the language of an amendment, the more easily
citizens will be able to rally around it.

But as undisclosed corporate money continues to flood our elections and
drown out the voices of ordinary Americans, it¹s important to remember that
we need to walk and chew gum at the same time, and not solely focus on the
amendment fight. That means building on successful public campaign financing
systems <http://publicampaign.org/briefhistory>  already on the books in
places like Arizona, Connecticut, Maine and North Carolina, bringing those
models to other states. In Congress, the Fair Elections Now Act
<http://publicampaign.org/fair-elections-now-act>  would allow federal
candidates to run for office without relying on Big Money as well‹force
Republicans and conservative Democrats to go on record opposing it, and if
it eventually passes and the Supreme Court shoots it down that will only
galvanize the public
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR201002170
1151.html> .

With the Montana Supreme Court decision and public anger toward a political
and economic system devoted to serving the 1 percent, this is a moment to
dig in and organize for a cleaner, more democratic way. On January 20 and 21
<http://united4thepeople.org/action.html>  activists across the country are
organizing to protest Citizens United and urge a Constitutional amendment.
Will you join in the effort?
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmZmI4eP7cc&feature=g-all-lik&contex
t=G2e8cdc6FAAAAAAAAAAA> 

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