Elizabeth Warren’s Highlighting the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” Decision
I’m not big on taking sides in political disputes, especially the trashy type like those surrounding the 2012 U.S. presidential race. Yet I have to voice my approval of Elizabeth Warren’s highlighting the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision in the points she made (“corporations are not people”) in her speech last night at the Democratic National Convention.
When I see things like this, and then look around to see a real groundswell of populist outcry for an amendment that would overturn Citizens United, I have an extremely strange and rare experience: some level of renewed confidence in the power of American democracy.
I’m not sure that such an amendment would be a good idea; it could have unintended consequences. Instead, I would favor legislation requiring that advertisements paid for by corporations have the contributors listed. By having them listed, I don’t mean being flashed onto the TV screen for a few microseconds so that no can read the list. Rather, the list should be presented in such a way that it can be easily read and is not misleading. Perhaps in addition to being listed on the TV screen, it should also be conveniently accessible via the Internet.
Before a constitutional amendment is even considered, all the possible consequences should be examined by competent legal experts. Such an amendment should not be made without extremely careful consideration.
If you check out the https://movetoamend.org/ and the “Saving American Democracy” motion that Bernie Sanders and numerous others are moving through the U.S. Senate: http://www.adbusters.org/abtv/saving-american-democracy-amendment.html, I think you’ll be impressed at the level of legal thinking that’s gone into this.
I’ll check it out.
We both agree that the problem must be dealt with in some manner.
This evening I watched a PBS program on Citizens United and its effects. As a result, I herewith propose another solution to the problem, a solution that requires no legal action and which could be quickly implemented rather than waiting years for legal action.
The decision permits corporations and others to spend unlimited funds to support ISSUES, but not to support or oppose CANDIDATES. As a result, a knowledgeable person can quite easily spot the political advertisements which the decision condones.
A permitted add may read something like this:
“Senator Mumble has voted against bills that would would create jobs by authorizing constructing a pipeline from China to Hawaii. Tell Senator Mumble that he should not have voted against those bills.”
According to the decision, the above add would not be supporting or opposing the election of Senator Mumble; it would simply be opposing a position and therefore would be acceptable regardless of how much money was spent on it by anonymous donors. But consider the following add:
“Senator Mumble has voted against bills that would would create jobs by authorizing constructing a pipeline from China to Hawaii. Vote against Senator Mumble and put Mr. Jumble in office instead.”
The above add would not be affected by Citizens United and would require naming the organization that funded it, and the organization would have to reveal the names of the donors.
It should be quite easy for people to learn to distinguish between the two types of political messages and ignore ones similar to the first example above. If they are unable to learn that, we are in far more trouble than the Citizens United decision has caused.