Donna Edwards' No Corporate Monopoly of Elections Amendment

[FourScore]

Donna Edwards' No Corporate Monopoly of Elections Amendment

by John Nichols

Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards turned to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis for guidance in framing the Constitutional amendment she proposed Tuesday as the right and necessary response to the decision by Chief Justice John Roberts and a high court majority to abandon law and precedent with the purpose of permitting corporations to dominate the political discourse.

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both," said Brandeis, the lion of law whose defenses of freedom of speech and the right to privacy renewed and extended the American experiment in the 20th century.

Brandeis knew that giving corporations monopoly power over our economic life or our politics would be deadly to democracy.

Unfortunately, that truth is lost on the current Supreme Court's activist majority.

Edwards is relying on Brandeis as an intellectual and legal touchstone as she launches the boldest congressional response yet to last month's Supreme Court decision in the case of Citizens United v. FEC...

SNIP

...Edwards explains the amendment in a powerful video http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x431064 where says: "You don't amend the Constitution often, but the Supreme Court really has left us with no choice but to change the Constitution and make sure that people own our government and our elections -- not the corporations..."

SNIP

...Here is the text of the legislation proposed by Edwards and Conyers:

JOINT RESOLUTION

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

‘‘ARTICLE--

‘‘SECTION 1. The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity.

‘‘SECTION 2. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.''

Edwards and Conyers may soon have a Senate sponsor for their amendment proposal.

Senator John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, said Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration that "we need a constitutional amendment to make it clear once and for all that corporations do not have the same free speech rights as individuals."

At the same hearing, Senator Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Constitution subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee declared: "As legislators, we have a duty to carefully consider the constitutional questions raised by legislation. But we are not mind readers, nor can we predict the future. So I urge you to do your duty but not be dissuaded from acting by fear of the Court. This terrible decision deserves as robust a response as possible. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/525477/donna_edwards_no_corporate_monopoly_of_elections_amendment

[onenote]

1. much better language than the version that was previously described

which was not limited to politcal speech.

It still raises an interesting and difficult question as to what constitutes the "press" today.

[NoNothing]

2. Not to mention what speech is "political"

Break it down enough and everything is political.

[onenote]

4. true.

one might argue that it should be limited to elections and ballot initiatives

[Karenina]

3. You GO, Donna!

:applause:

[Jack Rabbit]

5. I can support this, but I'd like to suggest a different approach

Something like limiting corporate personhood to contract law, where it makes some sense. It what allows peons like us to sue a corporation when it fails to deliver on its end of the bargain.

Also, such wording may remove corporations from criminal law. That's OK with me, too. I've never understood the point of indicting an artificial person when a criminal conspiracy can only be entered into by cognizant, flesh-and-blood human beings. What happens if ExxonMobil is convicted of conspiring to pollute air and water? Is the artificial person thrown into an artificial dungeon? No, let's drop the pretense that corporations are people here as well. If there is a criminal conspiracy among the corporate officers to pollute air and water, to violate labor laws, to fix prices or to skirt campaign finance laws, then indict the flesh-and-blood corporate officers and, if convicted, send them to a brick-and-mortar prison.