General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Obama ENDORSES Bernie Sanders’ Constitutional Amendment to OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED [View all]eallen
(2,961 posts)I find it interesting that the first section of the proposed amendment -- <i>"The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to for-profit corporations"</i> -- directly contradicts the second section -- <i>"do not limit the freedom of the press."</i> The press, the media, are mostly not natural persons, but businesses: newspapers, magazines, film distributors, commercial blogs, etc. And that was true when the 1st amendment was framed. Many of the key 1st amendment decisions the Supreme Court has made over the years have commercial interests as the key party. Often, represented by the ACLU. Saying that there is a Constitutional right to a free press, but only for natural persons, means almost nothing. Do y'all really want Congress to be able to censor everything from political books to pornography, when the material is published and distributed by businesses? Really?!
The <i>Citizens United</i> case decided whether law could restrict distribution of a movie. What makes anyone think that the Supreme Court would have decided differently, were this amendment in force, if it paid attention to that Section 2 restriction that the amendment does <i>"not limit the freedom of the press"?</i>
I would be happy to see reasonable lines drawn here. The problem is defining what those are. The proposed amendment is a mess, and because of that, essentially tells the court to "figure something out." Maybe that would work. But it would be better if those proposing amendments gave some thought to <i>why</i> the Supreme Court ruled as it did, and tried to come up with some clear principles for drawing lines, rather than just saying "this," but not really too much of "this." So far, I haven't seen much of that.