Capitol Voice

Under the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling of Citizen’s United versus the Federal Election Commission, corporations and labor unions were granted the first amendment rights of freedom of speech, thus being the right to donate unlimited sums to political groups. This year the Court’s ruling has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the campaign process. To counteract this ruling Common Cause, Move to Amend and other progressive groups have sought for a constitutional amendment to overrule the Court on this point. City councils such as Los Angeles have already passed constitutional amendment stances. Progressive critics of the constitutional amendment route have stated it is too lengthy and long, requiring a 2/3 vote majority in each House as well as ratification of 3/4 of the states within 7 years. The Court would still be left with the upper hand with other financial areas of jurisdiction in the election process. The alternative route is now being promoted, as simple as it is, that of using the Constitution itself under Article 1, which gives Congress the power to determine laws governing the financing of elections, and not the Court. Under Article 1, Congress has the power to remove jurisdiction of financing election campaigns from the Court. Such laws would require only a majority in each House to pass, thus removing private interest money from campaigns.The two sections under examination are Article !, Section 4, the Congressional jurisdiction of elections of representatives and senators, along with Article 3, section 2, pertaining to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the regulations Congress can make upon them.  For the details on how this can be done, read,

Constitutional Amendment Not Needed:Congress Already Has a Remedy by Marc Leas found in Truth-Out.

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