The Independent View: Schedule for a Senate Vote on a Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon

This summer, the U.S. Senate will vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon.

THE SCHEDULE

With Senator Charles Schumer announcing that the Senate would hold a floor vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon later this year, here’s what’s in front of us:

- On June 3, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the need for an amendment.

- Later in June, there will be a “mark-up”, debate, and vote on precise language of the amendment, in the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights and/or the full Judiciary Committee.

- Once the amendment makes it through the committee(s), the full Senate will vote, either in July or, after the August congressional recess, in September.

THE AMENDMENT

Although details and exact language remain to be worked out and will be subject to revision at numerous points, it appears that the Senate will end up with a version of the amendment proposed by Senator Tom Udall. Thanks in part to pressure from Public Citizen activists, Udall’s amendment has already been co-sponsored by 40 other senators.

The amendment is simple. It would give We the People, through Congress as well as state and local governments, the unencumbered ability to regulate and limit campaign spending by Big Business and the super-rich.

In so doing, the amendment would undo nearly 40 years of restrictive Supreme Court rulings:

- The amendment would overturn Citizens United and its holding that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as people to influence election outcomes.

- The amendment would overturn McCutcheon and its holding that the only justification for limits on campaign donations is to prevent criminal bribery.

- The amendment would overturn Buckley v. Valeo, the case holding that “money equals speech”, and imposing Supreme Court constitutional obstacles to rational limits on election spending.

This would restore common sense to our election spending jurisprudence.

We would restore the First Amendment, so that it amplifies the voices of everyday people and elevates the power of actual speech.

And we would go some way to restoring the most basic understanding of democracy: People — not corporations, not plutocrats — rule.

With the amendment, we would be able to pass laws ending corporate spending on elections, eliminating or curbing outside donations, imposing limits on overall election spending, and adopting mandatory systems of small-donor and public financing.

We would no longer hear about super PACs or bundling or kingmakers, like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers, or any of the unfortunate vocabulary that has evolved to describe our disastrously dysfunctional campaign spending “system.”

What we would hear, instead, would be issues being debated. Candidates would spend time interacting with voters, not begging for checks.

This is no panacea for all the ills afflicting our democracy, to be sure, the mechanisms of corporate control extend far beyond campaign spending, but it would begin to nurse the patient back to health.

And our democracy could at last rise off its sick bed.