Amendment To Overturn "Citizens United" Supreme Court Decision Will Get A Vote In The U.S. Senate

The illustration above is by Joseph Keppler and is called "Bosses of the Senate". While it is from a much earlier time in the history of this country, it depicts something that is happening again -- the control of the Senate (and the House of Representatives) by corporate interests through the use of an army of lobbyists and huge campaign donations to candidates that will do their bidding.

Some of that power had been reined in through campaign finance laws passed by Congress -- but a couple of recent Supreme Court decisions (Citizens United vs. FEC and McCutcheon vs. FEC) has restored the power of corporations to control Congress by eliminating the campaign funding restrictions imposed by Congress. The Court found that corporations were people and money was speech -- and restricting the amount of money a corporation (or rich individual) could donate to campaigns was a violation of free speech.

These were bad decisions, since money is not speech and corporations are not people (since they would insure that corporations and the rich have more "speech" than ordinary Americans) -- and they have resulted in massive campaign donations by corporations and individuals to influence our elections.

There is a cure for this, and it comes in the form of Senate Resolution 19 -- which would amend the United States Constitution to give Congress the power to control campaign financing (thus overturning both the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions of the court). This amendment is badly needed to restore sanity in the financing of elections, giving ordinary Americans as much say in elections as corporations. But that resolution has been blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate (which prevented it from coming to the floor for an up or down vote).

Yesterday, than filibuster hurdle was brushed aside by a coalition of Democrats, Independents, and some Republicans -- who approved a cloture motion to stop the filibuster on a 79 to 18 vote (with all 18 votes to continue the filibuster coming from Republicans). The Republicans who voted to continue corporate control of Congress through massive campaign spending were:

Barrasso (Wyoming)
Chambliss (Georgia)
Coburn (Oklahoma)
Crapo (Idaho)
Cruz (Texas)
Enzi (Wyoming)
Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Isakson (Georgia)
Johnson (Wisconsin)
Lee (Utah)
Paul (Kentucky)
Portman (Ohio)
Risch (Idaho)
Roberts (Kansas)
Scott (South Carolina)
Shelby (Alabama)
Thune (South Dakota)
Toomey (Pennsylvania)

This does not mean the resolution passes the Senate -- just that it will now be debated and voted on by the full Senate. It will have to get a two-thirds vote in the Senate (67 votes), but don't let the vote on invoking cloture fool you -- that will be very difficult, and maybe impossible (since no Republican sponsored Senate Resolution 19). Many, if not all, of the Republicans voting to invoke cloture did so to keep the Democrats from bringing up votes on other issues (such as equal pay for women) in the short time the Senate has left before recessing. They hope to drag out the debate on the resolution to amend the Constitution before finally voting to kill it just before a recess.

Even if the resolution was to get the required 67 votes by some miracle, it is almost a foregone conclusion that it would die in the House of Representatives -- where at least 290 votes would be needed before it could be sent to the states (where three-fourths of the states would need to ratify it, or 38 states).

I don't mean to belittle the Senate vote yesterday. It was a victory, but only a tiny victory -- and there is still a long hard road to be tread before any amendment could be approved. And you can bet the Republicans will throw up roadblocks every bit of the way (because they know they are the primary beneficiaries of the massive corporate donations).

This is just one more reason why the Republicans must be voted out of power in the coming November election.