Posted on 11/02/2011 12:44:55 PM PDT by tcrlaf
WASHINGTON - Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and six other Democrats charged Tuesday that modern political campaigns - and democracy itself - are threatened by a pair of "awful" Supreme Court decisions that can only be fixed by changing the U.S. Constitution itself.
The senators said during a news conference that adding a new provision to the Constitution is necessary if Congress wants to nullify a 1976 ruling that said campaign spending was the same as free speech and a 2010 ruling that removed all limits on campaign spending for special interests, corporations and labor unions.
"In the mid-70s the activist Supreme Court opened the flood gates to allow special interest money to flow into our elections by falsely equating money with speech," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said, referring to the case Buckley v Valeo.
That case was followed last year by Citizens United v Federal Election Commission which opened the way to a surge of campaign spending by corporations, interest groups and labor unions.
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
Can you feel the fear taking hold in the Democrats? They KNOW they are in real danger next year.
By SCOTUS saying that Corporations have the same campaign spending rights as the Unions that extort them, they have set the stage for the Democrat Crony election money to be MATCHED, and it's frightening the hell out of them.
The Union/Democrat party racketeering is the BIG problem.
Getting something like that to rise to the level of a constitutional amendment... rotsa ruck rats. Besides do you want to really make it clear that you think the American people are so stupid as to treat an election as a referendum on how many ads they heard?
Quidado! Don’t let the Marxists anywhere near a Constitutional Convention. Even their call to amend is suspect. They are destroyers not builders or repairmen.
At least the idiots want to go about their stupidity the correct way. Go ahead and try an amendment, fools.
Getting rid of that excess of regulation is one of the best things the Court has ever done ~ roughly on the order of beating back the Nazis in WWII
Anytime a Democrat wants to play by the rules, I grab my wallet.
Senator Merkely didn’t seem to mind campaign money when Obama sent him money from his very deep 2008 pockets to help him get elected.
The only way to control campaign spending is to reduce the importance of government to the point that no one has an incentive to try to buy influence.
I don’t expect any of the the political careerists or careerist wannabes to line up for that one.
Starve the beast.
I have an idea, lets make an amendment for the direct election of Senators rather than by the State party bosses, that will eliminate the money and corruption in the Senate...Oh wait...
“The only way to control campaign spending is to reduce the importance of government to the point that no one has an incentive to try to buy influence.”
From your mouth to God’s ear.
I agree.
Repeal the 17th amendment, and let's get rid of 33 of the most expensive elections that occur every two years.
Eliminate the need to finance 100 Senate elections, and you will begin to eliminate the national party fundraising blocs. The House elections will be too many and too often to be supported by national blocs, and the presidential election will be too infrequent to support a national fundraising bloc.
-PJ
The Democrats are frightened of free speech!
It takes a two-thirds vote of both Houses Of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the states to enact a constitutional amendment.
This one isn’t going anywhere.
He probably thinks Pelosi and Reid can just write it up, have Obama sign it, and it's a done deal.
The Democrats know they lost their fund-raising advantage when leftist special interests had to finally compete with right-wing special interests.
They want to turn the clock back for the benefit of the Democratic Party. But because its clearly partisan, there are no GOP takers for it.
I propose amending the Constitution to outlaw liberal nuttiness.
Well, they have not a prayer of getting a Constitutional Amendment passed before next November (if ever).
Doesn't Oregon have an assisted suicide law, Merkley seems to be terminally stupid.
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