Would you support this constitutional amendment to counter Citizens United?

[Nye Bevan]

Insofar as it relates to freedom of speech, the First Amendment to this Constitution shall not apply to speech that

(1) is financed (in whole or in part) by corporations, or other corporate entities; AND
(2) refers to candidates in Federal or State elections; AND
(3) is disseminated within the six month period prior to said Federal or State elections.

This is somewhat more narrowly tailored than most of the other proposed amendments I have seen, which would have nasty side-effects like stripping nonprofits such as Planned Parenthood and LLCs such as Democratic Underground of Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure. This amendment only strips First Amendment protections from corporate-funded speech (so would not affect free speech rights for unions), and only affects speech relating to upcoming elections. One problem is that since newspapers are owned by corporations, this amendment would in theory allow Congress to ban newspaper endorsements of candidates, but making an exception for this would open up a huge loophole where Koch Industries (for example) could start up a "newspaper" for the sole purpose of promoting (or denigrating) election candidates.

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	Yes, I would support such an amendment.
	5 (50%)
	No, I would not support such an amendment.
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[badtoworse]

1. Would it include PAC's and labor unions?

[Nye Bevan]

2. No, I was trying to word it to only affect corporations (nt)

[badtoworse]

5. Then I wouldn't support it.

Investors represent a class of people too and your proposal discriminates against them.

[Nye Bevan]

8. Fair enough (nt)

[Sgent]

29. Most unions I'm familiar with

are corporate entities

[YarnAddict]

30. Sounds like

you only want to shut down free speech rights for those you disagree with.

That's--disturbing.

[TBF]

3. Citizens United needs to be

overturned in its entirety.

Of course it won't happen with the current Supreme Court.

[Nye Bevan]

6. I'm not sure what you mean by "overturned in its entirety".

The Citizens United decision was that the First Amendment protects election-related speech funded by corporations and unions that is independent of candidates' campaigns. Therefore "overturning" Citizens United entails stripping corporate-funded speech of First Amendment protection to the extent that such speech cannot have an undue influence on election outcomes.

[Ykcutnek]

4. I'll stick with Move to Amend. nt

[Nye Bevan]

7. Their proposed amendment would allow cops to raid Planned Parenthood clinics,

and the offices of Democratic Underground, and confiscate their stuff, for no reason at all. The Fourth Amendment search and seizure protections would be stripped from unions and nonprofits as well as corporations.

Why not just focus on speech when that is where the issue is? Why strip away other constitutional rights unnecessarily?

[bemildred]

9. No, just say that only natural-born persons have any political rights whatsoever. nt

[Nye Bevan]

10. By "political rights" do you mean "constitutional rights"?

Should a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas have any constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure?

Why strip nonprofits, unions and corporations of all constitutional protections when simply stripping corporations of First Amendment protection would effectively nullify the Citizens United decision?

[bemildred]

11. I mean the right to participate in politics.

I'd say "for-profit" too, to protect charitable organizations, but YOU KNOW the for-profit types will use that to weasel out of it. Basically, to participate in politics, you must be a natural-born person or a registered political organization. And most of all no "limited-liability" for political actors of any stripe. Politics is for people.

[Calista241]

12. I would prefer the amendment to state that elections should be publicly funded.

By saying you can't do this and you can't do that, you're inviting courts and everyone to interpret and create loopholes. Just a personal opinion, but clearly something needs to be done about the money in politics today.

[bemildred]

14. +1. And make it a holiday. If we can celebrate the 4th of July, we can celebrate voting. nt

[Nye Bevan]

16. An amendment stating "elections should be publicly funded" would not reverse Citizens United.

Elections being publicly funded would not preclude corporations from making and distributing movies that criticized election candidates (which is what the Citizens United case was about).

[meow2u3]

13. It doesn't go far enough

The amendment should also include the fact that corporations and other entities are property, not people.

[bemildred]

15. Yeah, I like that too. You'd think it was obvious. nt

[Nye Bevan]

17. Again, why strip away all of the constitutional protections of corporations,

when all that is needed to counteract Citizens United is to limit their First Amendment protections?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

19. So rights shouldn't extend to legal entities?

Trade unions?
Political action committees?

[meow2u3]

20. Personhood shouldn't extend to legal entities nt

[Algernon Moncrieff]

21. As long as it is applied equally, I don't have a problem with it.

However, when the union is stripped of political campainging power, I don't think anyone will be too happy.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

18. I'd support a Congress who would pass a law to that effect...

...and in conjunction with that, I'd support a President who would make clear either A) if the Supreme Court wishes to strike down the law, they are free to attempt to enforce it (see Jackson, Andrew) or B) inform the court that they strike the law at their peril, and if they do so, Congress and the Executive will have no other alternative but to add 10 more justices.

Amendments I would support:

1) The ERA
2) 24 year term limits on the SCOTUS
3) 18 year term limits on Congress Critters
4) 18 year term limits on Senators
5) Modification to the 2nd Amendment allowing for the regulation of firearms by the states to which these allegedly well regulated militias belong.
e.t.a.
6) The right to all American citizens to health care

If we are going to pass an amendment, I'd prefer one along the lines of:

Congress shall have the authority to set limits on the annual amount of contributions allowable to political campaigns from individual citizens, as well as individual legal entities. These limits must be equal for all candidates.

[Nye Bevan]

22. The issue with (A) is that there is nothing for the Supreme Court to enforce.

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums of money in independent expenditures to influence elections. Therefore, nobody is going to prevent corporations from engaging in such spending by (for example) distributing movies that are critical of election candidates. Any "enforcement" would need to be done by those wishing to prevent or limit such speech.

As for your last paragraph, there are already hard limits on campaign contributions from individuals, and campaign contributions from corporations are already illegal (this was not affected by Citizens United).

[Ampersand Unicode]

25. #5 doesn't go far enough. Get rid of the 2A

Humans are too barbaric to be given the right to own, let alone use, deadly weapons at their discretion. By "deadly weapons" I mean things which were designed primarily if not solely to kill and/or maim another creature (not just a human one -- hunting should be banned too as we have plenty of food supply and nobody needs to shoot Bambi or else they'll starve).

You leave regulation to the states and you'll have the same crazies running amok in the rural/Confederate states which would probably choose not to regulate at all. Ban them entirely and destroy the factories once and for all. You want to fight, fight "as god intended" and face the consequences if someone gets hurt. Only cowards shoot from far away.

[tritsofme]

23. How would this amendment not subject an LLC like DU or an entity such as Planned Parenthood

to speech restrictions?

[Nye Bevan]

24. It could.

With this amendment (and under all of the amendments that have been proposed to counter Citizens United), in theory, Congress could pass a law which would effectively muzzle both DU and Planned Parenthood in the six months prior to an election. The hope would be, of course, that Congress would not use their newly acquired powers in such a drastic fashion and instead would pass laws that provided for reasonable limits on political expenditures by corporations, with the limits being large enough that DU and Planned Parenthood would not be affected.

This is a potential issue in all countries that do not have a First Amendment (which means pretty much all countries other than the US, AFAIK). The British Parliament could pass a law banning all political websites (including DU) from operating during an election campaign, but the backlash that such a law would provoke would prevent them from doing this (one would hope).

[tritsofme]

26. I'm very wary of speech restrictions.

Especially writing it into the Constitution.

The ACLU typically opposes these sorts of amendments, and I don't think this would pass their muster either.

[bluestateguy]

27. No. Too vague and arbitrary

Why would you clamp down on speech right before an election when that is in fact when most people are paying attention?

I am all for corporations having the right to free speech, just not to pour untold millions into election campaigns based on a phony logic that spending money is speech.

"Insofar as it relates to freedom of speech, the First Amendment to this Constitution shall not apply to speech that ...(2) refers to candidates in Federal or State elections; "

What? So any speech I make that refers to a candidate for president is subject to the regulatory whims of the politicians? What could possibly go wrong?

[Nye Bevan]

28. This amendment would enable Congress to impose monetary limits on corporate speech,

which is currently not possible.

I'm not sure how one would codify the concept of "untold millions" into the amendment itself.