{"id":9525,"date":"2012-09-02T18:42:24","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T01:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=9525"},"modified":"2012-09-05T17:32:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T00:32:27","slug":"obama-calls-for-constitutional-amendment-process-to-overturn-citizens-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/?p=9525","title":{"rendered":"Obama Calls for ‘Constitutional Amendment Process to Overturn Citizens United’"},"content":{"rendered":"
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?<\/p>\n
President Obama, during his surprise Reddit chat last Wednesday, jumps into the Citizens United<\/i> fray.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United<\/em> (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it),” President Barack Obama wrote<\/a> last week during a surprise public Reddit chat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Consider mobilizing?” Groups like Move to Amend<\/a> and Public Citizen<\/a> initiated that mobilization shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s radical-right quintet handed down that infamous decision<\/a> in 2010. By July of this year, California had become the sixth state<\/a> to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen’s United<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it?” The Court had an opportunity to revisit Citizens United<\/em> earlier this year, or at least to limit its impact to federal elections. Instead, the same radical-right quintet expanded<\/a> the reach of that democracy destroying decision by overturning a Montana Supreme Court decision which had sought to uphold a century old, state anti-corruption law.<\/p>\n

While the President’s remarks will no doubt be welcomed by the already-mobilized movement, one should not lose sight of the fact that they fall far short of an endorsement of either Vermont’s proposed constitutional amendment<\/a> or the measure introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)<\/a> in the U.S. Senate. Both efforts call for the end to “corporate personhood” and a determination that money does not equal free speech under the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

If the President truly desires to spotlight what amounts to a hostile corporate takeover of our democracy, he will confront Mitt “corporations are people, my friend” Romney in the upcoming Presidential debates with an openly stated support for a constitutional amendment that, as the Sanders measure provides, establishes that the “rights protected by the Constitution…are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability companies, or other private entities established for business purposes.” Indeed, that position could frame the issue for all candidates seeking public office in the 2012 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER? President Obama, during his surprise Reddit chat last Wednesday, jumps into the Citizens United fray. “I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it),” President Barack Obama wrote last week during a surprise public Reddit chat. “Consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[494,400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bernie-sanders","category-election-2012"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbnewdb.webbyspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}