The Senate will vote in 2014 on a constitutional amendment to undo Supreme Court rulings in recent years which invalidated campaign finance limits, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday.
The No. 3 Democratic senator made the announcement during a Senate Rules Committee hearing, saying his majority would hold a vote on Sen. Tom Udall’s (D-NM) proposal, which would reverse decisions like Citizens United and McCutcheon and restore Congress’s authority to set campaign finance limits.
“The Supreme Court is trying to take this country back to the days of the robber barons, allowing dark money to flood our elections,” Schumer said. “That needs to stop, and it needs to stop now. The only way to undo the damage the court has done is to pass Senator Udall’s amendment to the Constitution, and Senate Democrats are going to try to do that. Before the year is out, we’re going to bring it up on the Senate floor for a vote, where we hope Republicans will join us in ensuring the wealthy can’t drown out middle-class voices in our democracy.”
The proposal stands virtually no chance of gaining the two-thirds majority required in the House and Senate to amend the Constitution, much less being ratified by three-fourths of states. It is part of Democrats’ election-year strategy in 2014, given the unpopularity of the Citizens United ruling. Republicans are largely supportive of the Supreme Court’s decisions.
Former Justice John Paul Stevens, an outspoken critic of the Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings, testified at the hearing Wednesday. He retired from the Supreme Court in 2010.
This is something that needs to be done, futile though it may be. It will show all those Tea Partiers what kind of Senate representation they get and who their Senators REALLY work for!
I get the point he’s trying to make. But I’ll be honest…I’m not in favor of empty Constitutional Amendment legislation that just waste people’s time…that’s a space the RWNJs have carved out for themselves…no need for the D’s to join them. There is zero chance at this time of the country coming together enough to pass any amendment, let alone one as complex as this will likely end up being. I’d say save this for when/if the lunacy ever starts to die down.
That’s a fair point, but this is a conversation that needs to be had, and there’s only one way to start it.
It really doesn’t matter if such an amendment passes. It doesn’t matter if it DOESN’T pass. What MATTERS is that we get to beat the Republicans over the head with it again and again.
No less futile than voting down ACA 50 times.