Senators want constitutional amendment to override Citizens United
by Nat Rudarakanchana | May 9, 2013
A group of state senators has called for a constitutional convention to reverse the “corrupting influence of money in our political system” wrought by a U.S. Supreme Court decision on campaign finance.
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, alongside other lawmakers, unveiled a Senate resolution at a Thursday news conference, requesting that a national convention of state legislatures nullify the January 2010 Citizens United decision by amending the U.S. Constitution.
That decision overturned a longtime ban on corporate and union spending in elections, and eventually gave rise to Super PACs, controversial political groups who featured prominently in national and local elections in 2012.
“I take this process very seriously and would almost never find an occasion to endorse a constitutional amendment,” said Sen. Bob Hartwell, D-Bennington, a senator who backed the resolution at a Thursday news conference.
“But the influence of Citizens United is so corrosive and so confusing,” he said. “If the courts can’t figure it out, then the rest of the American people have to figure it out through their representatives.”
If Lyons’ resolution is to have any effect, two thirds of state legislatures, or 34 such bodies, must vote for that convention. After that, three-quarters of U.S. states would need to ratify any proposed constitutional amendments.
An Article V convention, so-called because it’s activated under the Article V of the Constitution, has never been called in American history, though it has been attempted several times.
Vermont is competing with Texas to be the first state to call for this convention, said Jay Ells, a spokesman for Wolf PAC, a grassroots group lobbying for the convention.
Senators on Thursday said Vermont needed to pursue whatever means, including a potential lawsuit over a $5,000 cap on Super PAC donations, to fight excessive corporate political spending.
But Sen. Peter Galbraith, D-Windham, compared demanding such a convention to ‘“playing Russian Roulette with our basic freedoms.”
“Once that convention’s held, it can do anything else it wants to do,” said Galbraith, who warned that other states, especially conservative ones, could interfere at that convention with religious freedoms, abortion rights or free speech.
Galbraith called it “absolutely” the wrong way to deal with Citizens United. Instead, he pointed to the recent failure of the Senate to ban direct corporate donations as an obvious missed opportunity.
“There is of course the laugh factor,” Galbraith said. Although lawmakers say they want to end corporate influence in politics, their actions say: “Please, as politicians, don’t take away our corporate contributions,” Galbraith said.
“It’d be nice if instead of focusing on things that are far away, we would try and fix the problem at home,” he said.
The House and the Senate must both approve the resolution, which now sits in the Senate Judiciary committee. Lyons told reporters that the resolution won’t be a live political item until next year.
http://vtdigger.org/2013/05/09/senators-want-constitutional-amendment-to-override-citizens-united/
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