To the Editor:
January 21 is the fourteenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on U.S. elections.
Wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups’ influence in elections has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.
For over more than a hundred years, Supreme Court rulings have expanded the definition of “person” to include fictional legal “persons” like corporations and organizations. Large corporations, organizations and the ultra-rich, no longer need to deal with regulators as they make unlimited campaign contributions making elections easier to buy. The Supreme Court has made this legal, moving against the common person by voting to give corporations the same rights as people, and money the rights of free speech.
Total election spending was $14.4 billion in 2020, up from $5.3 billion in 2008, according to Open Secrets.
We need to turn back these Supreme Court rulings by supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would abolish corporate personhood and overturn the absurd ruling that political spending is the equivalent of free speech.
The “We the People Amendment”, correcting this undemocratic situation, has been introduced in Congress.
My Representative Daniel Webster is not yet a co-sponsor of the Amendment [House Joint Resolution 54]. I am asking him to sign on as a co-sponsor and I hope you will ask him also.
Find out if your representative is co-sponsoring HJR 54, see www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-joint-resolution/54/cosponsors More information on www.MoveToAmend.org.
Carol Lizotte
Village of Monarch Grove
