Campaign finance reform amendment

A campaign finance reform amendment refers to any proposed amendment to the United States Constitution to authorize greater restrictions on spending related to political speech, and to overturn Supreme Court rulings which have narrowed such laws under the First Amendment. Several amendments have been filed since Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and the Occupy movement.

History In response to the Occupy Wall Street protests and the worldwide Occupy movement calling for U.S. campaign finance reform eliminating corporate influence in politics, among other reforms, Representative Ted Deutch introduced the "Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy" (OCCUPIED) constitutional amendment on November 18, 2011.Deutch, T. (November 18, 2011) "H.J. Res. 90" bill text , 112th Congress (2011–2012) THOMAS.loc.govTed Deutch for Congress Committee (November 18, 2011) "About the OCCUPIED Amendment" theoccupiedamendment.org The OCCUPIED amendment would outlaw the use of for-profit corporation money in U.S. election campaigns and give Congress and states the authority to create a public campaign finance system.Khimm, S. (November 18, 2011) "House Democrat: Occupy the Constitution!" Washington Post Unions and nonprofit organizations will still be able to contribute to campaigns.Portero, A. (November 22, 2011) "House Democrat Introduces OCCUPIED Constitutional Amendment to Ban Corporate Money in Politics" International Business Times On November 1, 2011, Senator Tom Udall also introduced a constitutional amendment in Congress to reform campaign finance which would allow Congress and state legislatures to establish public campaign finance.Udall, T. (November 1, 2011) "A Constitutional Amendment to Reform Campaign Finance" 112th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: United States Senate) Two other constitutional campaign finance reform amendments were introduced in Congress in November, 2011.Carney, E.N. (November 29, 2011) "Advocacy Groups Seek to Curb Corporations" Roll Call Similar amendments have been advanced by Dylan Ratigan,Ratigan, D. (2011) "It's Time to GET MONEY OUT of politics" GetMoneyOut.com Karl Auerbach,Auerbach, K. (2011) "Proposed Amendment to the United States Constitution To Redress the Increasing Distortion of Elections and Political Speech by Corporations and Other Aggregate Forms" cavebear.com/amendment Cenk Uygur through Wolf PAC,Blumenthal, P. (October 20, 2011) "Cenk Uygur Launches New Effort To Separate Money And Politics" Huffington Post and other political organizations, such as Move to Amend and American Promise.Public Citizen (January 21, 2011) "One Year Later, Movement Is Growing to Overturn Citizens United" Citizen.orgShane, P.M. (October 11, 2011) "Occupy the Constitution" Huffington Post

Harvard law professor and Creative Commons board member Lawrence Lessig had called for a constitutional convention"The Movement to Organize the Call for a Convention" CallAConvention.org in a September 24–25, 2011 conference co-chaired by the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator,Conference on the Constitutional Convention, Harvard University, September 24–25, 2011 in Lessig's October 5 book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It,Lessig, L. (2011) Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It (New York City: Hachette/Twelve) excerpt and at the Occupy protest in Washington, D.C.Tackett, C. (October 19, 2011) "Could #OccupyWallStreet Become a Constitutional Convention?" Discovery / TreeHugger.com Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections,Froomkin, D. (October 5, 2011) "Lawrence Lessig's New Book On Political Corruption Offers Protesters A Possible Manifesto" Huffington Post and Lessig provides credibility to the movement.Oremus, W. (October 5, 2011) "Academics Help Wall Street Protests Gain Credibility" Slate Lessig's initial constitutional amendment would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.Hill, A. (October 4, 2011) "Campaign finance, lobbying major roadblocks to effective government" Marketplace Morning Report (American Public Media) Lessig's web site convention.idea.informer.com allows anyone to propose and vote on constitutional amendments.Lessig, L. (2011) "Propose Amendments to the Constitution" convention.idea.informer.com On October 15, the Occupy Wall Street Demands Working Group, published the 99 Percent DeclarationNew York City General Assembly Demands Working Group (October 15, 2011) "The 99 Percent Declaration." Retrieved October 20, 2011. of demands, goals, and solutions, including a call to amend the U.S. Constitution to reform campaign finance.Duda, C. (October 19, 2011) "Occupy Wall Street Protesters Call for National General Assembly, Put Forward Possible Demands" Juvenile Justice Information ExchangeLopez, L. (October 19, 2011) "Finally! The Protesters Have Drafted A Set Of Demands For The Jobs Crisis" Business InsiderHaack, D. (October 24, 2011) "How the Occupy movement won me over" The Guardian Occupy movement protesters have joined the call for a constitutional amendment.Manning, B. (October 21, 2011) "Lynch Shares Views on 'Occupy' Movement" Needham, Mass. PatchCrugnale, J. (October 14, 2011) "Russell Simmons: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Want Constitutional Amendment" MediaiteNiose, D. (October 13, 2011) "What the Occupy Wall Street Protesters Want – Constitutional amendment on corporations is a starting point" Psychology TodayMcCabe, J. (October 21, 2011) "Dear Occupy Wall Street: 'Move to Amend' (the Constitution)" NewsTimes.com

Background

While Citizens United is the Supreme Court case most cited by advocates for a campaign finance reform amendment, the underlying precedent for extending constitutional rights to corporations under the doctrine of corporate personhood is rooted in more than a century of Supreme Court decisions dating back to the 19th century. The debate of "corporate constitutional rights" can be parsed into the legal definitions of corporation and personhood, the latter term being controversial in regards to the philosophical debate over where human personhood begins and the legal debate over where legal personhood ends. Under US law, corporations are extended at least some legal rights and responsibilities as natural persons, such as the right to enter into contracts and to sue or be sued. However, the framers of the US Constitution had originally reserved constitutional protections for individual citizens and had not intended such protections to be inherent or inalienable for their organizations incorporated under law.

The first time the Supreme Court entertained the idea of corporations having constitutional rights was in 1886's Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, when Chief Justice Morrison Waite began oral arguments by stating, "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." While the Chief Justice Waite's statement in Santa Clara County was inserted in the headnote, which was not part of the Court's opinion and not considered precedent, the doctrine was clearly affirmed in subsequent cases in Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania (1888) and Minneapolis and Saint Louis Railway v. Beckwith (1889).

In the 307 Fourteenth Amendment cases heard by the Supreme Court in the years following Santa Clara County, 288 cases involved corporations compared to 19 cases involving African Americans, its intended recipients. The Court reaffirmed its Santa Clara County precedent in the landmark case Lochner v. New York (1905), which expanded corporate deregulation under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. A year later, the Court extended corporate personhood to include search and seizure protections under the Fourth Amendment in Hale v. Henkel (1906), from which dissenting Justice John Marshall Harlan stated, "to look into the books, records and papers of a corporation of its own creation, to ascertain whether that corporation has obeyed or is defying the law, will be greatly curtailed, if not destroyed." The Court later deemed in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922) that a regulation by state government is a form of takings and ruled that corporations are protected from "private lands being taken for public use without just compensation" and therefore entitled to compensation for lost profit under the Fifth Amendment. During this period known as the Lochner era, the Court cited the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause in halting over 200 regulations intended for corporations. Despite the Court's recognition of corporate personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause would not be applied to women until the case Reed v. Reed (1971).

In the case of Citizens United, the extension of corporate personhood to include free speech rights was premised on the First Amendment's Freedom of the Press Clause, which protects associations of individuals, including individual speakers. The Court ruled that Corporations (as associations of individuals) are entitled to free speech rights because the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Furthermore, the Court extended its precedents set in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), which asserted corporate spending to political candidates and parties is the equivalent of free speech, and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978), which established that non-media business corporations can give unrestricted money to "influence or affect" voter opinions in state political referendums.

Proposed amendments 1. People's Rights Amendment (2011) On November 15, 2011, Representative James P. McGovern introduced the People's Rights Amendment, a proposal to limit the Constitution's protections only to the rights of natural persons, and not corporations. This amendment would overturn the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.112th Congress, 2. Saving American Democracy Amendment (2011) The Saving American Democracy Amendment is a United States constitutional amendment proposed in December 2011 by Senators Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) "to expressly exclude for-profit corporations from the rights given to natural persons by the Constitution of the United States, prohibit corporate spending in all elections, and affirm the authority of Congress and the States to regulate corporations and to regulate and set limits on all election contributions and expenditures."112th Congress, S.J.Res.33 The Saving American Democracy Amendment was meant to overturn the 2010 United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which stated that freedom of speech prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by for-profit and nonprofit corporations.Saving American Democracy Amendment. 8 Dec 2011. Sanders Senate web site This was the first constitutional amendment proposed by Sanders in his two decades in Congress. The text of the amendment reads as follows: