Goodwin And Clements: Supreme Court Egregiously Wrong, Time To End Citizens United

When the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling emerged in 2010, once I understood it, the next words out of my mouth suggested a course of action that was impolite, illegal, immoral, probably painful, possibly anatomically impossible and... worst of all... completely ineffective.

So I didn't follow my own advice. From that day to this, I have contemplated a simple question: what is the least draconian action that will accomplish a reversal of Citizens United's utter gutting of campaign finance reform laws in America and in each state?

The Roberts Citizens United Amendment

Today I reached a tipping point when I read an article by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and attorney Jeff Clements (found via the indispensable Bill Moyers) titled "When the Supreme Court is this wrong, it’s time to overrule them". Yes, they are indeed "this wrong," and the only way to overrule them... it appears John Roberts did his homework... is with a constitutional amendment.

I am no fan of new constitutional amendments in general. The only one I've ever (sigh!) actively supported is the Equal Rights Amendment, and it was killed by the goddamn conservatives, so my blessing on an amendment may well be a kind of curse.

There are at least three significant points weighing against a constitutional amendment:

• First, someone may use one essential amendment (such as this one) as an excuse to call another constitutional convention, which would open the floor to every motherloving nutjob's wet dream of wholly destructive rewrites of large portions of the Constitution. 
• Second, assuming the debate can be confined to the single required amendment (not easy in America's legislative system), the amendment as ultimately crafted may be ineffectual in remedying the real problem. I've seen some of the proposed campaign finance reform amendments; frankly, I could probably write a better one than most I've seen, and IANAL. Note also what at least one of our major political parties has managed to do already to skirt existing campaign finance laws; they're damned good at it, and I doubt the ratification of an amendment will stop their attempts.
• Third, the amendment may fail to be ratified, again a very real possibility given that at least one and perhaps both of our major political parties will surely oppose it. If it fails, Citizens United will be affirmed, locked in, as you can only imagine in your worst nightmares. As things stand, there's at least some hope that a future Court will overturn the ruling, though I doubt that, under a government of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%.

That said, I see no alternative: America must attempt a campaign finance reform amendment. As Goodwin and Clements point out, it's not the first time in our history that a constitutional amendment has addressed a divisive issue that could be solved by nothing less than such an amendment... remember the 19^th, for example?

So... put me on record as supporting a well-crafted campaign finance reform constitutional amendment. I'll get back to you on specifics... (sigh!).

Greg Abbott Receiving Campaign Money From... You Guessed It... The Koch Family

Wayne Slater of Dallas Morning News has the story:

AUSTIN — Five months after an ammonium nitrate explosion that killed 15 people in West, Attorney General Greg Abbott received a $25,000 contribution from a first-time donor to his political campaigns — the head of Koch Industries’ fertilizer division.

The donor, Chase Koch, is the son of one of the billionaire brothers atop Koch Industries’ politically influential business empire.

Abbott, who has since been criticized for allowing Texas chemical facilities to keep secret the contents of their plants, received more than $75,000 from Koch interests after the April 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. storage and distribution facility, campaign finance records filed with the state showed.

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Is it true, Texas has the best politicians money... and more money, and still more money... can buy? That sounds like a pile of, er, explosive fertilizer to me!

We do have a clear choice: Texans: elect Wendy Davis, for the good of your state.

Or else, meet our new owners:

Supreme Court Rules 5-4 In McCutcheon v. FEC In Favor of GOP Golden Rule: "Who Has The Gold, Makes The Rules," Or "One Buck, One Vote"

Please read these two articles by Sahil Kapur at TPM:

• Supreme Court Deals Another Blow To Campaign Finance Limits
• Blistering Dissent: SCOTUS Ruling 'Devastates' Campaign Finance Laws

You can read the particulars and quotes from the sententious majority decision and the outraged minority dissent better in Kapur's summaries than I could explain them to you, but the short version is this: our days as a representative democracy are numbered, if indeed we ever had any such days in reality, and congressional seats, not to mention the presidency, effectively go to the highest bidder from now on. The Supreme Court, while retaining individual limits per campaign, proclaimed aggregate limits contrary to the First Amendment and removed them, so that the few remaining scraps of campaign finance regulation left after the ruling in Citizens United are now gone.

It was fun while it lasted. But America now faces a challenge to its founding principles not less than the one posed by the Civil War, reconstruction, two world wars and the Great Depression. Will we overcome these threats to democracy? We can, but only by facing down the meanest, coldest rich-assed sumbitches that ever lived here and fighting them on their own turf, by their own rules.

Have a nice day!

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ADDENDUM: CREDO Action provides Mr. Justice Scalia with a new robe in honor of the occasion:

Young People Turning Dem? (Yawn...)

According to Catherine Thompson at TPM,

...

A Gallup poll released Friday found that over the last eight years the average gap in favor of the Democratic Party among young adults has been 18 percentage points. Last year 53 percent of young Americans identified with the Democratic Party or said they leaned Democratic while 35 percent aligned themselves with the Republican Party, Gallup said.

The poll cites the racial and ethnic diversity of today's young adults as a major reason youth are likely to prefer the Democratic Party.

...

A decade or two ago such news would have filled me with hope for America's future. Today? not so much. What, if anything, gives you hope? Today, as an American, nothing political gives me any hope. What can possibly overcome the corporate contributions to both parties, which, according to OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics), turned approximately equal, Dem=GOP, in 2008 and more to Democrats, Dem>GOP, in 2010?

And it isn't going to get any better, unless somehow the Citizens United decision is overturned by constitutional amendment, an event I do not foresee within my lifetime, if ever.

Have a nice day!