The media today is filled with “news” about the President’s impeachment and preordained acquittal, and the ever ongoing election campaigns. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear much coverage of other truly important events. One of the most (if not the most) important events is the introduction of two bills in both houses of Congress1 that propose to amend the U.S. Constitution. The proposed amendment will overturn the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United that opened the floodgates for corporations and big spenders to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. Tomorrow, 6 January 2020, HJ 2 will get its first hearing in the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.
The proposed amendment is a short, simple and easy to read document that should be on everyone’s reading list. A copy is provided here.
The proposed amendment falls short of what I would like to see, but it’s a good start that has the potential of curbing the outright purchase of our government by the highest bidder. A stronger amendment would have specifically stated that the Constitution and its Bill of Rights pertain exclusively to natural persons and excludes corporations and other entities created by law2.
I strongly urge everyone to write to their members of Congress and insist that they support the proposed amendment or a stronger version of it.
1 HJ 2 in the House and SJ ___ (yet to be numbered) in the Senate.
2 That includes political parties.