2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary Clinton Pledges Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Citizens United In Her First 30 Days
Hillary Clinton Pledges Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Citizens United In Her First 30 Daysby Sam Levine at the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-citizens-united_us_578a42cfe4b08608d334c7bd?section=
"SNIP..............
Hillary Clinton announced on Saturday that she would introduce a constitutional amendment within the first 30 days of her presidency to overturn the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision, which paved the way for unlimited corporate, union and individual spending on elections.
Clinton unveiled her plan in a video at Netroots, an annual progressive gathering taking place this year in St. Louis.
Clinton has also pledged to issue an executive order to require government contractors to disclose campaign contributions, and has said she would push the Securities and Exchange Commission to require all publicly traded companies to disclose political contributions to their stockholders.
As The Huffington Posts Paul Blumenthal noted in September, campaign finance reform is notoriously difficult to pass, since politicians are loath to support anything that makes it more difficult for them to win elections. An amendment must be approved by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate and then ratified by three-quarters of the states.
...............SNIP"
applegrove
(118,965 posts)don't have to vote GOP. If you think there is too much money in politics, you can vote against it.This is your election."
rock
(13,218 posts)They are extremely difficult to orchestrate and I believe they are prone to tons of proposed riders.
TheFarseer
(9,328 posts)The full text of amendments are short and only deal with that specific subject. There's no way they will be full of pork or have something about gay marriage or anything like that!
rock
(13,218 posts)they have been heavily modified (not counting the Bill of Rights). At least that's what I thought I heard (I'm certainly not an expert).
Ms. Yertle
(466 posts)The states will still have to ratify. How long will that take?
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Hope I am wrong.
nolawarlock
(1,729 posts)NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)XemaSab
(60,212 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)And absent the court issuing a reversing decision it's the only way to make the
previous decision moot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Can it not be overturned?
Amimnoch
(4,558 posts)The numbers are not their for a constitutional amendment. Even looking at Nov 2016 elections in the most optimistic goggles available there numbers are still short.
Get the Scalia seat filled with another Ginsburg/Breyer/Kegan/Sotomayor type, and review, or challenge again and viola.. It's gone.
Much easier route, and much more likely scenario.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)The Supreme Court can overrule itself. This happens when a different case involving the same constitutional issues as an earlier case is reviewed by the court and seen in a new light, typically because of changing social and political situations. The longer the amount of time between the cases, the more likely this is to occur. With a Dem appointed majority on the SCOTUS and a well thought out challenge to Citizens United, it could hit the SCOTUS in a couple of years. The challenge could be initiated pretty much anywhere in the country. All that would be needed is a complaint that the person filing the challenge has been harmed by the previous decision. Hell, pretty much anybody could make that claim.
This could happen rather quickly and most certainly a hell of a lot quicker than a Constitutional Amendment.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)instead of an amendment. But, props for the effort, Ms. Clinton.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)vi5
(13,305 posts)I know this is just campaign season red meat, and unlikely to happen but I'm glad she's at least throwing the right stuff out there. It means she's recognizing who she needs to be courting, and it's definitely not the corporate wing of the Democratic party.
More of this, definitely.
cloudbase
(5,532 posts)She knows it, so it's an empty promise.
They're too addicted to the money.
ashtonelijah
(340 posts)Then Citizens United is dead anyway. But some so called progressives are too blind to see it.
enough
(13,273 posts)The amendment process takes many years, and the President does not control it.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)except tick the "I oppose Citizens United" box. Of course, since I (along with the ACLU) support the Citizens United decision, I see that as a feature, not a bug.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)JRLeft
(7,010 posts)DemonGoddess
(4,640 posts)that she wants this decision gone is no surprise to me at all. After all, the decision which made corporations "people" and allowed that kind of money INTO politics was about her to begin with.