Summary
House Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, introduced the We the People Amendment to overturn Citizens United, aiming to curb corporate influence in elections.
The constitutional amendment asserts that constitutional rights apply only to individuals, not corporations, and mandates full disclosure of political contributions.
Jayapal cited Elon Musk’s massive campaign spending and subsequent financial gains as proof of the ruling’s harm.
Advocacy groups praised the move, calling it necessary to combat corporate power and dark money in politics, but Republicans have not backed the proposal.
That would have been useful and a great idea over a decade ago.
Now it’s just “let’s do this” and nothing will happen. Its too late.
I mean… that was literally one of the things that Hillary ran on. So… your timeline checks out.
As we’ve seen though, a woman cannot win against a racist sexist nazi shitbag in the united states.
Don’t at me (as the young people say), I voted for the woman.
Pretty much. I just always like to point these things out as there’s a nice bit of revisionism amongst the left on “We want this, why didn’t the dems give it to us” while people don’t show up and vote for them, then cry they didn’t show up because “Dems are as bad as republicans.” Which frankly is as bad as the right on their revisionism.
The 16 election was an attempt to take down Citizens United as well as bring up the Trans Pacific Partnership. The TPP was specifically trying to get the other Asian countries to lock out China in trade to reduce its power. But the right wingers thought “No we want to be hard on China” pulled out of it, and basically left China to look at all the other Asian countries who didn’t have a partnership with the US and bring them to heel.
Citizens United came about in 2010, during the Obama administration, and specifically that same year Republicans had gained majority in the House, creating a divided congress that meant no laws could get through, especially an anti-Citizens United bill. An executive order isn’t going to fix this one.
The Left falls into the same fallacy as the Right, they want a strong leader who can “solve all the problems.” Problem is the Right is really good at it because it’s really their authoritarian style. The part that pisses me off is the Right is also really good at showing up at the polls when they matter even if they hate the candidate, as long as it moves the needle one step over to their side while the Left keeps having a lot of voters be all or nothing.
Oh gee, another Dem exercise in futility. What a bunch of feckless losers.
“Guys the system isn’t broken, just one more big tweak and it’ll be fine again, pinky promise.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if they did shit like this when they were actually in power?
It would fail the vote either way, as a constitutional amendment requires a supermajority vote - and there has not been a supermajority in the Senate since 1979. Which was the last time the Democrats successfully put through an amendment, before anyone further complains they do nothing with power when they get it.
Depending on how jaded you are this is either a stunt, or the particular (left-leaning?) Democrats involved in tabling the legislation are trying to raise the issue their constituents have asked them to. Either way it’ll force the Republicans to show their hand and all vote against it.
Yeah it would have forced the republicans to show their hamd back when democrats did control most of the government too Maybe a bit more trying things that would ‘force the republicans to show their hand’ would have been useful when something actually could have been done about it. Everyone knows the republicans fucking hand now.
Everyone knew the Republicans ‘hands’ back before the federal election too - they haven’t suddenly switched their platform or policies. Nothing has changed. You make it sound like there was vaguery in the leadup?
Just a whole lotta rubes who voted for Republicans after listening to people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk are finally having the penny drop that they’ve been conned.
Gosh, if only someone had told them once or twice in the last decade that Donald Trump is a multiple-convicted world famous conman and fraud. Damn Democrats!
So why do this now? Doing it back when they had power would have been a lot more meaningful. Or actually doing literally anything to improve peoples lives. But doing it now is just an entirely empty gesture to try to win back peoples support that they dont deserve in any way.
Obama had a supermajority in 2008.
Do not waste time talking about a non-starter.
You need 290 votes in the House, you have (at most) 215. You need 75 Republicans to flip.
If, miracle of miracle, that happens, it goes to the Senate where you need 60 votes to end a filibuster, you have (at best) 47. You need 13 Republicans breaking rank to end cloture + 7 more to pass it.
Then it goes to the states for ratification, you need 38. In 2024 19 states went to Harris which means you need all of them +19 Trump states.
Yeahhh…
The thing is, at the very least this forces the Republicans (and for that matter Democrats) to pick a side on the issue.
Citizens United is extremely unpopular with the Republican base, as it is with the Democrat base. If a Republican voter sees that their Congress person voted to maintain citizens United, they might be upset.
The GOP will just lie and blame everything on “radical leftists”. Which don’t really exist in the US.
Some will. But if 1% of the right see this and either become demotivated or change sides, that is enough to swing entire elections.
This is one of the single biggest changes we can make to our current electoral system.
Should’ve done this in 2021. This could’ve changed the 2024 election entirely.
I’d argue rank choice is more important.
If you give people actual elections, it shouldn’t matter how much money is spent on campaigns
All someone needs is $1,000 for a good website. Lower the barrier to let them on the ballot and let people rank them, and you’ll solve the problem.
The fact that both parties have been so active in opposing ranked choice voting is proof that it would break their monopolies on power.
What did they do in 2021 instead?
Probably nothing else going on really. They’re just lazy and fat off corporate cash piles, obviously.
I’m surprised how quickly people forgot the very first bill the Democrats introduced in 2021 addressed this very topic. The Republicans in the senate killed it.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1
Passed House (03/03/2021) For the People Act of 2021
"This bill addresses voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance, and ethics for the three branches of government.
Specifically, the bill expands voter registration (e.g., automatic and same-day registration) and voting access (e.g., vote-by-mail and early voting). It also limits removing voters from voter rolls.
The bill requires states to establish independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting.
Additionally, the bill sets forth provisions related to election security, including sharing intelligence information with state election officials, supporting states in securing their election systems, developing a national strategy to protect U.S. democratic institutions, establishing in the legislative branch the National Commission to Protect United States Democratic Institutions, and other provisions to improve the cybersecurity of election systems.
Further, the bill addresses campaign finance, including by expanding the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals, requiring additional disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending, requiring additional disclaimers regarding certain political advertising, and establishing an alternative campaign funding system for certain federal offices.
The bill addresses ethics in all three branches of government, including by requiring a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, prohibiting Members of the House from serving on the board of a for-profit entity, and establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House.
The bill requires the President, the Vice President, and certain candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns."
Oh NOW Dems want to overturn Citizens United… When they have no more power! 💀🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Fucking useless.
