Every time I see folks promoting a constitutional amendment to fix something...

[Jim Lane]

18. Forget the amendment and act directly on the Supreme Court.

Citizens United was a 5-4 decision, so all it takes is one good appointment and we're there. (In practice, it will probably take more than one, because the odds are that the next retirement or death will be one of the 4. Nevertheless, the point is that we're pretty close.)

You write:

Ideally President Obama would nominate two or three scholars to the bench and CU would be cut out like the cancer it is. Unfortunately, Citizens United is going to be the new Roe-Vs-Wade and any new justice will have to pass the litmus test of leaving CU alone if he/she hopes to have any chance of confirmation.

To approve a Supreme Court justice who'll vote to overrule Citizens United, we need 60 Senators to break the filibuster. What else do we need for each path?

(1) Supreme Court - We also need to have a President who'll make a good nomination. This might well turn into something of a litmus test on our side.

(2) Constitutional amendment - We don't need the President (who plays no formal role in the process), but we need an additional seven Senators to get to 2/3, plus 2/3 of the House, plus 3/4 of the states.

IMO, it's clearly wrong to write off the approach of getting the Supreme Court to change its mind, because of the practical difficulties, but then embrace the Constitutional amendment.