We Can Do This, America. Seven Steps to Reversing ‘Citizens United.’ [View all]

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BY DEREK CRESSMAN

The first stage in repairing our Constitution from the damage of Buckley and Citizens United is for the American people to rouse ourselves out of the slumber of normal politics and enter a phase of extraordinary political engagement. Once we have corrected the structural flaws big money has wrought, we’ll be able to get back to our private lives.

This first step — raising awareness — is the most time-consuming part of the amendment process. Thankfully, we are fairly well into this stage. Due in part to campaign disclosure laws, the media’s muckraking, and follow-the-money groups that regularly churn out data linking campaign donations to particular issues, the American public is thoroughly aware that big money in politics is a problem. That awareness has bred disgust and cynicism, but it is only now reaching a point of anger and action.

What has been missing over the past 40 years was an understanding that the US Supreme Court intentionally created this problem — and that there is a solution to that problem, namely reversing the Court with a constitutional amendment.

Next Steps

Before it succeeds, the amendment movement will enter a stage where it finds majority support in both houses of Congress but not the two-thirds necessary to send an amendment to the states to ratify. It has already reached that stage in the US Senate. This stage will be similar to the 1890–1911 period during the movement to win direct election of senators, when there was supermajority support among the public and two-thirds support in the House but not in the Senate. Here are seven steps reformers could take to convert supermajority public support into sufficient legislative support.

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http://billmoyers.com/story/we-can-do-this-america-seven-steps-to-reversing-citizens-united/