STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 23 January 2012

[Demeter]

23. Constitutional Amendment Not Needed: Congress Already Has a Remedy

SO, IT COMES DOWN TO THIS: IS IT EASIER TO REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION, OR TO ELECT A CORRUPTION-FREE CONGRESS THAT WILL DO ITS CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED JOB?

ON THE WHOLE, I PREFER TO HAVE THE RULES ON PAPER, INVIOLATE, RATHER THAN DEPEND ON VENAL, MORTAL MEN. THEN, AT LEAST, UNDER A RULE OF JUST LAWS, NOT CORRUPTIBLE MEN, WE HAVE A CHANCE OF JUSTICE.

http://www.truth-out.org/constitutional-amendment-not-needed-congress-already-has-remedy/1326484813

...Under our existing Constitution, Congress already has the power to stop the court from making any more of the decisions that have allowed the 1 percent to buy elections. Then Congress can pass legislation reversing the unconstitutional decisions the court has made to corrupt elections.

Here is the provision the founding fathers included:

The Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2).

Hence, under the Constitution, Congress has the power to remove Court jurisdiction over financing election campaigns. Removing Court jurisdiction means that the court would not even be able to take up cases involving financing of elections. Congress and state legislatures will then be free to pass laws removing private money from election campaigns. Thus, Congress already has power to curtail the court and the tyranny of private money in elections facilitated by the 5-4 majority of Supreme Court judges whose goal is to empower the 1 percent at the expense of the rest of us.

Separately, Congress also establishes and controls all "inferior courts" (Article III, Section 1).

It is not just the Constitution. As early as 1803, in a case called Marbury v. Madison, the case in which the Supreme Court established judicial review, the court also recognized that it must not decide questions that are "in their nature political." Regulating elections and their funding to prevent corruption is a quintessential political question. For 173 years, the courts followed this mandate and declined jurisdiction over such political questions.

Under Article I of the Constitution, it is Congress - not the court - that has the exclusive power to make or alter regulations regarding the "Manner" of holding elections. Under this Article I power, "in 1907 Congress passed the Tillman Act, prohibiting national banks and corporations from making contributions in federal elections. The Corrupt Practices Act, first enacted in 1910 and replaced by another law in 1925, extended federal regulation of campaign contributions and expenditures in federal elections and other acts have similarly provided other regulations." (Congressional Research Service Annotated Constitution.)

Under Article I, Congress also has the exclusive power to judge the elections of its members.

All this changed in 1976 when the court injected itself into election financing and overturned long-established law, deciding that corrupting money in politics is constitutionally protected speech. The court, not Congress, established as law that putting money in the pocket of a politician has the same protected status as speech by a citizen. Thus, the court allowed the 1 percent with money to drown out the speech of ordinary voters. In that decision and in 5-4 decisions since then, the Supreme Court also violated its own long-established precedent of keeping out of political questions so it could unleash special interest money in politics. By doing so, the court overstepped its judicial powers and intruded on Congress' legislative powers to regulate and judge elections. the court thus violated the separation of powers which is the most fundamental bulwark the Constitution provides raised against tyranny. The disenfranchisement of the 99 percent and auction of public policy to the 1 percent is the consequence of Congress' failure to maintain the separation of powers with respect to election integrity.

The decisions since 1976, including the 2010 Citizens United decision, addressed an increasing problem for the 1 percent. Faced with an aroused public, Congress had earlier passed vast amounts of progressive legislation, including the Clean Air Act, product safety and food safety laws, the EPA, the Clean Water act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, consumer protection laws and laws regulating campaign contributions and spending. One of the ways the 1 percent fought back to empower themselves and disempower the 99 percent was for pro-corporate presidents to nominate pro-corporate justices, who would make elections a commodity that corporations and wealthy individuals could finance and control.

By enabling the upper 1 percent to buy elections, the court put an end to rule of, by and for the people at the federal level and within most states. The court not only put a stop to progressive legislation, but they turned the government into an instrument to increase the wealth and power of the 1 percent. To its credit, Vermont has successfully resisted the power of money in several recent elections. But recent Supreme Court decisions allow an overwhelming flood of private interest money, even putting democracy in Vermont at risk.

Now is the time for we, the people; our towns; and our states to demand that Congress use its existing power to re-establish the bar on court jurisdiction over financing election campaigns, establishing public funding and removing private interest money from elections...

YES, BUT...IT ISN'T WORKING!

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