If Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has her way, the government will be able to regulate certain political speech.
On Thursday, she "endorsed a movement announced by other congressional Democrats on Wednesday to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged in by corporations as opposed to individuals," CNS News reported.
CNS added:
The constitutional amendment the Democrats seek would reverse the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In that decision the court said that the First Amendment protects a right of free speech for corporations as well as for individuals, and that corporations (including those that produce newspapers, films and books) have a right to speak about politicians and their records just as individuals do.
But Pelosi and other Democrats believe that corporations do not have the same rights as individuals.
The move is part of a three-pronged attack that includes promoting the DISCLOSE Act, a measure designed to increase disclosure requirements for organizations running political ads, and "reducing the role of money in campaigns."
"We have a clear agenda in this regard: Disclose, reform the system reducing the role of money in campaigns, and amend the Constitution to rid it of this ability for special interests to use secret, unlimited, huge amounts of money flowing to campaigns," she said Thursday.
According to Pelosi, a speaker at a Democratic forum held Wednesday, "said that the Supreme Court had unleashed a predator that was oozing slime into the political system, and that, indeed," she added, "is not an exaggeration."
"Our Founders had an idea," she said. "It was called democracy. It said elections are determined by the people, the voice and the vote of the people, not by the bankrolls of the privileged few. This Supreme Court decision flies in the face of our Founders' vision and we want to reverse it."
According to CNS News:
At Wednesday's forum, a number of House and Senate Democrats were joined by representatives from People for the American Way and Common Cause in declaring their dedication to enacting a constitutional amendment to restrict speech by corporations.
The participants noted that several members in both houses of Congress have offered various versions of an amendment to reverse Citizen United v. FEC and curb unwanted speech by corporations. Rep. Jim McGovern (D.-Mass.) is one of the members sponsoring an amendment.
McGovern told the group he introduced something called the "People's Rights Amendment," which he said "would make clear that all corporate entities, for-profit and non-profit alike, are not people with constitutional rights."
The proposed amendment, according to freespeechforpeople.org reads:
Section 1. We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons.
Section 2. People, person, or persons as used in this Constitution does not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state, and such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected state and federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.
Section 3. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people's rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.
"It treats all corporations, including incorporated unions and nonprofits, in the same way, as artificial creatures of the state that we, the people, govern, not the other way around," he said.
Rep Donna Edwards (D-MD) said the proposed amendment would not impact individual speech, but said that any speech by corporations - even campaign committes - could be regulated by Congress.
"But what it would do is it would say, all of the speech in which, whether it's corporations or campaign committees and others engage in, would be able to be fully regulated under the authority of the Congress and--and under our Constitution," she said.
