Written by Thomas Magstadt   

Save America! Amend the Constitution…

"To understand what’s happening since the Supreme Court let corporations corrupt American democracy, look at Richmond, California. Chevron owns a petroleum refinery in the small city on San Francisco Bay. Now Chevron wants to own City Hall. The oil company has spent at least $3 million to boost an oil-friendly slate of candidates and attack the mayor and city council members." This comment came in a blast email I received this past week from Move to Amend, the single-issue .org that is seeking to amend the Constitution in order to reverse the US Supreme Court's atrocious Citizens United decision.

It so happens that the Move to Amend email came two days after Jeff Clements spoke in Kansas City. As luck would have it, the event occurred on the same night in the same city as the 7th and deciding game of the World Series. Needless to say, it was no contest – and I'm not just talking about the pitching.

We didn't have tickets for the game, so we were among the small number who went to hear what Clements had to say. Good thing, too, 'cause he had (has) a lot to say – a lot every voter in America needs to hear.

Clements is the President and co-founder of Free Speech for People and author of Corporations Are Not People. He's an engaging speaker who is careful to avoid antagonizing listeners on either side of the liberal-conservative divide. The organization he heads is also – like Move to Amend – single-minded in its focus on the issue of money in politics.

Clements talked about the case of Richmond, California (population: 100,000), where Chevron has pumped big money (to repeat: several millions of dollars) into a fairly small town to get control of city hall. The Richmond example is a particularly good rhetorical tool because it illustrates how corporations do not only strive to manage elections and buy politicians at the national level but also have no scruples about doing so on the state and local level.

Some of the numbers Clements routinely recites in his talks are also pretty startling. Only about 3.7million people actually contribute to political campaigns – about 1.0% of the population. Since the Citizens United decision, some $25 billion has been spent on elections. Some 80% of all contributions came from just 0.5% of the population. A mere 32 SuperPacs donors – corporations and wealthy individuals – contributed as much as all the others combined. Of course, these numbers, as Clements is quick to point out, do not include millions of dollars in "dark money" that, by definition, cannot be traced.

The goal Move to Amend and Free Speech for People are trying to achieve is ambitious in the extreme, namely adoption of what would become the 28th Amendment. Here's how the proposed amendment reads:

Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.

Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2. [Money is Not Free Speech]

Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

Move to Amend and Free Speech for People are two among many public interest groups that have sprung up in recent years. The Internet has created possibilities for these organizations that did not exist before the advent of the IT revolution. At the same time, the corruption of our political system has created the greatest urgency for reform since the Gilded Age before World War I.

Clements is upbeat about eventual passage of the 28th Amendment, and he makes a good case. It won't happen next year or even in the next decade. But it will happen because it has to. It's the only way to stop the cancer that's killing our constitutional system, which, after all, is based on two fundamental intertwined principles: political equality and fair elections.

As Winston's Churchill's American-born mother was fond of saying, Americans always do the right thing…after they've exhausted all the other possibilities. Our corrupt politicians have exhausted all the other possibilities; now it's time for us – "we, the people" – to get to work and save our country.

Note: This article appeared at nationofchange.org on 11/03/2014.