Pirate's Cove

In the US Senate, Democrats are planning a push for a Constitutional amendment to overrule the Citizens United case (via Hot Air)

(The Hill) Senate Democrats will schedule a vote this year on a constitutional amendment to reform campaign finance as they face tens of millions of dollars worth of attack ads from conservative groups.

The Senate will vote on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) that would overturn two recent court cases that have given corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals free rein to spend freely on federal races.

“The Supreme Court is trying to take this country back to the days of the robber barons, allowing dark money to flood our elections. That needs to stop, and it needs to stop now,” said Senate Rules Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who announced the plan.

“The only way to undo the damage the court has done is to pass Senator Udall’s amendment to the Constitution, and Senate Democrats are going to try to do that,” he said.

Schumer said the vote would take place by year’s end and called on Republican colleagues to join Democrats to ensure “the wealthy can’t drown out middle-class voices in our Democracy.”

Who wants to be that the vote comes right before the mid-term voting begins, in order to create a distraction issue? The whole thing is hilarious, the notion that rich Democrats who obtain huge amounts of funding from other rich Democrats have a problem with deep pocketed Democrats donating. What they have a problem with is Republicans receiving monetary backing from groups. Democrats will surely create a way for all the unions, trade groups, guilds, and other Dem leaning groups and corporations to fund Democrats.

This amendment would also violate the 1st Amendment, which begins “Congress shall pass no law…”, in regards to not just free speech, but protesting peaceably and redress of grievance. And possibly the religion and press portions, as well. I know, people are thinking “it’s not a law”. The Framers meant that Congress shall not pass anything, in either the Senate nor House.

Anyhow, while Dems are planning on pulling the above stunt

(Politico) A Democratic group with ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been quietly working to enforce the controversial Citizens United decision at the state level.

General Majority PAC, created last year by longtime Reid Senate chief of staff Susan McCue, has won legal challenges in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the past year to enforce the Supreme Court ruling permitting unlimited corporate and union spending.

The successful lawsuits essentially have created the equivalent of super PACs at the state level and are part of a larger transformation of election law in the past few years as the dizzying changes at the federal level eventually creep down into state election law.

So, while Dems state that they hate Citizens United, and Harry Reid rails against the Kock Brothers on a seemingly daily basis, they’re working hard to implement Citizens United at the State level.

Really, Democrats, despite the caterwauling, have fully embraced Citizens United and are doing all they can to get the sweet, sweet money, and get outside groups to attack Republicans. Obama whines about it, yet his own supposedly separate Organizing For Action group is exactly what Obama rails against. No one should be surprised in the least by Democrat hypocrisy.

Crossed at Right Wing News.