Last month, on the fifteenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, Move to Amend issued a call for an intensive congressional and grassroots effort to pass a constitutional amendment to end corporate constitutional rights and the doctrine that money spent in elections equals free speech.
The group, a national coalition of hundreds of endorsing organizations and over one half-million supporters, was launched on January 21, 2010, the same day that the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United v FEC decision that expanded the constitutional rights of corporations and wealthy individuals to spend money to influence elections.
The ruling has resulted in an unprecedented flood of special interest money from corporate entities and the ultra-wealthy into political campaigns, fundamentally altering the landscape of U.S. elections and politics.
Move to Amend has worked since its inception to pass the We the People Amendment, a constitutional amendment to not simply overturn Citizens United, but also to reverse the scores of Supreme Court rulings that affirmed that a corporation is a legal person and that money spent in political elections is equivalent to free speech under the First Amendment.
Move to Amend’s Greg Coleridge says that it’s a myth that corporate personhood and money as free speech began with Citizens United.
The Supreme Court decision of “money equals free speech” predates Citizens United by more than four decades – with the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision – and “corporate constitutional rights” – with the 1886 Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision – by more than a century.
“There was no democratic paradise before Citizens United,” Coleridge said. “Think of the failed efforts to hold banking corporations accountable for making risky loans and misrepresenting the quality of loans that led to the 2007-09 great recession, the ongoing decades-long failure to convert to renewable energy sources to ensure a livable world in the face of political pressure from fossil fuel corporations, and the never-ending quest to counter the power of insurance corporations opposed to creating an affordable, comprehensive and universal health care system. Corporations and the super rich had much greater political power than the average person prior to 2010. Citizens United only reduced some of the legal hurdles for the super wealthy and corporate entities to gain greater political influence.”
Coleridge says that while Citizens United expanded only one corporate constitutional right – the corporate constitutional right to spend/invest money in elections – there are numerous other never-intended Court-granted rights that continue to threaten the health, safety, welfare and self-rule of people and communities.
These include the First Amendment right not to speak, Fourth Amendment search and seizure, Fifth Amendment takings and Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection rights.
These corporate constitutional rights would remain untouched if only Citizens United is reversed. It’s why Move to Amend works to enact the We the People Amendment.
To commemorate the Citizens United anniversary and underscore the fact that its reversal is insufficient to create anything approaching an authentic democracy, local Move to Amend supporters will visit congressional offices around the country to speak with local staff and to deliver a letter urging the their congressional representative to become an original co-sponsor of the We the People Amendment when it is reintroduced in the current Congress by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) in the near future.
Last year, Jayapal’s bill had 90 sponsors in the House of Representatives.
The We the People Amendment differs in one significant way from other amendments being pushed by mainstream public interest groups to overturn i
For example, the group American Promise is pushing the For Our Freedom amendment.
While it overturns Citizens United, when it comes to corporate personhood, the amendment reads that “Congress and the States shall have the power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation and may distinguish between natural persons and artificial entities.”
May distinguish, not shall distinguish. The We the People amendment reads in relevant part:
“The rights and privileges protected and extended by the Constitution of the United States are the rights and privileges of natural persons only. An artificial entity, such as a corporation, limited liability company, or other entity, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under the Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law. The privileges of an artificial entity shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.”
“The difference between that amendment and ours is the word ‘may,’” Coleridge told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “The We the People amendment uses the word “shall.” When Congress shall do something, that is definitive. The word ‘may’ may mean – may not. It’s a significant loophole.”
“If we are going to go through this effort of getting a Constitutional amendment, we think it should be worth the considerable effort and make it as far reaching in addressing not just citizen united but the two rulings that underlie it – the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo, which held that money is free speech. If you reverse Citizens United, Buckley still stands and money is still free speech.”
“The other was the decision in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, which granted corporations all kinds of Constitutional prfotections. That involves a lot more than corporate influence in elections. And those other amendments don’t touch that.”
There is American Promise and Move to Amend. What other groups are pushing for this kind of Constitutional amendment?
“Common Cause and Public Citizen got behind the For the People Amendment. That also uses the word ‘may.’ It’s more like the For Our Freedom amendment.”
“And by the way, Clements was one of the people who were part of that small group of people who first met in 2009 to talk about what was possible. But he broke away. He didn’t feel at the time that the solution to Citizens United should be as expansive as what we eventually called for. His book – Corporations Are Not People: Reclaiming Democracy from Big Money and Global Corporations – is terrific.”
Who attended the organizing meeting in 2009?
“About a dozen people. Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, David Cobb, Ben Manski, Ricky Ott, George Friday and Jeff Clements. It was the organizing meeting for Move to Amend.”
These other groups are pretty far along in getting states to pass resolutions saying – if three quarters of the Congress agrees to pass this amendment, we have support in two thirds of the states. It’s signaling that they have the popular vote behind them to get this done.
You are doing something similar in Ohio but you are working at the community level.
“There are 790 organizations nationally that have endorsed our effort. And 725 municipalities have endorsed this effort. And eight states have passed resolutions or ballot initiatives. The three that have passed ballot initiatives are Washington, Montana and California. Five others, including Hawaii, have passed resolutions.”
American Promise says 28 states have called for passage of their amendment.
“And they have gotten more Congressional support. The We the People amendment has gotten 90 members of the House to cosponsor. It was introduced by Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington). The other efforts have gotten a lot more Congressional support. The For the People amendment has 160 or so supporters in the House. It’s a lot easier to get that kind of support when the language says you “may” choose to do something. That’s a pretty nice loophole. It’s no wonder there is more support for something that has an out clause in it.”
“But they are all symbolic. It’s all about building support, changing the culture and helping people get on the other side of this learning curve.”
What’s next?
“We are continuing to change the culture by introducing the amendment. It was very difficult for us to pass this in the last Congress and the Congress before that.”
“The truth is that half of the Democrats are captured by the corporate crowd in the same way that just about all of the Republicans are. Obviously, it’s a heavy lift. The only way this is ever going to happen is you have to create a democracy movement. The incoming administration in a perverted way is going to make our job a lot easier. It’s going to be so blatant in the fusion of the billionaires and the corporate crowd in usurping, corruption, pre-empting laws and using the Constitution to get what they want. Corporations used their money as free speech in this past election and they are now looking for their return on their investment. “
“Citizens United, in a weird way, was helpful for us in that it raised the issues of corporate Constitutional rights and money as free speech. For the past fifteen years, we have been gathering petition signatures and now over 500,000 people have signed it. Most of those people believe that this problem of corruption in elections began with Citizens United. So ever since, we have been helping people understand that this is far broader and deeper. And we are not going to get anywhere near a real democracy unless we not just overturn Citizens United, but end the corporate Constitutional rights doctrines.”
Why would Public Citizen and Common Cause and American Progress go for the word “may” as opposed to “shall”?
“They all say – you are not going to get this thing passed unless you hedge on the corporate Constitutional rights. We say – nothing is going to get passed unless you build a democracy movement. Many of our ballot initiatives were passed in communities that voted two to one for a Republican for president. It still passed.”
“We need a solution that is proportionate in scale to the magnitude of the problem. Repealing Citizens United is not proportionate.”
“What has been deemed impossible, in a few years it becomes inevitable.”
[For the complete q/a format Interview with Greg Coleridge, see 39 Corporate Crime Reporter 5(13), February 3, 2025, print edition only.]