Melissa Ross
When Mitt Romney said “Corporations are people, my friend,” at the 2011 Iowa State Fair, Citizens United was just over a year old.
That U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing corporate personhood would go on to spark a national grassroots movement that its founders say is winning over both conservatives and liberals, who believe in the idea of “one person, one vote,” not “one dollar, one vote.”
Move to Amend is a national coalition with a message they say voters of all persuasions can easily grasp:
“Money is not speech.”
So says David Cobb, Outreach Director of Move to Amend.
Cobb will speak at UNF’s Herbert University Center tonight about Citizens United v. FEC, its implications on the 2016 race, and Move to Amend’s efforts.
As just one example of the decision’s effects, in 2012 Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson‘s hefty, unlimited contributions to the presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich kept the GOP primary alive for a much longer cycle than might have happened in the past.
So far the coalition has succeeded in passing resolutions in 16 states calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the high court’s ruling. There are 27 amendments. Move to Amend’s would theoretically be the 28th. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures (both very high bars).
“Yes, it’s a high bar, but everywhere we take this message, we’re winning,” Cobb said.
