There were a number of ballot measures in the recent election that asked people if they wanted to see the Citizens United Supreme Court decision overturned. And the results are that over seven million people said that corporations are not people and money is not free speech.
The state of Montana passed initiative I-166 with a 75% landslide, which prohibits corporate contributions or expenditures in elections and directs the state to help pass an amendment to the US constitution overturning Citizens United. What makes this even more interesting is that Mitt Romney carried Montana with 55%, so even die-hard Republicans think Citizens United was a bad decision.
Colorado also passed a similar amendment (with a similar margin), as did more than half of Massachusetts towns and cities, San Francisco and Richmond in California, two cities and a county in Oregon, and Chicago.
Common Cause has created a website “Amend 2012” where you can find out ways to help overturn Citizens United, with the slogan “Only People Are People”.
While around 75% of Americans think Citizens United should be overturned, the 1% are going to spend a lot of money to keep their right to flood elections with (often anonymous) money, annoy people with a deluge of attack ads, and otherwise buy our democracy. We may be burned out on politics, but now is our best chance to do something about this.
