WASHINGTON D.C. (NEXSTAR) – Democrats say its time to get big money out politics—and now some in the Senate are pushing to overturn a controversial supreme court ruling to make that happen.
Today introducing a constitutional amendment to undo the Citizen’s United supreme court decision.
Democratic Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) says the country needs a constitutional amendment to get big corporate money out of politics.
“And we’re here today to take our democracy back,” Udall said. “The big-money interests are buying our democracy.”
Standing in front of the supreme court, Udall and other Democratic senators called for the passage of the “Democracy for all amendment.”
“Few decisions in the 200 and some odd years of this republic, have threatened our democracy like Citizen’s United,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
Citizens United is a 2010 decision by the Supreme court that corporations have the same right to free speech as individual paving the way for large, corporate donations to flow nearly unchecked into political campaigns.
Democrats say much of that is dark money- from unknown donors and sometimes from overseas.
“That the wealthy and powerful, can control our government and have far more say than the average citizen is eroding faith in this great and grand democracy,” Schumer said.
“I’m confident that the majority of people in this country are overwhelmingly on our side,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-M.D.) said.
A constitutional amendment requires support from at least two-thirds of the house and senate then must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.
