Summary

House Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, introduced the We the People Amendment to overturn Citizens United, aiming to curb corporate influence in elections.

The constitutional amendment asserts that constitutional rights apply only to individuals, not corporations, and mandates full disclosure of political contributions.

Jayapal cited Elon Musk’s massive campaign spending and subsequent financial gains as proof of the ruling’s harm.

Advocacy groups praised the move, calling it necessary to combat corporate power and dark money in politics, but Republicans have not backed the proposal.

  • @Yggnar
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    367 days ago

    Genuinely, why didn’t they? Why didnt they do it when they had both the house and Senate? Are you somehow deluded into thinking this will actually go anywhere with the Republicans holding as much power as they currently are? This is just virtue signaling.

    • @[email protected]
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      47 days ago

      Have you heard of the filibuster or the fact that it’s been used by default on almost every piece of legislation for decades?

      • @Ensign_Crab
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        47 days ago

        Democrats could have changed the senate rules and killed the filibuster for good.

        Stop using the filibuster as an excuse.

      • @Yggnar
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        07 days ago

        See, this is actually a good point.

      • @StupidBrotherInLaw
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        167 days ago

        Your link contradicts your point. A 50/50 split with a Democrat tie breaker is a Democrat majority.

        Citizen United was decided January 21, 2010. Democrats controlled both House and Senate 2009-2010 and 2021-2022.

        • Kate-ay
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          7 days ago

          A constitutional ammendment takes 2/3s of both chambers and 3/4 of the states. It also takes years. How’ the hell were they going to do that in those brief windows with slim majorities?

      • @Yggnar
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        7 days ago

        The house and Senate were literally both controlled by the Dems when Citizens United became a law lmfao

        • @[email protected]
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          46 days ago

          2/3rds of both houses and 38 states to ratify. Don’t remember that being the case. Rofl, lol, jajaja

        • Optional
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          07 days ago

          Citizens United became law?

          Really? When was that? What was the bill number? Who sponsored Citizens United law?

          lmfao what a joke

          • @Yggnar
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            107 days ago

            Law, policy, a lifting of prohibitions, call it whatever you want dude, you haven’t proved your point, you’re just being pedantic.

            • Optional
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              -27 days ago

              Jesus christ, why not comment on sports where your feelings about something are the whole of the matter.

              Call it what you want? FFS.

              • @Yggnar
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                87 days ago

                Lol devolving into insults instead of making any kind of worthwhile point huh? I could call it a judgement or decision if that makes your panties untwist.

                Point is, Dems had the house and Senate when it went into effect. They’ve had many opportunities over the years to do something about it, even if that something is just akin to what they are doing now. But it took a billionaire shadow president for them to even make noise about it. It’s just virtue signaling.

                • Optional
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                  -17 days ago

                  Lol devolving into insults instead of making any kind of worthwhile point huh? I could call it a judgement or decision if that makes your panties untwist.

                  well, as you so intuitively apprehend, the issue is that it was not a law, it was never passed, and has absolutely zero to do with Democrats having a majority, and passing whatever they want, as your original premise held. Since you’ve been so kind as to acknowledge that these matters of national legislation can indeed be “called what you want”, let’s refer to it as a Supreme Court decision.

                  (Note for those outside the United States: The Supreme Court is a separate branch of the US government, and has only retroactive bearing on the activities of the Congress.)

                  Now that our collective panties are untwisted, what the fuck do you think a Democratic majority has to do with an individual Supreme Court decision? Is that a worthwhile fucking point? I would say so, yes.

                  Point is, Dems had the house and Senate when it went into effect.

                  Again - what the fuck do you think that means? It means nothing.

                  They’ve had many opportunities over the years to do something about it

                  Oh have they? Congressional historian are you? Big into following the vagaries of the House and Senate? No. No you’re not. You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. “Many opportunities”. Give me one. One opportunity when they could do something about it and specifically chose not to. (In other words, whatever they did during that “many opportunity” was much less important than campaign reform.)

                  But it took a billionaire shadow president for them to even make noise about it. It’s just virtue signaling.

                  Bullshit. You’re making up bullshit because you don’t know why you’re wrong.

                  Here’s a brilliant insight for everyone who’s convinced this is a simple situation: it is not. If you’ve never been involved in anything more complicated than a project rollout or a school play you might not appreciate this, but passing a Constitutional amendments is not just complicated but it’s ridiculously difficult to do - because it was set up to be difficult to do. Passing a law only marginally less so.

                  Should the Democrats have been railing about campaign reform at every speech from the moment the SCOTUS inflicted it on us? Yes. Yes they should. But as it happens there are other things going on in the government, and they may have been limited somewhat by the fact that less than five fucking percent of registered voters can see clear to getting them enough leeway to get it done.

                  Partially because of this idiot logic that “they could have done it and didn’t want to”.

                  • @Yggnar
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                    7 days ago

                    Alright man, so you are making crap arguments while cherry picking the parts of my comment you are responding to.

                    You don’t need to be a congressional historian to understand why the Democrats haven’t ended Citizens United. The real answer comes down to money and lobbying influencing their politics, as well as the filibuster stopping them the few times they have tried, such as when Bernie did in 2014. That would have been an actually valuable point that we could have discussions about.

                    Instead, you’re too focused on belittling and insulting me to actually make a valid argument.

                    I could break down and respond to every convenient point in your comment and act like a petty little cunt too, but really it comes down to this

                    Should the Democrats have been railing about campaign reform at every speech from the moment the SCOTUS inflicted it on us? Yes. Yes they should.

                    This is pretty much my whole point.