Pelosi: Let’s amend the First Amendment so we can regulate political speech

Citizens United v. FEC really left a raw spot on the Left as they’ve been bemoaning it ever since the Supreme Court rolled back the part of McCain-Feingold that created limits corporate money that could be spent in elections. And now, Nancy Pelosi wants to amend the First Amendment so that they can regulate political speech from corporations (via CNS News):

We have a clear agenda in this regard: Disclose, reform the system reducing the roll of money in campaigns, and amend the Constitution to rid it of this ability for special interests to use secret, unlimited, huge amounts of money flowing to campaigns.

I think one of the presenters [at a Democratic forum on amending the Constitution] yesterday said that the Supreme Court had unleashed a predator that was oozing slime into the political system, and that, indeed, is not an exaggeration. Our Founders had an idea. It was called democracy. It said elections are determined by the people, the voice and the vote of the people, not by the bankrolls of the privileged few. This Supreme Court decision flies in the face of our Founders’ vision and we want to reverse it.

Ed Morrissey wrote this on the day that the Supreme Court rolled back the above mentioned section of McCain-Feingold:

Will this open the floodgates to corporate and union money in elections? Well, it never really left. The restrictions in the [McCain-Feingold] and other campaign-finance “reforms” just forced the money into less-transparent channels, creating mini-industries of money laundering in politics. This ruling will just allow the money to be seen for what it is, rather than hiding behind PR-spin PAC names and shadowy contribution trails.

The best campaign finance reform is still transparency. If burning a flag in the street is free speech, then so are political contributions, especially when made in the open. If the reformers in Congress want to clean up elections, then force immediate reporting on the Internet of all contributions to all presidential, Senate, and Congressional races, and full weekly financial reports on expenditures. That will do more than all of the speech-restricting, unconstitutional efforts made since Watergate, and make the entire system a lot more honest.

Instead of going the route that keeps the Constitution the way the founders intended it, they’d rather go the way that gives the government more power. But no, Allen West must be wrong, she’s not a commie.


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