Erie County

3.18.13 - Arizona requires proof of citizenship for someone who registers to vote using a state form. But courts have said federal registration forms – which require a statement of citizenship, but not proof – trump the state standard. (Photo to left:  Cronkite News Service photo by Cronkite NewsWatch)

The U.S. Supreme Court will struggle this week with the validity of an Arizona law that tries to keep illegal immigrants from voting by demanding all state residents show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in national elections.

Must voters have to prove citizenship to register?

Supreme Court Voter Registration Case Addresses Citizenship

Issue Supreme Court to consider Arizona voting law

Arizona's proof of citizenship voter registration requirement heads for Supreme Court review 

AP - In this August 6, 1965, photo, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 in a ceremony in the President's Room near
the Senate Chambers on Capitol Hill in Washington. 

Tell Chief Justice Roberts:
Don't let Justice Scalia's Republican activism
on the bench drag America back to the racist Jim Crow Era

The petition to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts reads:

"Put your country and the Constitution before partisan politics. If you overturn the Voting Rights Act with support from Justice Scalia, you put the credibility of the Supreme Court — and your legacy — at risk. Ensure history remembers the Supreme Court under your leadership as Chief Justice as 'the Roberts Court' not 'the Republican activist Court' that returned us to the era of Jim Crow."

Add your name:

Will the Voting Rights Act survive the Supreme Court? - CBS News

Justice Scalia's contempt of Congress, Washington Post, Feb. 27, 2013

OBAMA:  KEEP KEY VOTING RIGHTS ACT PROVISION
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press
Updated 10:30 am, Friday, February 22, 2013
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

2.22.13 - WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama argued Friday for keeping a key provision of federal voting rights law in place, saying it will become harder but not impossible to help people who believe their rights at the polls have been violated if the Supreme Court decides to strike down that part of the law.

The court has scheduled oral arguments for Wednesday on a challenge from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham, to a section of the Voting Rights Act. The provision requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the South, to get approval from the Justice Department or federal court in Washington before making any changes in the way they hold elections, such as moving a polling place.

The appeal argues that places covered by the law have made such progress that Washington oversight is unnecessary. Opponents of the provision also cite racial progress in the decades since the landmark law was enacted in 1965 that led to the election and recent re-election of Obama, the country's first black president.

Defenders of the provision say it's still needed, particularly in light of efforts in many states during the past election cycle to impose new requirements on voters, such as shortening the window for early voting or requiring voters to show photo identification before they cast a ballot, which some argue disproportionately affect blacks and other racial minorities.

In a radio interview taped Thursday at the White House and broadcast Friday morning, Obama said removing the oversight requirement would make it a lot harder to give relief to voters who feel aggrieved. If that were to happen, he said, such voters would have to wait until potential obstacles have been put in place before they could then sue in an attempt to have them overturned.

11.14.12 - While the United States was grappling with whether or not to re-elect its first African-American president, Louisiana was wrestling over whether to appoint its first African-American Chief Justice for its State Supreme Court. Bernette Johnson's destiny was temporarily deferred when some of her fellow Supreme Court Justices and Gov. Bobby Jindal challenged her right to succeed retiring Chief Justice Catherine Kimball. Louisiana law dictates that the justice who's served the longest on the bench takes over as chief when the sitting one leaves. Johnson, the court's only black judge, took the bench in October of 1994, while Justice Jeffrey Victory came on in January 1995.

But Victory declared he had seniority, arguing Johnson's first few years on the bench didn't count because it was a special appointment made by a federal consent decree. Indeed, Johnson's Supreme Court seat was made available because the electoral districts at the time were drawn so that no black Louisianians would ever have the kind of plurality needed to elect a candidate who represented their interests. When you're black and live in a Southern state that venerates its Confederate heritage while leading the world in locking people up, voting for a judge kinda matters to you.

The consent decree carved out a special district where African Americans could elect a judge of their choice, which turned out to be Johnson who was granted all of the powers of a state Supreme Court justice, despite the unique appointment. Civil rights lawyers, including current Urban League president Marc Morial, pushed for that decree by way of the Voting Rights Act, which is violated when "it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election . . . are not equally open to participation by members of a protected class . . . in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice."

Johnson was ultimately granted her chief justice seat just a month ago, but the Voting Rights Act that served as her scaffold is insecure. A few days after President Obama was re-elected, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up Shelby County, Ala. v Eric Holder, a challenge to VRA's Section 5, which Holder himself calls "our nation's most important civil rights statute."

What Shelby disagrees with is Section 5's "pre-clearance" power, which makes certain states and counties with histories of racial discrimination prove that no disenfranchisement will result from election policy changes. As I wrote earlier this year, Section 5 is a precautionary principle agent that forces election law-changers to prove a change isn't harmful before implementation, as opposed to letting the change happen unvetted and then dealing with any harm later.

Shelby is also arguing that the Section 5 formula they're subjected to is obsolete, given that it's mostly based off data from the 1960s. They believe they are being held to a stricter legal scrutiny than other counties and states that have worse voting problems, namely non-Section 5 covered jurisdictions. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, and it was extended four more times, the latest in 2006 when Congress extended it for 25 years. But Congress failed to update the Section 5 covered jurisdiction formula in that last extension, and hence the law in its current version is unconstitutional, argues Shelby, for impeding on states' rights. (For more on "states' rights" listen to this audio file of Republican "Southern Strategy" architect Lee Atwater.)

Regardless of what you think of that argument, all that matters is that it's being made before Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court, which has shown no sympathy, if not shown flat-out resentment, for laws they believe support racial preferences. A Section 5 challenge was before the Roberts Court in 2009, but they chose not to rule on its constitutionality then. However, Roberts in his opinion stated that Section 5 "caused Members of this Court to express serious misgivings about" its constitutionality, mainly due to the decades-old coverage formula.

Despite Section 5's anachronistic formula, its application has been anything but oppressive. Covered jurisdictions can apply for a bailout -- a get out of Section 5 jail free card -- and many have been granted. The number of voting rules changes denied by the Department of Justice has been less than 1 percent of the total submitted. The past two years DOJ appeared to do a lot of blocking, but that's because an unprecedented number of voter law changes were passed in that time. Still, they cleared voter ID laws in Virginia and New Hampshire.

Journalists and voting rights advocates have made many good-spirited defenses of VRA recently, citing how Section 5 protected voters of color in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, and South Carolina from voting law changes that could have led to their disenfranchisement. My colleague Ari Berman wrote at The Nation that "only a Supreme Court wholly divorced from reality would review the record on voting rights ... and conclude that a key pillar of the law was no longer needed."

I understand the sentiment, but unfortunately that's not the case before SCOTUS, which, to be fair, is probably looking more closer at the reality than it's getting credit for. That reality is that a lot has changed since 1968 -- the last year upon which Section 5's data formula rests upon -- and Congress has failed to take that into consideration.

There have been important changes made to VRA since 1965, including the 1975 amendments that expanded the formula to include areas that discriminated against people who don't speak English, which is how Texas and five counties in Florida became covered jurisdictions. Most important, though, was the 1982 VRA amendment, which added the precautionary principle -- the "results test."

Roberts is not a fan of said test. When it was proposed by civil rights lawyers as a remedy, so that VRA could more effectively address vote dilution processes like gerrymandering, Roberts went HAM. At the time a 20-something-year-old lawyer representing the Reagan administration, he sounded every alarm about why the discriminatory effect clause shouldn't happen. Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote this about the 1980s Roberts in a 2005 L.A. Times column:

During the Senate debates, for instance, Roberts wrote that the attorney general had to "get something out somewhere soon" [original emphasis] explaining the administration's position because the "frequent writings in this area by our adversaries have gone unanswered for too long." He called on the administration to take an "aggressive stance" against the changes to Section 2. When it was over and Section 2 had been amended, Roberts wrote that "we were burned."

Roberts' 2009 "serious misgivings" comment on VRA shows that his perspective hasn't evolved much. In that same ruling, his fellow justice Clarence Thomas flat out called VRA unconstitutional. Meanwhile, Justice Antonin Scalia and Kennedy exhibited similar VRA disappointment in Chisom v Roemer, the Supreme Court case that led to the creation of the black-majority district in Louisiana responsible for making Bernette Johnson the first black State Supreme Court Justice in 1994 -- and Louisiana's first black State Supreme Court Chief Justice today.

The US Supreme Court's Chief Justice will likely strike the clause that helped make Johnson's ascendancy possible in Louisiana. More disappointing, though, is that the Section 5 remedy didn't address racial voting problems that arose in states like Ohio, Colorado and the 62 non-Section 5 counties in Florida this past November. Even Pennsylvanians had to suffer through a voter ID legal battle that went into double-overtime, ending in the law only temporarily struck while voter confusion continued to molest Election Day. These states deserve Section 5's attention, and unfortunately they're not getting it. That's not a good recipe for a SCOTUS chief who's looking for any excuse to revenge getting "burned.

Michigan affirmative action case delayed
Lyle Denniston Reporter * Posted December 6, 2012

Efforts by Michigan officials to speed up the Supreme Court’s consideration of the major new case on the use of race in college admissions have now been slowed, making it a near certainty that the case could not be decided in the current Term.  The Court has now issued a routine order to put off, until February 4, the filing of a response by the challengers to a state ban on such affirmative action plans.   Pushing the case into February will make it impossible, without a highly unusual shortening of normal scheduling, to get the case before the Justices before the summer recess.

The blog reported yesterday that state officials were hoping that the steps necessary to prepare the case for the Justices would be completed in time for consideration in January.  That was dependent upon a very tight schedule, with some uncertainties about whether it would be met.  The postponement of the filing date for a brief in opposition now has ended that prospect.   The delay in filing came in a request by attorneys representing some of those who had challenged the state ban, citing “the press of other litigation deadlines.”

Affirmative Action Ban in Michigan Is Rejected
By TAMAR LEWIN * Published: November 15, 2012

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled, 8 to 7, on Thursday that Michigan’s voter-approved 2006 ban on affirmative action was unconstitutional.

The ruling, in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. University of Michigan, was not based on racial discrimination, but rather on a violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The ban, the court said, unfairly placed a special burden on supporters of race-conscious admissions policies.

People trying to change any other aspect of university admissions policies, the court said, had several avenues open: they could lobby the admissions committee, petition university leaders, try to influence the college’s governing board or take the issue to a statewide initiative. Those supporting affirmative action, on the other hand, had no alternative but to undertake the “long, expensive and arduous process” of amending the state Constitution.

“The existence of such a comparative structural burden undermines the equal protection clause’s guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change,” said Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., writing for the majority.

The United States Supreme Court is considering an affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas, challenging the use of race as a factor in admissions. But the Sixth Circuit case raises a different issue: the legality of statewide bans on affirmative action. Seven states besides Michigan — Arizona, California, Florida, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Washington — forbid the consideration of race in university admissions.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld California’s ban, and with the Michigan ruling, the stage may be set for the issue to go before the Supreme Court.

“I think this is very likely to go to the Supreme Court, because there’s a direct conflict between the circuits, it’s of great national importance and the 8-7 split on the Sixth Circuit is a signal that some ruling is needed,” said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped draft the California ban. “The only thing that might get in the way is if the Fisher case decides that all race-based action in education is unconstitutional, which would make it not technically moot, but less important.”

Bill Schuette, the attorney general of Michigan, said Thursday that he planned to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. “Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit,” he said in a statement.

George Washington, the Detroit lawyer who argued the case, said Proposal 2, as the Michigan ban is known, does not ensure merit. “The Big Lie told by the supporters of Proposal 2 is that grades and test scores are a neutral means for judging merit,” he said. “But that system is openly biased against black, Latino and Native American applicants.”

The University of Michigan’s affirmative action battle has been roiling for decades. The affirmative action litigation led to the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision that while a university could not establish racial quotas, it could consider race or ethnicity as a “plus” factor in a holistic review.

After those decisions, Ward Connerly, a black former University of California regent who was the driving force behind California’s affirmative action ban, worked with Jennifer Gratz, a white Michigan woman who was the plaintiff in one of the Supreme Court cases, to get the issue onto the Michigan ballot.

Michigan’s affirmative action ban, which applies to government hiring, government contracting and admission to public universities, became part of the state Constitution through a 2006 voter initiative that won 58 percent of the vote.

The district court that heard the challenge to the ban upheld it, but the three-judge appellate panel whose decision was appealed to the full circuit court struck it down, using the same reasoning as the full circuit court.

Case

The University of Michigan used a 150-point scale to rank applicants, with 100 points needed to guarantee admission. The University gave underrepresented ethnic groups, including African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, an automatic 20-point bonus on this scale, while a perfect SAT score was worth 12 points.

The petitioners, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, both white residents of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA). Gratz applied for admission in the fall of 1995 and Hamacher in the fall of 1997. Both were subsequently denied admission to the university. Gratz and Hamacher were contacted by the Center for Individual Rights, which filed a lawsuit on their behalf in October 1997. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the University of Michigan, the LSA, James Duderstadt, and Lee Bollinger. Duderstadt was president of the university while Gratz's application was under consideration, and Bollinger while Hamacher's was under consideration. Their class-action lawsuit alleged "violations and threatened violations of the rights of the plaintiffs and the class they represent to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment... and for racial discrimination."

Like Grutter, the case was heard in District Court, appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and asked to be heard before the Supreme Court.

Issues of standing

It has been argued by some that Jennifer Gratz lacked legal standing to bring this action. Gratz applied in 1995, three years before the University of Michigan adopted its points system. Gratz could not claim injury as a result of the points system, and thus, under traditional legal rules, Gratz lacked standing. Gratz chose not to attend the University of Michigan by declining the university's offer to be placed on a waiting list. Every Michigan student who agreed to go onto the waiting list in the spring of 1995 was admitted to the University of Michigan for the Fall 1995 semester.^{[citation needed]}

The Court's majority found that Gratz and co-plaintiff Hamacher had standing to seek declaratory and injunctive relief, relying on Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656 (1993). Here the "injury in fact" necessary to establish standing in the case was the denial of equal treatment resulting from the imposition of the barrier, and not in the ultimate inability to obtain the benefit.

5 things to know about affirmative action
By Alicia W. Stewart, CNN

(CNN) - In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, ordering that federally funded projects "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

Five decades later, a young white woman and a Texas school's admissions policy stand central to a monumental Supreme Court case. The justices began hearing oral arguments Wednesday over the constitutionality of racial preferences in consideration of the students it accepts.

It could change how schools determine whom they let in and whom they keep out.

Justices to re-examine use of race in college admissions

Affirmative action began as a simple idea to expand equality and has morphed into a charged and divisive topic.

What is affirmative action, and how is it different from when it began?

Here are five things to know. What would you add? Let us know in the comments below.

1. Why it was started: The earliest implementation of affirmative action policies, before Kennedy coined the phrase, began under President Franklin Roosevelt in the second World War. He banned discrimination in the government and those involved in "war-related" work.

Later, President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded on Kennedy's order to include women and signed the Civil Rights Act into law. He explained the purpose of affirmative action in this speech to Howard University's 1965 graduating class:

"And this is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom, but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity, but human ability; not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”

Less known, though, is that President Richard B. Nixon created goals and time frames around the legislation. "We would not impose quotas, but would require federal contractors to show affirmative action' to meet the goals of increasing minority employment," he wrote in his memoirs.

2) Why it is controversial: Quotas. The idea of a limited number of admissions or jobs for members of underrepresented groups and any type of preferential treatment runs counter to how we view our American dream, critics argue.

That idea became central in the Massachusetts Senate race between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren. Warren was accused of using her Native American ancestry for jobs but has denied doing so.

Is she or isn’t she Native American?

In 1978, the landmark Regents of California v. Allan Bakke case made racial quotas unconstitutional. Bakke, a white student, sued after twice being denied admission to medical school, challenging the special admissions used to admit minority groups.

3) How it's changed: While affirmative action is usually spoken of in general terms, there is no singular policy or implementation of the ways in which affirmative action take shape in government organizations, colleges and corporations varies.

Court cases continue to refine interpretations of how race is used at the university level. Some schools have experimented with a variety of ways of non-race-based models, like the Top 10 model that the University of Texas employs, to ensure the racial diversity of students.

4) How we feel about it: In a 2009 Pew poll, the majority of Americans supported affirmative action but strongly disagreed about minority preference. And while most African Americans (58%) and Hispanics (53%) agreed that minorities should get preferential treatment, only 22% of whites agreed.

5) Where it exists: Though quotas have been outlawed in the United States, the European Union has had a recent push to punish companies whose boards aren't composed of at least 40% women. And India, Brazil and Malaysia, among other countries, have laws and policies that address affirmative action in schools and throughout society.

Supreme Court to Hear Campaign Finance Donation Limit Challenge
Luke Johnson - Huff Post Politics - 2.19.13

2.19.13 - WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to campaign finance laws limiting how much an individual can give to political campaigns.

The justices on Tuesday decided to hear an appeal from Shaun McCutcheon of Alabama and the Republican National Committee. They are arguing that it's unconstitutional to stop a donor from giving more than $46,200 to political candidates and $70,800 to political committees and PACs.

McCutcheon says he accepts that he can only give $2,500 to a single candidate but says he should be able to give that amount to as many GOP candidates as he wants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the limits, but the high court decided to review that decision.

Additional articles:

Supreme Court to hear case on campaign donation limits
Court will hear campaign donation limits appeal

Obama seeks amendment on campaign financing

8.31.12 - President Obama is suggesting a constitutional amendment to counter the 2-year-old Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for corporate-funded super PACs.

"Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United," assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it, Obama said during a question and answer session on the website Reddit.

Obama has often criticized the ruling that led to the creation of the super PACs that are spending millions on this campaign. He said "the no-holds-barred flow of seven- and eight-figure checks, most undisclosed, into super PACs threaten to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens."--David Jackson - USA Today - published 8.31.12

Senator Brown can keep up the pressure only with YOUR help!

8.24.12 - 380,522 of you have joined the fight to end Citizens United by signing our petition. But we need to keep that momentum going strong. And since we're only about 10 weeks away from Election Day, I want to add 10,000 more signers to our effort right now.That's why I've teamed up with the DSCC and Democrats across the country to overturn the effects of this decision by building momentum to pass a constitutional amendment.

7.17.12 - Yesterday Senate Democrats sought to bring the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 to the Senate floor. The DISCLOSE Act would help shine the light of day on what has been, since the Court's ruling, an underground sewer flow of hundreds of millions of dollars. It would require nonprofits engaged in partisan political activities to disclose their major donors and their expenditures. It would not stop the flow of unlimited money, but it would at least ensure that the people know who is trying to influence elections.

Yet Senate Republicans voted twice in the last 24 hours to filibuster this bill, preventing us from even starting a debate. It is difficult to imagine that Senators would be comfortable telling their constituents that they voted to uphold the veil of secrecy that now shields this flood of money from public view. And it is even more remarkable that Senators would vote, not just to maintain that secrecy, but to prevent the Senate even from debating it.

_________________________

7.12.12 - Just announced: There will be an important vote on the DISCLOSE Act as early as this Monday.

Americans deserve to know who is flooding the public airwaves with negative ads. The DISCLOSE Act would expose the corporate special interests trying to buy our elections by requiring these shadowy groups to actually reveal their donors and take accountability for the ads they run.

And people from all over the country are coalescing around this vote. We're joining with supporters of Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Jon Tester (D-MT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and others to build support for this before the vote.

Will you sign our new DISCLOSE Act petition now, before Monday's vote, to reduce the influence of unlimited money in our elections?

_________________________

7.06.12 - The debate continues over disclosure of special interest groups spending on all campaigns.  To read a USA TODAY editorial, please click here - Editorial: Disclose secret campaign finance.  Since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld secret money contributions, voters will have no idea who the donors are nor what their agenda may be for any given election -- local, statewide or federal.  A few big buys of ads may be a game-changer for any candidate as big-money influences voters before they cast their ballot.

Now that Citizens United has been upheld, the only way for the public to protect itself from large secret donations from all contributors is to encourage Congress to pass the DISCLOSE Act.   Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) are getting ready to re-introduce the DISCLOSE Act to force contributors of more than $10,000 to disclose who they are and what their intent is for all ads.

Congress must limit the damage done by the Supreme Court's misguided Citizens United v. FEC decision and combat unregulated corporate influence over elections by passing the DISCLOSE Act.  Sign the petition below to tell Congress it is time to disclose secret donations that are corrupting and influencing campaigns.

_________________________

I want to be a Citizens Co-sponor of the DISCLOSE Act

The DISCLOSE Act legislation will address seven major points:

1. Enhance Disclaimers
Make CEOs and other leaders take responsibility for their ads.

2. Enhance Disclosures
It is time to follow the money.

3. Prevent Foreign Influence
Foreign countries and entities should not be determining the outcome of our elections.

4. Shareholder/Member Disclosure
We should allow shareholders and members to know where money goes.

5. Prevent Government Contractors from Spending
Taxpayer money should not be spent on political ads.

6. Provide the Lowest Unit Rate for Candidates and Parties
Special interests should not drown out the voices of the people.

7. Tighten Coordination Rules
Corporations should not be able to “sponsor” a candidate.

_________________________

6.25.12 - WASHINGTON -- Campaign finance reform groups and elected officials in Montana and the nation's capital panned the Supreme Court's decision Monday to deny a hearing to a Montana law that butts heads with the court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Two years ago in Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court had freed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums of money on elections, concluding that such spending cannot corrupt the electoral process. But last year the Montana Supreme Court pointed to Montana's early 20th century history of corrupt corporate dominance and let stand the state's own Corrupt Practices Act, which bans independent election spending by corporations. On Monday, without oral argument, the high court by a 5-4 vote tossed that ruling in American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) took to YouTube to issue a statement. "The United States Supreme Court has just told the American people that the facts don't matter when it comes to protecting Montana and the country from the corruption of corporate money in our democracy. Here in Montana we have a proud 100-year history of keeping corporate money out of our elections. Corporations aren't people, and they should not control our government," Schweitzer said.

Campaign finance reformers who helped to organize support in Montana's defense issued similar statements.

"The Supreme Court today has left standing the disastrous Citizens United decision and the enormous damage it is doing to our democracy and political system," longtime campaign finance reformer Fred Wertheimer said in a statement. "Nevertheless, the battle in Congress, the states and the courts for effective campaign finance laws to prevent the corruption of our officeholders and government decisions will go forward full speed ahead."

Public Citizen President Robert Weissman issued a call for a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics. "The Supreme Court continues to deny reality when it comes to assessing the impact of independent spending on elections. The court is not going to overturn Citizens United, at least in the near term. It thus falls on the people to overturn the court, through a constitutional amendment," Weissman said.

Others noted that Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock's effort to stave off the new campaign finance reality of unlimited corporate spending was unlikely to succeed.  Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has become a leading figure fighting the Citizens United decision, issued a statement calling for renewed support for his campaign finance transparency bill, the Disclose Act. "The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Montana's ban on corporate spending in elections is the wrong decision for Montana and it is the wrong decision for America. It flies in the face of the state's history of the corrosive influence of corporate spending and rejects the decision of Montana voters to rid their state of this corrupt influence. As Justice [Louis] Brandeis said, 'sunlight is the best disinfectant.' In this case, it may be the only disinfectant. Congress must pass the DISCLOSE Act so that the American people can see who is bankrolling this country's elections."

Huffington Post - Paul Blumenthal - Posted 6.25.12; Reprinted in part

_________________________

6.18.12 - Sheldon Adelson recently donated $10 million of his personal fortune to a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney's campaign, making him the biggest single donor to a candidate-specific super PAC and biggest donor to outside spending groups in the history of the United States.

Here are three important points:

1. Adelson said he's willing to go as high as $100 million to defeat Barack Obama.
2. This kind of money could change the outcome of an election.
3. For Adelson, who's worth more than $20 billion, this donation is about the equivalent of $40 to a middle-class family.

This isn't the way our country should work. Electing someone president of the United States should be a decision that we make as a nation. The outcome shouldn't be affected by one, or even several, extraordinarily wealthy men.

Sheldon Adelson knows this is wrong, too, as he has said:

"I'm against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections,"
he said. "But as long as it's doable I'm going to do it."

It is time to overturn Citizens United.  An opportunity may have finally come for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its decision - see below.

_________________________

6.12.12 - The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United has opened the floodgates for special interests to spend undisclosed, unlimited millions in this year’s elections.  Senator Sherrod Brown has been fighting to end Citizens United since the ruling was first handed down in January 2010. As Senator Brown has stated:  "In America, the people should get to pick their representatives -- not powerful corporate special interests."

Now, thanks to a Montana court case, the U.S. Supreme Court has the opportunity to revisit its decision.

Now is a perfect time for us to declare our opposition to Citizens United, and continue generating momentum for a constitutional amendment to end it once and for all. Senator Brown wants to get the number of signatures on his petition to end Citizens United up to 200,000.  Click above on link to add your name to Senator Brown's petition to overturn Citizens United.

HISTORY:  CITIZENS UNITED VERSUS FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION
Argued:  March 24, 2009
Reargued:  September 9, 2009
Decided:  January 21, 2010

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. The nonprofit corporation Citizens United wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton and to advertise the film during television broadcasts in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or "BCRA").^[2] In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that portions of BCRA §203 violated the First Amendment.

The decision reached the Supreme Court on appeal from a July 2008 decision by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Section 203 of BCRA defined an "electioneering communication" as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary, and prohibited such expenditures by corporations and unions. The lower court held that §203 of BCRA applied and prohibited Citizens United from advertising the film Hillary: The Movie in broadcasts or paying to have it shown on television within 30 days of the 2008 Democratic primaries.^[1][3] The Supreme Court reversed, striking down those provisions of BCRA that prohibited corporations (including nonprofit corporations) and unions from spending on "electioneering communications".^[2]

The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003).^[4] The Court, however, upheld requirements for public disclosure by sponsors of advertisements (BCRA §201 and §311). The case did not involve the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties, which remain illegal in races for federal office.^[5]

Reprinted from Wikipedia