Citizens United

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the Court declared that corporate First Amendment “free speech” rights were violated by federal law which limited corporate spending in elections.  Since then, several groups have begun working to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution to overturn Citizens United.

However, overturning this decision would only return us to “pre-Citizen’s United” days.  It would do nothing to address the broad range of rights held by corporations that include much more than just corporate “personhood.”  

CELDF calls upon communities, activists, and non-profit organizations to recognize the need to frame the problem far more broadly than just a need to return to the days before Citizens United.  As CELDF writes in its statement:

We believe that creating the necessary and desired outcomes requires us to focus not on merely reversing the Supreme Court’s latest expansion of corporate “rights,” but on eliminating the basic (and mostly, unquestioned) authority of corporate minorities to override, and interfere with, democratic decision making by local and state majorities.  It is the usurpation of community decision making authority that must be eliminated if we are to have any hope of building truly sustainable and democratic communities.

Click here for a complete statement of our position, as well as our Model Bill of Rights Elections Ordinance requested by communities.