Clinton pledges constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United ruling | Hacker News Reader

Clinton pledges constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United ruling

politico.com

20 pointsfovc9 comments

I have some very mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, I strongly believe that the effects of the C-U decision on the political dynamic in the U.S. have been catastrophic. On the other hand, if you look at what the decision actually says it is really hard to come up with a principled argument against it, at least not if you believe in freedom of speech. The facts of the case were that some people made a movie which the government tried to suppress because of its (political) content. I don't see any way to condone that without shredding the First Amendment. If I have to choose between freedom of speech and stopping the undue influence of money in politics I think I'd have to choose the former.

> If I have to choose between freedom of speech and stopping the undue influence of money in politics I think I'd have to choose the former.

Unfortunately it's not that simple. If you allow undue influence of money you loose in effect your freedom of speech and your other freedoms (e.g. privacy, which is not even guaranteed in USA).

Sure. Let me rephrase a little more precisely: if I have to choose between my freedom of speech being abridged by the government or by the private sector, I'll take the latter, at least as long as the government maintains its legal monopoly on the use of physical coercion. If we get to the point where corporations are able to field private militias (not as inconceivable as it once was) I may have to reconsider.

> If you allow undue influence of money you loose in effect your freedom of speech

Only when that influence buys off the government to suppress speech by force. Which is what Clinton is proposing from the get go, not just a possible repercussion.

>e.g. privacy, which is not even guaranteed in USA

You might be interested in the text of the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, ..."

...and the 9th:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_tra...

You kind of pose a straw-man, here. The activity was against the current law: " In the case, the conservative non-profit organization Citizens United wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton and to advertise the film during television broadcasts which was a violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or "BCRA".[4] 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. "

Besides, the correct implication (that this case meant unlimited campaign contributions through what would become SuperPACs) was pretty well disliked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Opinion...

The problem is that it's quite hard to get an amendment through so it's really not much political capital on her part to say this because she can say "I tried. \_(ツ)_/¯"

Question is do you trust her to actually try to push this through?

Is she really pledging to create a committee to discuss the wording of a possible amendment to discuss the potential inclusion of an alteration of an amendment to be submitted to the committee for the discussion of an amendment? That sounds more like Clinton to me.

Does anyone know where the text of the amendment can be found?

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