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THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: Pelosi: Amend the First Amendment

Friday, April 20, 2012

Pelosi: Amend the First Amendment




House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed a movement announced by other congressional Democrats on Wednesday to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged in by corporations as opposed to individuals.

The constitutional amendment the Democrats seek would reverse the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In that decision the court said that the First Amendment protects a right of free speech for corporations as well as for individuals, and that corporations (including those that produce newspapers, films and books) have a right to speak about politicians and their records just as individuals do.

“We have a clear agenda in this regard: Disclose, reform the system reducing the role 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,” Pelosi said at her Thursday press briefing.
“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,” said Pelosi.

 “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.”




When the court ruled against the Obama administration's position in this case, Chief Justice Roberts wrote a concurring opinion underscoring the fact that the administration had wanted the court to allow the government to prohibit political speech.



"The government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech," wrote Roberts. "It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concerns."


Read More Here : Pelosi: Amend the First Amendment | CNSNews.com

1 comment:

J.R. said...

Nancy,Nancy,Nancy, get off your high broom. Our founders had an idea and it was called a "Republic" not a Democracy. As Ben Franklin stated "If we can keep it", it looks like the Democrats are at it again trying to make sure that we don't

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