The Texas Republican's rant inspired laughter in the hearing room, along with a mild rebuke from Senator Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who said, "I think if Thomas Jefferson were looking down at what's being proposed here, he would agree with it." Schumer, historically one of his party's most ambitious fundraisers, is now one of 43 senators (41 Democrats and independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine) who back a specific amendment -- proposed by New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall -- to address the money-in-political crisis.
A even stronger rebuke has come from the American people. More than 2 million of them signed petitions that were delivered to the Senate by People for the American Way, Free Speech Is for People, Public Citizen, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and other groups that favor an amendment.
Americans recognize that the promise of American democracy is now fully threatened.
As former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told the Senate Rules Committee in late April, "Unlimited campaign expenditures impair the process of democratic self-government. They create a risk that successful candidates will pay more attention to the interests of non-voters who provided them with money than to the interests of the voters who elected them. That risk is unacceptable."
To that end, Justice Stevens advocates for an amendment to the Constitution that simply says, "Neither the First Amendment nor any provision of this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the Congress or any state from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns."
Whether the eventual amendment adopts the language Justice Stevens has proposed, or some variation thereon, the bottom line remains the same: the Constitution must be amended in order to preserve democratic self-governance. And it is good, very good, that the Senate is beginning to recognize this reality.
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