An effort endorsed by President Barack Obama to draft a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United campaign finance decision seems to be gaining traction in Congress.
Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin told The Daily Caller that “it may be necessary for Congress to try to initiate a constitutional change” in order to limit the money involved in elections. (Click this link to fast-forward to Cardin’s comments on campaign finance.)
“I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s interpretation on our election laws in Citizens United,” Cardin told TheDC’s Ginni Thomas in a recent interview on Capitol Hill. “I would like to see Congress be able to do more to reduce the amount of money that goes into political campaigns.”
“So we’ll work within the confines of the Constitution as defined, or interpreted by the Supreme Court, but it may be necessary for Congress to try to initiate a constitutional change,” he continued. “And if we can do that, then I think that’s the way we should go, because I think it’s critically important that we maintain the integrity of our election process, because I do believe that the current interpretation of the Supreme Court has compromised our ability to maintain the integrity of our election systems.”
Cardin is running for re-election against upstart Republican candidate Dan Bongino. (VIDEO: Bongino: Cardin ‘believes in a top-down economy’)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said at her weekly press conference last Thursday that if Democrats retook the House, they would move to amend the Constitution on Citizens United on the “very first day.”
Obama first endorsed the idea of an amendment during an online chat with Reddit users, saying that even if the effort failed, it would be useful to “shine a spotlight of the super PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.”
Article V of the Constitution declares that any amendment proposal requires support from either two-thirds majorities in both the House and the Senate, or a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures. A proposed amendment must then be ratified by 38 of the 50 states in the union, a three-quarters majority, or by conventions in three-quarters of the states.
