Let me share an encouraging letter from Robert Weismann of Public Citizen.. Its long, but really worth reading! ========================== They just voted. And the constitutional amendment to overturn Supreme Court disasters like Citizens United that allow billionaires and Big Business to spend literally as much as they want corrupting our elections just won majority support in the United States Senate! Let me remind you: Four years, seven months and 21 days ago — when Public Citizen launched the campaign for an amendment within minutes of the Citizens United ruling — a great many friends and allies were, let’s say, skeptical. An amendment is the only real solution, they agreed. But it’s not possible, they argued. That’s not how I see it. Here’s why: The majority of Americans — Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike — resoundingly support an amendment and reject the ludicrous assertion that it would limit free speech. Millions of Americans have signed petitions demanding an amendment. 16 states, along with some 550 cities and towns, have formally called for an amendment. Everyday citizens have taken to the streets for hundreds and hundreds of amendment rallies from coast to coast. The groundswell of popular support for an amendment is so powerful that Senate leadership was compelled to bring it up for a vote. An amendment has been the focus of debate on the Senate floor this week. 54 U.S. senators just voted to pass an amendment. What we’re talking about here is anything but impossible. It is historic. It is essential. And it is inevitable — so long as we keep building this movement, which reflects the views of the overwhelming majority of Americans. Of course, the amendment did not get the 67 affirmative votes today that it will ultimately need for passage. Right now, I’m not sure you could get two-thirds of the current Senate to agree that the sky is blue. The Koch Brothers would create a bogus nonprofit, with a misleading name like Americans for Sky Freedom, to funnel undisclosed millions from dirty energy corporations and executives to politicians who would deny the blueness of the sky, disputing the scientific consensus around light dispersion. Ted Cruz would take to the Senate floor to preposterously allege that deeming the sky blue would prevent anyone from ever saying that anything else is any other color. And Mitch McConnell and John Boehner would not allow any of their far-right charges to admit that the sky is blue unless such an admission were couched in a bill throwing out Obamacare. Here’s some important and relevant history: The 19th Amendment, to end women’s disenfranchisement, overturned a Supreme Court case that was decided on March 29, 1875. That amendment, drafted by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was first introduced in the Senate in January 1878. After that, it languished in committee for NINE years. When it was eventually considered by the full Senate in 1887, it was initially rejected 34 to 16. It was not considered again for three DECADES — a period actually referred to as “the doldrums.” In early 1918, President Woodrow Wilson spoke out in favor of women’s suffrage in his State of the Union address. But the amendment nonetheless failed its next Senate votes: on September 30, 1918, and again on February 10, 1919. On June 4, 1919, the amendment at last passed in the Senate (having passed in the House of Representatives two weeks earlier). Still more than a year after that — on August 18, 1920 — the 19th Amendment was finally added to our Constitution when Tennessee became the 36th of 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii were not yet in the union) to ratify it. So, back then, it took 45 years to go from an anti-democratic ruling by the Supreme Court to ratification of a historic constitutional amendment overturning it. We don’t plan on waiting half a century to win our amendment. The point is, these things require persistence. They can’t be won without it. As it happens, our amendment is progressing better than even we had dared to hope. Today — not even five years after another Supreme Court ruling that is devastating to our democracy — the constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United has already made it through to a first vote in the full Senate AND won a clear majority. To get this far this fast is an unequivocal testament to the resolve and hard work of Public Citizen supporters like you. If Public Citizen had not been such a strong voice for an amendment from Day One — if Public Citizen supporters like you had not been working steadfastly with us all along — the amendment might still be little more than an afterthought. But we took the fearless, and righteous, stand. We did, and will go on doing, the difficult and often thankless work. And together we will build on this incredible progress — one more senator, one more state, one more town, one more citizen at a time — until we win this amendment and save our democracy from being corrupted by those who already have wealth and power beyond reason. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done. I’m incredibly thankful for Public Citizens like you who have driven this campaign. And I’m incredibly excited to build on the historic progress we’ve already made — to do everything it takes to win the amendment our democracy desperately needs. Onward, Robert Weissman President, Public Citizen
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 19:47:36 +0000
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