The next general meeting of Move To Amend of Buncombe County (MABCO) will be held Monday, April 14, 2014, at the North Asheville Library at 1030 Merrimon Avenue at 7:00pm.
Move To Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not to corporate interests. Move To Amend calls for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong only to human beings, not to corporations, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.
In 2010, Citizens United, a conservative non-profit founded on 1988, challenged the Federal Election Commission to relax the regulations set forth in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 limiting the amounts that individuals, corporations, labor unions, and associations, can contribute to national party committees and federal candidate campaigns, and the case was taken to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, holding that the First Amendment prohibits government from restricting political independent expenditures by corporations, associations, or labor unions.
In 2012, Alabama businessman, Sean McCutheon, wanted to donate to more political candidates than the 27 allowed under the current aggregate limits in compliance with the Federal Election Campaign Act. He teamed up with the Republican National Committee and together they filed a complaint before district court asserting that aggregate limits were unconstitutional. Their motion was denied so they took it to the Supreme Court. On April 2 , 2014, the Supreme Court sided with McCutheon and the Republican National Committee, holding that the First Amendment invalidates contribution limits, and striking all limits to the amount of candidates, cause, and committees a donor can support.
These and other earlier court decisions enshrining ‘Corporate Personhood’ and ‘Money is Free Speech’ into the law of our land, as interpretations of the Constitution, are primary reasons why political campaigns have become so costly and dominated by special interest, super-PAC ‘sound bite’ rhetoric. Move to Amend seeks to overturn these deeply flawed Supreme Court interpretations via Constitutional Amendment. If you also believe this action is critical to a rebirth of citizen democratic control of our government please consider attending the MABCO April meeting.
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