The recent Supreme Court Citizens United campaign finance decision is a dramatic assault on American democracy, giving corporations the ultimate authority over elections and governing. It tips the balance against active citizenship and the rule of law by making it possible for the nation’s most powerful economic interests to manipulate not just individual politicians and electoral contests but political discourse itself. Long-term, as The Nation has editorialized, we need to work strategically for a constitutional amendment stating unequivocally that corporations are not people and do not have the right to buy elections.
But in the short term, what’s needed to build a more just democracy is passage of the Fair Elections Now Act, legislation which I have long supported (see
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