Quigley Re-Introduces Democracy for All Amendment
WASHINGTON – Yesterday, on the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05) joined U.S. Representatives Ted Deutch (FL-21), Donna F. Edwards (MD-04), and Jim McGovern (MA-02) to re-introduce the Democracy for All Amendment. This proposed amendment to the United States Constitution would reverse highly controversial Supreme Court decisions, like Citizens United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC, which have given corporations and America’s wealthiest donors a right to buy unlimited influence in our elections.
“Americans of all political persuasions have long agreed that special interests hold too much sway in Washington, yet Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United and McCutcheon have made the situation even worse by giving corporations and a handful of wealthy individuals the right to spend unlimited sums of money in our elections,” said Rep. Quigley. “Far from giving Americans’ a greater voice in our democratic process, these rulings have paved the way for an electoral system in which super PACs and shadowy front groups can drown out the voices of ordinary voters and set the agenda in Washington. With each election cycle becoming more expensive than the last, we need the Democracy for All Amendment to protect the integrity of the democratic process, limit big money in our elections and strengthen our democracy by promoting an efficient, effective and open government.”
In 2010, the Supreme Court’s highly controversial 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC held that corporations and other private entities have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums of money influencing the outcome of public elections.
The result of the Citizens United decision has been elections dominated by record-breaking spending by Super PACs and unaccountable outside groups funded by corporations and a tiny, extraordinarily wealthy sliver of the American population. In 2012, the first presidential election cycle following the Citizens United decision, 93 percent of Super PAC funding came from 3,318 donors, amounting to less than .01 percent of the U.S. population. Likewise, the 2014 midterm election cycle was the most expensive in history, with record-shattering spending by outside groups emboldened by Citizens United.
The Democracy for All Amendment would reverse Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United by enshrining in the Constitution the right of the American people to enact state and federal laws that regulate spending in public elections. The Democracy for All Amendment is the end result of extensive collaboration between the House and Senate sponsors of previously proposed constitutional amendments and several grassroots advocacy organizations committed to getting big money out of politics, including Public Citizen, People for the American Way, Free Speech for People, and Common Cause.
Rep. Quigley has been committed to good government reform throughout his time in Congress. He is co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Transparency Caucus and helped introduce the Government by the People Act, which would reform campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of big money in politics. He is also the author of the landmark Transparency in Government Act, a wide-ranging good government reform bill that will bring unprecedented access and accountability to the federal government. Rep. Quigley was an original co-sponsor of the Democracy for All Amendment in the 113th Congress.
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