• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Sanders/Citizen United Amendment Proposal

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech of real persons, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble in person in public spaces or virtually in electronic spaces, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Free speech shall not be deemed to be money or the expenditure of money for the purpose of conducting a political campaign or public relations campaign in conjunction with a political campaign, either directly as a candidate or party or indirectly as an agent or other interested party on behalf of a candidate or party.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

where did you get that from?
i can find no versions of the 1st with that in it.
 
Medical marijuana.

:doh this is very much an issue with you.
if you don't recall any amendment to the FL constitution requires 60% of the vote to pass.
please try not to be dishonest.

so no the 49% didn't win the amendment didn't get the required number of votes.
 
where did you get that from?
i can find no versions of the 1st with that in it.

It's his proposed changes, obviously.
 
:doh this is very much an issue with you.
if you don't recall any amendment to the FL constitution requires 60% of the vote to pass.
please try not to be dishonest.

so no the 49% didn't win the amendment didn't get the required number of votes.

Which falls back to my argument that one person, one vote is deceptive. And yes it is very much an issue with me. It's another way to negate the one person, one vote idea. We've turned what should be a simple majority vote into now you need a super majority vote to win or the party with the lesser amount of votes wins. That to me just makes no sense.
 
This, on its face, is a partial repeal of the First Amendment, seeing as you're purposely placing limits directly within the First Amendment. But thank you for putting actual words to it, as you're the only one so far to do it.

Harshaw:

How is this a partial repeal of the first ammendment's free speech protections for persons? Legal persons do not have the capacity to speak and must depend on human agents for communication. This rewording allows free speech for all persons, real or legal but opens the door to the regulation of the money-amplified "speech" of the agents of legal persons. Since legal persons do not possess brains with which to formulate ideas into speech, nor vocal cords or mouths with which to utter speech nor hands, arms or faces with which to write or otherwise communicate speech, nothing has been partially repealed at all except the ability of real persons to act as mandated agents on behalf of these legal persons/fictions. In effect the first ammendment could never have applied to legal persons because like rocks and mountains they have no capacity for making speech. They must rely on human agents for the purposes of communication. This rewording partially limits agency, not free speech.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
where did you get that from?
i can find no versions of the 1st with that in it.

Ludin:

The bolded sections are the changes I made to the traditional First Ammendment for the purposes of this thread. I hope I didn't alarm you with fears of revisionist history changing primary source documents.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Harshaw:

How is this a partial repeal of the first ammendment's free speech protections for persons? Legal persons do not have the capacity to speak and must depend on human agents for communication.

You answered your own question.

Never mind that you feel you need to "reword" the First Amendment to put in limits which aren't there, so yeah, it's a partial repeal. What else would you explicitly placing limits on it?

But again, this doesn't even overturn Citizens United. The Court didn't reach its conclusion on the idea that corporations are people. It reached its conclusion by stating that 1) people have rights, and 2) people retain those rights when they organize themselves into groups. The decision is based on the rights of actual people, not "corporate personhood."
 
You answered your own question.

Never mind that you feel you need to "reword" the First Amendment to put in limits which aren't there, so yeah, it's a partial repeal. What else would you explicitly placing limits on it?

But again, this doesn't even overturn Citizens United. The Court didn't reach its conclusion on the idea that corporations are people. It reached its conclusion by stating that 1) people have rights, and 2) people retain those rights when they organize themselves into groups. The decision is based on the rights of actual people, not "corporate personhood."

Harshaw:

Hmm. Ok. I'll rethink this and may get back to you if I can figure out a work-around. I thought I had one by focusing on agency rather than speech. However by 18th century standards any group of people gathered together for common purpose was a corporation, so I am not convinced that legal personhood is thus removed from the equation. But your thread and thus your rules. As a Canadian who is not a lawyer I am not intimately familiar with the Citizens United vs FCC decision and the jurisprudence and doctrine upon which the case was decided. So I will bow to your position until I learn otherwise.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Harshaw:

Hmm. Ok. I'll rethink this and may get back to you if I can figure out a work-around. I thought I had one by focusing on agency rather than speech. However by 18th century standards any group of people gathered together for common purpose was a corporation, so I am not convinced that legal personhood is thus removed from the equation. But your thread and thus your rules. As a Canadian who is not a lawyer I am not intimately familiar with the Citizens United vs FCC decision and the jurisprudence and doctrine upon which the case was decided. So I will bow to your position until I learn otherwise.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

It is, because that is not the basis upon which the case was decided. It's not that way because it's my thread; it's just not the way the case was decided. The outcome is the same whether or not there is "corporate personhood."
 
Actually I do have an issue with that. One vote one person is deceptive. Sure we get to vote and then along the line other factors step in to negate your one vote. I suggest when we have a presidential election it is exactly that, one person, one vote. Add the votes together nationwide and the person with the most votes wins. Not a delegate vote to swing a state, not a electoral college decision, not a supreme court decision. A one person, one vote decision.

Sure you libs would love to eliminate the electoral college as you control both coast and **** the middle states. Meaning you liberal elitist wish to control who we elect as president. You give a **** about the minorities that don't agree with you and you stomp them out. I have a real problem with that.
 
Sure you libs would love to eliminate the electoral college as you control both coast and **** the middle states. Meaning you liberal elitist wish to control who we elect as president. You give a **** about the minorities that don't agree with you and you stomp them out. I have a real problem with that.

So if you and I were running for a local position in our local government in a town of eleven people and you got six votes and I got five and won, you wouldn't mind?
 
So if you and I were running for a local position in our local government in a town of eleven people and you got six votes and I got five and won, you wouldn't mind?

Your hypothetical is baseless.
 
Before I comment on that, you'd have to give me actual wording, because "money is not speech" can mean a great many things.

Or, if that is your intended wording, then no law limiting expenditures related to speech/press would be unconstitutional, and the only thing the First Amendment would continue to protect would be standing in public and talking, because anything else requires expenditures.

Posting here is free.
 
Before I comment on that, you'd have to give me actual wording, because "money is not speech" can mean a great many things.

Or, if that is your intended wording, then no law limiting expenditures related to speech/press would be unconstitutional, and the only thing the First Amendment would continue to protect would be standing in public and talking, because anything else requires expenditures.

Posting here is free. Posting on Facebook is free. Tweeting is free.

The First Amendment applies to human beings, not to inanimate objects.
 
Posting here is free. Posting on Facebook is free. Tweeting is free.

The means to be able to do so are not.


The First Amendment applies to human beings, not to inanimate objects.

Tell that to the press when you make it a law that they may not spend money on ink and paper.
 
Yesterday, Bernie Sanders tweeted:



Assignment:

Construct an amendment which "overturns" Citizens United but doesn't also partially repeal the First Amendment.

Lets start with me agreeing that on this subject I am ignorant/stupid/ (fill in the insult). Thus no need to add that to any response I might get.

That out of the way, I never and still do not understand why so many are tormented by Citizens United. There has been a problem with to much money from big donors with to much influence for many years prior to the decision. Granted it made this bad decision worse,but I wonder how much worse. Not even sure that it has anything to do with the $25K per person dinners that people like Barbara Streisand give.
 
Assignment:

Construct an amendment which "overturns" Citizens United but doesn't also partially repeal the First Amendment.

That's easy:

AMENDMENT XXVIII

Section 1

No person or organization shall contribute money, or goods or services in kind, or tangible property to the campaign or candidate for political office, or to a ballot issue or ballot measure who shall not be legally eligible to vote for the candidate or to vote for the ballot issue or ballot measure.

Section 2

Political parties shall disburse monies only within the State in which the campaign funds were raised, donated or accumulated, and shall not transfer monies to other States.

Section 3

Any person who knowingly or willfully commits a violation of this Amendment shall be imprisoned for not less than 10 years and fined not less than 300 percent of the amount of money, goods or services or tangible property transferred or conferred upon the candidate, campaign or ballot measure.

Section 4

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.



That means George Soros and Bill Gates can only contribute money to presidential candidates, and to gubernatorial candidates for his State, and to Senatorial candidates for his State, and the federal representative for his district, but he cannot contribute money to gubernatorial candidates in other States, or Senatorial candidates in other States, or to federal representatives who do not represent his district.

It also means the 3% of businesses that are corporations cannot contribute funds, nor can the 97% of non-corporate businesses, nor can unions, think-tanks, policy groups, political action committees, non-profit organizations or any other organization.

It also means the DNC, RNC and other political parties can't raise money in one State and transfer that money to other States, either.

To obtain campaign financing, political candidates will have to take a novel approach and go out into the communities they serve and raise the money directly from voters or indirectly through volunteers on their campaign soliciting voters.

That puts every candidate in the US on equal footing, regardless of their party affiliation.
 
That's easy:

AMENDMENT XXVIII

Section 1

No person or organization shall contribute money, or goods or services in kind, or tangible property to the campaign or candidate for political office, or to a ballot issue or ballot measure who shall not be legally eligible to vote for the candidate or to vote for the ballot issue or ballot measure.

Section 2

Political parties shall disburse monies only within the State in which the campaign funds were raised, donated or accumulated, and shall not transfer monies to other States.

Section 3

Any person who knowingly or willfully commits a violation of this Amendment shall be imprisoned for not less than 10 years and fined not less than 300 percent of the amount of money, goods or services or tangible property transferred or conferred upon the candidate, campaign or ballot measure.

Section 4

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This does not overturn Citizens United, because Citizens United was not about campaign donations, nor raising nor disbursing campaign funds.
 
What the amendment has to say is that money is not speech.
Money is not speech. Money is the means by which speech is made more effective, and able to be distributed to a wide audience. Let us follow your "money is not 'X'" logic to its fullest.

Money is not newsprint. It should therefore be constitutional to restrict the amount of money the New York Times can spend on it.

Money is not an attorney. It should therefore be constitutional to limit the amount of money a criminal defendant may spend on one.

Money is not a gun. It should be constitutional to limit the amount of money that may be spent on one.

Money is not a vote. It should therefore be constitutional to limit the amount of money that may be spent on getting to the polling place.

Where does this logic break down for you, and why?
 
Which falls back to my argument that one person, one vote is deceptive. And yes it is very much an issue with me. It's another way to negate the one person, one vote idea. We've turned what should be a simple majority vote into now you need a super majority vote to win or the party with the lesser amount of votes wins. That to me just makes no sense.

It isn't deceptive at all. You cast a vote and it counts. just because you can't get enough votes doesn't mean it didn't count.
to say otherwise is not logical.

of course it doesn't make sense to you. It makes sense to me. more so if you know why that 60% threshold was put in place.
 
As long as money can write, then, it has a right to write whatever it wants.

Money can write as you can pay someone to write something.
There is nothing in the 1st amendment that limits speech to just speech and writing.

where you get this from i have no idea.
 
Money is not speech. Money is the means by which speech is made more effective, and able to be distributed to a wide audience. Let us follow your "money is not 'X'" logic to its fullest.

Money is not newsprint. It should therefore be constitutional to restrict the amount of money the New York Times can spend on it.

Money is not an attorney. It should therefore be constitutional to limit the amount of money a criminal defendant may spend on one.

Money is not a gun. It should be constitutional to limit the amount of money that may be spent on one.

Money is not a vote. It should therefore be constitutional to limit the amount of money that may be spent on getting to the polling place.

Where does this logic break down for you, and why?

By that logic, all laws limiting campaign donations are unconstitutional.
 
By that logic, all laws limiting campaign donations are unconstitutional.

I could probably be easily convinced that is true. I see no grant of power in the Constitution to regulate political campaigns.
 
Back
Top Bottom