Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. This post first appeared at Salon. My comments in bold.
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If you take away Prohibition (the 18th Amendment) and its repeal (the 21st), most of our constitutional amendments since the original Bill of Rights have expanded the voting rights and political equality of the people. (No, most of the amendments and the Bill of Rights have further restricted government.)
Our post-Reconstruction amendments have abolished slavery (the 13th), provided for equal protection of the laws and required reduction of states’ congressional delegations if they disenfranchise eligible voters (the 14th), denied states the power to discriminate in voting based on race (the 15th) and shifted the mode of election of US Senators from the legislatures to the people (the 17th). They have passed woman suffrage (the 19th), given residents of the federal district the right to vote and participate in presidential elections by casting electors (the 23rd), abolished poll taxes in federal elections (the 24th) and lowered the voting age to 18 (the 26th).
Moreover, many of these amendments have directly responded to Supreme Court decisions denying the political rights of the people. For example, the 19th Amendment overturned the Court’s decision in Minor v. Happersett (1875), which held that Equal Protection did not protect the right of women to vote, affirming precedents finding that women’s proper place is in the domestic sphere. Similarly, the 24th Amendment banning poll taxes in federal elections overturned the Court’s 1937 decision in Breedlove v. Suttles upholding such taxes. (My point made. Intrusions into the liberty of Americans by government were overturned by the amendments.)
But if you listened only to some of my colleagues in the legal establishment, you might never know that our unfolding Bill of Rights ("Unfolding?" The Bill of Rights, passed in 1789, has not been changed since. It isn't "unfolding."
is a dynamic chronicle of the democratic struggles of the people for participatory political equality (No, it is part of the highest law of the land, its self described purpose is "...that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added..." Restrictive clauses upon government power.)
nor would you know that the people have often had to override reactionary decisions of the Supreme Court in the process. (It's odd to me how the Left is so interested in the courts overturning the democratic will of the people on one hand, yet here this author thinks the Supreme court is acting improperly. You see, the problem here is the excessive power that the court, and all government, wields. The Left loves government power, but sometimes it acts in a way you agree, sometimes not. Thus the Left is very happy when it goes their way and unhappy when it doesn't. The fact that government has assumed the power to act according to any political or social agenda is the issue.)
A lot of lawyers today react with horror to US Reps. Marc Pocan (D-WI) and Keith Ellison’s (D-MN) excellent push for a constitutional amendment to establish an affirmative and universal right to vote against recurring state efforts to disenfranchise people. And a lot of academics were aghast last summer when every Democratic United States senator supported a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United, McCutcheon v. FEC (2014) and Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (2011). (So the author has her agenda and advocates constitutional amendments to further that agenda. But should the people actually choose to pass a state constitutional amendment (as Montana voters did with the definition of marriage), well, we can't have that, can we? Thus all her arguments in favor of amendments are supplanted by the agenda.
She doesn't want amendments when she gets a court ruling. She doesn't want a court ruling if she can get a law passed. She doesn't want a law if she can get an protest. Any or all of these are fine if they further the objective. No holds barred for the sake of the agenda.)
If you take away Prohibition (the 18th Amendment) and its repeal (the 21st), most of our constitutional amendments since the original Bill of Rights have expanded the voting rights and political equality of the people. (No, most of the amendments and the Bill of Rights have further restricted government.)
Our post-Reconstruction amendments have abolished slavery (the 13th), provided for equal protection of the laws and required reduction of states’ congressional delegations if they disenfranchise eligible voters (the 14th), denied states the power to discriminate in voting based on race (the 15th) and shifted the mode of election of US Senators from the legislatures to the people (the 17th). They have passed woman suffrage (the 19th), given residents of the federal district the right to vote and participate in presidential elections by casting electors (the 23rd), abolished poll taxes in federal elections (the 24th) and lowered the voting age to 18 (the 26th).
Moreover, many of these amendments have directly responded to Supreme Court decisions denying the political rights of the people. For example, the 19th Amendment overturned the Court’s decision in Minor v. Happersett (1875), which held that Equal Protection did not protect the right of women to vote, affirming precedents finding that women’s proper place is in the domestic sphere. Similarly, the 24th Amendment banning poll taxes in federal elections overturned the Court’s 1937 decision in Breedlove v. Suttles upholding such taxes. (My point made. Intrusions into the liberty of Americans by government were overturned by the amendments.)
But if you listened only to some of my colleagues in the legal establishment, you might never know that our unfolding Bill of Rights ("Unfolding?" The Bill of Rights, passed in 1789, has not been changed since. It isn't "unfolding."
is a dynamic chronicle of the democratic struggles of the people for participatory political equality (No, it is part of the highest law of the land, its self described purpose is "...that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added..." Restrictive clauses upon government power.)
nor would you know that the people have often had to override reactionary decisions of the Supreme Court in the process. (It's odd to me how the Left is so interested in the courts overturning the democratic will of the people on one hand, yet here this author thinks the Supreme court is acting improperly. You see, the problem here is the excessive power that the court, and all government, wields. The Left loves government power, but sometimes it acts in a way you agree, sometimes not. Thus the Left is very happy when it goes their way and unhappy when it doesn't. The fact that government has assumed the power to act according to any political or social agenda is the issue.)
A lot of lawyers today react with horror to US Reps. Marc Pocan (D-WI) and Keith Ellison’s (D-MN) excellent push for a constitutional amendment to establish an affirmative and universal right to vote against recurring state efforts to disenfranchise people. And a lot of academics were aghast last summer when every Democratic United States senator supported a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United, McCutcheon v. FEC (2014) and Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (2011). (So the author has her agenda and advocates constitutional amendments to further that agenda. But should the people actually choose to pass a state constitutional amendment (as Montana voters did with the definition of marriage), well, we can't have that, can we? Thus all her arguments in favor of amendments are supplanted by the agenda.
She doesn't want amendments when she gets a court ruling. She doesn't want a court ruling if she can get a law passed. She doesn't want a law if she can get an protest. Any or all of these are fine if they further the objective. No holds barred for the sake of the agenda.)
The amendment, backed by the vast majority of Americans (I sincerely doubt that.) and a surging national campaign that 16 states and more than 650 cities and towns have joined, would restore the people’s power to stop CEOs from spending corporate treasury wealth on political races, to impose reasonable campaign finance limits such as caps on aggregate contributions, and to develop public financing laws with matching grants that help empower poorer candidates to be heard over the roar of big money. (Because apparently we have no campaign finance laws now, so today is a new day with a new call for more laws. Is she oblivious to the fact that big money remains in politics despite all the existing restrictions?
And she uses the word "reasonable," a word chosen to suggest that the opposition is unreasonable and working from ulterior motives. We don't know what "reasonable" is, and in fact, being reasonable is not a characteristic of the Left in most things they do.)
Yet we are constantly invited to believe that, however much big money comes to dominate our politics and control public policy, we must never touch our Constitution. (Who has made such an invitation? Who has suggested that we must never touch the Constitution? Names, please. And when did the Constitution become so valued among the Left? Remember, it's an ancient, largely irrelevant product of slave-owning white patriarchal males?)
Yet we are constantly invited to believe that, however much big money comes to dominate our politics and control public policy, we must never touch our Constitution. (Who has made such an invitation? Who has suggested that we must never touch the Constitution? Names, please. And when did the Constitution become so valued among the Left? Remember, it's an ancient, largely irrelevant product of slave-owning white patriarchal males?)
It must be hidden away in the attic where it will be tended by wise Supreme Court justices and law professors who know that the people’s constitutional values will always be inferior to those of the judiciary and the experts. (This is what the Right complains about! The courts frequently legislate from the bench and then expect everyone to kowtow to their pronouncements. This is the tool the Left happily uses to impose its agenda despite the democratic will of the people! Her objections ring hollow, because the Left relies on the courts to get their way.)
This attitude betrays our progressive democratic heritage and Thomas Jefferson’s important warning:
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc [sic] of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. … But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.(Actually, the quote begins, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions." As is typical for the Left, the author picks and chooses quotes to bolster her case. But who can forget that the Left hates slave-owning Thomas Jefferson! How is it that he is now a hero and so quotable?
Further, does Jefferson really believe that the amendment process should be used to further a social agenda? Hardly. He wanted a limited, diffuse government that stayed out of the affairs of the people. For example,
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' [10th Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."Or this:
"Whenever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."There are many things Jefferson, and all of the founders, said and wrote thatare directly at odds with the author's premise. If she cared to find out. But she doesn't. She only cares about advancing the interests of her agenda using any agency of government, in contravention of the people.)
(The balance of the article is largely devoted to discussing this Richard Hasen fellow, all but abandoning the subject of the article...) The country’s most prolific voting rights scholar and blogger, Richard Hasen — a colleague and friend of mine — is the most recent legal academic to pour cold water all over the movement for a constitutional amendment to rebuild the statutory wall protecting democratic elections from the flood of plutocratic and corporate wealth. This is the wall that has been mostly demolished by the Roberts Court in both Citizens United and the McCutcheon decision.
While Citizens United turned every corporate treasury in the country into a potential political slush fund, (Which of course is the persistent narrative of the Left. It isn't true, but that is the way it is portrayed, to the point of it becoming unassailable truth. It's fear mongering, nothing more, a convenient bogeyman to demonize and manipulate.)
McCutcheon wiped out all aggregate limits on federal campaign contributions so that tycoons (Only "tycoons?" Actually, the removal of aggregate limits means EVERYONE can now give to as many candidates as they want.)
can now max out to every incumbent Member of Congress — plus all their opponents! The top half of the top 1 percent can now pretty much bankroll all federal campaigns, which is one reason why run-of-the-mill Republican (Soros? Tom Steyer? Adelson? Linda McMahon? Jim Simons? Paul Singer? They're Republicans?)
can now max out to every incumbent Member of Congress — plus all their opponents! The top half of the top 1 percent can now pretty much bankroll all federal campaigns, which is one reason why run-of-the-mill Republican (Soros? Tom Steyer? Adelson? Linda McMahon? Jim Simons? Paul Singer? They're Republicans?)
millionaires and bundlers are complaining to the Washington Post that they have been bypassed in the nation’s wealth primary by “multi-multimillionaires and billionaires.” The bottom half of the top 1 percent is getting a sense of what it is like to be a political spectator in the country’s exclusionary wealth primary.
The Post also reports that public anxiety about plutocracy (A marxist buzzword. A plutocracy is a nation governed by the wealthy. While I know many people are concerned about money in politics, I doubt many of them have any sense as to what a plutocracy is, especially oa the Left uses the word.)
is becoming a key issue in the presidential election — not just among Democratic activists for whom it is “red meat,” according to Professor Hasen, but for Republicans and Independents too — pretty much everyone who lacks the strategic advantages of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers. Earlier this month, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (Hardly a conservative. Interestingly, she cites another man they have unending contempt for, once again a convenient hero.)
also pointed to the need for a constitutional amendment to fix the damage done by Citizens United. Indeed, if you don’t think the accelerating takeover of our politics by big money affects public policy in the real world, you may or may not be an academic, but you are definitely too innocent to be let out of the house by yourself. (Straw man. Few people think big money in politics is not a problem. It is the solution to the problem where thinking people disagree.)
In launching her 2016 campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declared a “big fight” to fix “our dysfunctional political system” by getting “unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if it takes a constitutional amendment,” and I say good for her. Given Clinton’s legislative and political experience and her own prodigious navigation of our money politics, she obviously knows how the Roberts Court’s magical transformation of for-profit business corporations into political membership groups has completely distorted politics in the Citizens United era. Of course, some of the Republican presidential candidates are charging her with hypocrisy for seeking to change the plutocratic political system that shapes her campaign, along with everyone else’s, and sullies everyone who touches it. But this is predictable and pedestrian. (No, the criticism is relevant and pertinent. In fact, such criticism of those who would hold the reigns of power ought to be vigorous, sustained, and loud. It is very much to the point that the ones shouting the loudest about eeevil corporate money are the ones who take loads of it.)
The Post also reports that public anxiety about plutocracy (A marxist buzzword. A plutocracy is a nation governed by the wealthy. While I know many people are concerned about money in politics, I doubt many of them have any sense as to what a plutocracy is, especially oa the Left uses the word.)
is becoming a key issue in the presidential election — not just among Democratic activists for whom it is “red meat,” according to Professor Hasen, but for Republicans and Independents too — pretty much everyone who lacks the strategic advantages of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers. Earlier this month, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (Hardly a conservative. Interestingly, she cites another man they have unending contempt for, once again a convenient hero.)
also pointed to the need for a constitutional amendment to fix the damage done by Citizens United. Indeed, if you don’t think the accelerating takeover of our politics by big money affects public policy in the real world, you may or may not be an academic, but you are definitely too innocent to be let out of the house by yourself. (Straw man. Few people think big money in politics is not a problem. It is the solution to the problem where thinking people disagree.)
In launching her 2016 campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declared a “big fight” to fix “our dysfunctional political system” by getting “unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if it takes a constitutional amendment,” and I say good for her. Given Clinton’s legislative and political experience and her own prodigious navigation of our money politics, she obviously knows how the Roberts Court’s magical transformation of for-profit business corporations into political membership groups has completely distorted politics in the Citizens United era. Of course, some of the Republican presidential candidates are charging her with hypocrisy for seeking to change the plutocratic political system that shapes her campaign, along with everyone else’s, and sullies everyone who touches it. But this is predictable and pedestrian. (No, the criticism is relevant and pertinent. In fact, such criticism of those who would hold the reigns of power ought to be vigorous, sustained, and loud. It is very much to the point that the ones shouting the loudest about eeevil corporate money are the ones who take loads of it.)
The nihilistic enemies of reform (The author is a gift that keeps on giving. Nihilism is defined as "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless." Sounds more like the Left to me.
And note Republicans are "enemies of reform." That is, to oppose a Leftist initiative is to oppose all the magical, wonderful things they want. "Reform," that is, their version of reform, is definitionally virtuous. Only eeevil, hateful, greedy people could possibly oppose such noble reforms. Indeed, their reform is the only possible reform. Thus, any dissent makes the dissenter a "nihilistic enemy of reform.")
prefer nothing systemic to change (See, if you don't agree with the "reforms" from the Left, you are in favor of nothing, you like things the way they are, you have no alternatives yourself.)
just so long as they (As yet they are unnamed.) can keep denouncing Hillary Clinton. (In other words, those haters simply need an excuse to criticize the wonderful Hillary. The fact that she's among the worst offenders is an off-limits topic. Hm.)
And note Republicans are "enemies of reform." That is, to oppose a Leftist initiative is to oppose all the magical, wonderful things they want. "Reform," that is, their version of reform, is definitionally virtuous. Only eeevil, hateful, greedy people could possibly oppose such noble reforms. Indeed, their reform is the only possible reform. Thus, any dissent makes the dissenter a "nihilistic enemy of reform.")
prefer nothing systemic to change (See, if you don't agree with the "reforms" from the Left, you are in favor of nothing, you like things the way they are, you have no alternatives yourself.)
just so long as they (As yet they are unnamed.) can keep denouncing Hillary Clinton. (In other words, those haters simply need an excuse to criticize the wonderful Hillary. The fact that she's among the worst offenders is an off-limits topic. Hm.)
Thankfully there is no talk of hypocrisy in Hasen’s critique, but still all Clinton gets from him is a lot of negative energy. (Which of course cannot be permitted.
Notice we're back to talking about this Hasen fellow. I can't help but wonder why he's inserted in this article.)
First, he faults her for not trying to fix “the nation’s disclosure laws,” which is strange because she supported the Disclose Act, which US Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced and which Republicans killed, and she has always championed disclosure. It is also strange because Clinton is clearly treating a constitutional amendment as a last resort in a struggle against a runaway faction of five plutocrats on the Supreme Court. (Only the right-leaning justices are plutocrats, apparently. Unfortunately for the author, and inconvenient to her case, the first three richest Supreme court justices are part of her ideological faction, and the eeevil Alito is #8:
wants unaccountable corporate money — which is now spent by CEOs in our political campaigns on a secret basis and without any consumer, shareholder or citizen control over it—to be subject to public regulation “even if it takes” a constitutional amendment. That doesn’t sound so reckless to me.
Notice we're back to talking about this Hasen fellow. I can't help but wonder why he's inserted in this article.)
First, he faults her for not trying to fix “the nation’s disclosure laws,” which is strange because she supported the Disclose Act, which US Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced and which Republicans killed, and she has always championed disclosure. It is also strange because Clinton is clearly treating a constitutional amendment as a last resort in a struggle against a runaway faction of five plutocrats on the Supreme Court. (Only the right-leaning justices are plutocrats, apparently. Unfortunately for the author, and inconvenient to her case, the first three richest Supreme court justices are part of her ideological faction, and the eeevil Alito is #8:
1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: $4.4 million to $18.1 millionIf I am reading her correctly, Clinton (Back to Clinton now. If you're having a hard time following her, I don't blame you.)
2. Stephen G. Breyer: $5 million to $17.1 million
3. Sonia Sotomayor: $1.7 million to $10.3 million
4. John G. Roberts Jr.: $2.8 million to $6.6 million
5. Antonin Scalia: $1.9 million to $4.2 million
6. Elena Kagan: $815,000 to $2.1 million
7. Clarence Thomas: $715,000 to $1.8 million
8. Samuel A. Alito Jr.: $380,000 to $1.1 million
9. Anthony M. Kennedy: $330,000 to $700,000
wants unaccountable corporate money — which is now spent by CEOs in our political campaigns on a secret basis and without any consumer, shareholder or citizen control over it—to be subject to public regulation “even if it takes” a constitutional amendment. That doesn’t sound so reckless to me.
For Hasen, (Back to Hasen...) it seems sufficient to work for years or decades to mandate disclosure of the billions of dollars in corporate money coursing through the veins of the body politic, and then leave things at that. He is afraid that actually restoring the power of Congress to impose “reasonable” and viewpoint-neutral limits on corporate political expenditures would be subject to an effective judicial veto through reinterpretation by “a conservative majority on the Roberts Court” and therefore useless. Well, it is also the case that the addition of the words “equal protection” to the Constitution were effectively nullified through reinterpretation by a Jim Crow Supreme Court between Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). But does that make passage of the Fourteenth Amendment a bad idea? The Supreme Court has been a conservative and reactionary institution for most of our history, but that is precisely the reason for the people to write our Constitution in a way that advances and protects strong democracy. Having the right constitutional language in place may not be sufficient to constrain the reactionary elitism of the Supreme Court, but it is certainly necessary. (Apparently, the Constitution needs to be amended regarding campaign finance laws because racism.)
[...]
The article continues on for several more paragraphs, which I just don't want to wade through. The author made her point, poorly though it may have been, then continues repeating herself. So, because this is my blog, I shut off her mike.
A reminder again that with the left, it is about the ends, not the means. the constitution is important to them - except when inconvenient. The will of the people is important to them, up until such will conflicts with their agenda. There is no supreme law of the land for the Statist. The supreme law of the land is the Statist's agenda, by whatever means necessary.
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