Overturn Citizens United Act Passes California Senate

* SB 1272 would give California voters the opportunity to tell Congress to pass a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United

By Press Release
California Clean Money Campaign, May 28th, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
from the California Clean Money Campaign

Contact: Trent Lange

SACRAMENTO - In an important achievement for the national movement to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the California State Senate today passed SB 1272, the Overturn Citizens United Act, which would allow Californians to vote in November 2014 to demand a U.S. Constitutional amendment that says corporations aren't people, and money isn't speech. The bill passed on a vote of 23-12.

SB 1272 is part of a growing nationwide movement to nullify the two Supreme Court decisions that overturned more than a hundred years of campaign finance laws and allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts on campaigns. Citizens United is deeply unpopular with voters, with polls showing 80 percent of voters opposed to it. 16 states have already called on Congress to overturn the decision, as well as roughly 500 municipalities from Los Angeles to Liberty, Maine.

"If our democratic system of representative government is to survive, these deeply damaging rulings must be overturned," said Trent Lange, President of the California Clean Money Campaign. "Billionaires should not have thousands of times more free speech than the average American just because they have so much more money to spend on elections."

Over 37,000 people signed petitions -- including those hosted and shared on CREDO Mobilize, Democracy for America, MoveOn.org Petitions, Causes.com, and the California Clean Money Campaign website. Tens of thousands signed, emailed, tweeted, shared on Facebook and Twitter, emailed, and faxed. Hundreds applied even more pressure by calling their legislators.

SB 1272 is authored by Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) and sponsored by the Money Out Voters in Coalition. The Act is supported by California groups such as the California Clean Money Campaign, California Common Cause, the California School Employees Association, and CALPIRG. National groups also weighed in, with organizations like Courage Campaign, CREDO, Causes.com, Democracy for America, MoveOn, Public Citizen, Represent.Us, and 99Rise getting involved.

"Californians deserve the opportunity to tell Congress to pass a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and saying that money isn't speech", said Lange. "The California Senate is to be congratulated for voting to give them that option on this November's ballot. Hopefully the Assembly will do the same."


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The California Clean Money Campaign is a non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization that has been dedicated to educating the public about the need to lessen the unfair influence of Big Money on election campaigns since 2001. For further information, visit www.CAclean.org

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)