Baucus Announces Plans to Reintroduce Constitutional Amendment to Protect Voices Of Montanans

Statement

Senator's Announcement Comes on the Eve of Citizen's United One-Year Anniversary

Montana's senior U.S. Senator Max Baucus announced today he will reintroduce his Constitutional amendment to make sure the voices of Montanans are heard during campaign season. Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, which left foreign corporations and big business free to pour unlimited amounts of money into American elections.

"The foundation of democracy is based on the ability of the people to elect a government that represents them - the people, not big business or foreign corporations. As Montanans, we learned our lesson almost a century ago when the copper kings used their corporate power to drown out the people and buy elections. Today, we have some of the toughest campaign finance laws in the land, and they work. Now we've got to fight to protect the voices on hard-working Montanans and keep elections in the hands of the people, and that's just what I intend to do," Baucus said.

In the Citizen's United case, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations, including foreign corporations, had the right to spend unlimited dollars from their general funds to make independent expenditures at any time during an election cycle - including directly calling for the election or defeat of a candidate.

As a result of the Supreme Court's ruling, Montana's century-old campaign finance laws limiting corporate spending are now also in jeopardy.

Baucus' Constitutional amendment would restore the authority to regulate corporate political expenditure and protect states' right to regulate contributions in the way that works best for them. The amendment does not modify the First Amendment, and the language specifies that this does not affect freedom of the press in any way.

Baucus first introduced his amendment in July, during the last Congress, and he plans to reintroduce it this Congress after the Senate returns. Baucus also voted in the last Congress in favor of the DISCLOSE Act to help end corruption in political contributions.

To amend the Constitution, the measure must pass both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives with 2/3 of the vote, and then must be ratified by 3/4 of the states.

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