Lucas,
It's happening.
Yesterday, key Senate leaders stated their intention to bring a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and
McCutcheon up for a vote in the near future.
A lot of people scoffed when Public Citizen called for an amendment right after the Supreme Court handed down its ridiculous Citizens United ruling back on January 21, 2010.
Now, just four years later — with all the work Public Citizen has led the way on — the nationwide popular outcry to save our democracy has become so resolute that an amendment will soon make its way to the Senate floor for the first time.
As best we can recall, the last time a progressive amendment got that far was August 22, 1978, when the Senate passed an amendment that would have righted the injustice whereby Americans who live in Washington, D.C., are denied representation in Congress and the Electoral College. (That amendment ultimately was not ratified by the needed 38 states.)
In other words, the campaign — that you've been instrumental in as part of Public Citizen — for a constitutional amendment to rescue our democracy from billionaires and Big Business is about to reach a milestone that hasn't been reached for almost four decades.
And I'm telling you: This does not happen without Public Citizen.
As we've always done, we refused to be dissuaded from doing the right thing by those who thought it would be impractical or impossible.
It's not easy.
There's no doubt about that.
But look how far we've progressed already.
To keep making progress — to make sure we don't let our democracy fall under a permanent shadow of dark money — we have to keep fighting. We have to. With everything we've got.
If you can, please chip in right now. Whatever you can give — $5, $50, $500, whatever — it's We the People us or it's plutocracy.
Don't let it be the latter.
Thanks,
Robert
P.S. This is an incredibly exciting moment. As you read this, we're formulating plans for our grassroots, lobbying and communications strategy leading up to the vote. You'll be hearing a lot from us about putting that strategy to work. For more details on the announcement of the pending Senate vote, see my message from yesterday, copied below.