Lohud. - Citizens United: A decade of unlimited political spending -- and consequences

Op-Ed

By Representative Eliot L. Engel

Is money speech? That's the question the Supreme Court decided 10 years ago in Citizens United v. FEC. The case, which subsequently became landmark for all the wrong reasons, undid years of painstaking bipartisan work by Congress to rein in money in politics. By making the money/speech equivalency, SCOTUS unleashed a torrent of campaign spending by special interest groups and our democracy has not been the same since.

In the past decade, $4.5 billion has been spent by outside special interest groups to influence our elections. It's an absurd amount of money, flowing through an equally absurd campaign finance system that puts disproportionate power in the hands of the wealthy few. We see it every day in our commercials, emails, and Facebook ads--the loudest voice goes to the deepest pocket.

Of course, the battle over money in politics is not new. The 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo--which rebuked meaningful campaign finance reform enacted by Congress --set the stage for Citizens United 34 years later. Both cases established that political donations are protected under the First Amendment, meaning corporations, special interest groups, and wealthy individuals are permitted to donate unlimited amounts of money to "independent expenditure committees" or Super PACs, which in turn have the power to set the agenda on national issues big and small.

This is not how the framers of our Constitution envisioned their grand experiment going. The American democratic system, once the envy of the world, has come under attack in recent years from threats both foreign and domestic. While outside players like Russia engage in misinformation campaigns from afar, big money special interests manipulate the process from within. In both circumstances, our response has been flatfooted.

Since my first days in Congress I have been a strong advocate for instituting real campaign finance reform. I was proud to work with my colleagues in the House to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a bicameral effort to combat the flow of money in our elections. The bill passed in 2002 and became the law that was ultimately struck down in Citizens United v. FEC. But just because there have been losses at the Supreme Court, it does not mean we stop fighting.

In March 2019, the House passed H.R. 1, the For the People Act, new legislation designed to overhaul our broken campaign finance laws. H.R. 1 requires Super PACs to disclose their wealthy donors, establishes a voluntary small dollar matching system, and -- importantly -- supports amending the Constitution to nullify the Citizens United v. FEC decision.

I was proud to be an original cosponsor of H.R 1, but I also believe we need to take things a step further. I have introduced a comprehensive Constitutional Amendment, H.J.Res. 9, that not only strengthens H.R. 1, but also overturns Buckley and the campaign finance aspects of Citizens United, while making election day a national holiday. Relegating elections to a single Tuesday in November is an antiquated concept that hurts working people. We can and should do better, and many states, including New York, already have. In addition, H.J.Res. 9 would outlaw gerrymandering of Congressional Districts and abolish the electoral college, two major progressive initiatives that would further empower the individual American voter at a critical time.

The explosion of money in politics over the last decade has had a corrosive effect on our democratic process. But many of the solutions we need are already sitting on the table. Let's move H.R. 1 in the Senate, create a true public finance system for federal candidates, make Election Day a national holiday and constitutionalize a repeal of Citizens United.

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