Sen. Carper Supports Constitutional Amendment to Fix Broken Campaign Finance System

Statement

Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) released the following statement after Senate Republicans filibustered a Constitutional Amendment (S.J. Res. 19) to restore the influence of everyday Americans in the electoral process. Senator Carper is a cosponsor of the amendment, which was authored by Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.).

"In the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court upended decades' worth of campaign finance laws, and opened the floodgates for corporations and wealthy individuals to spend unlimited sums of money to influence our elections. Moreover, earlier this year in another controversial 5-4 decision, the Court further eviscerated campaign finance protections by removing the caps on aggregate political contributions. These decisions have severely curtailed the long-understood ability of Congress to enact common sense campaign finance laws that protect the sacred principles of democracy enshrined in our Constitution.

"Amending our Constitution is not a trivial matter, but I believe the Supreme Court has left us with no choice. I believe that every American, regardless of the size of his or her bank account, has a right to be heard at the ballot box, and this approach is our best shot to meaningfully improve our campaign finance system and restore sanity to our political process. We fell short of the necessary votes to advance this proposal today, but I'm hopeful we'll continue to revisit this proposal in the future."

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