Political Quotes

“today, I join with Senator Whitehouse, Senator Schumer and many other Senate Democrats as we renew our efforts to curtail some of the worst abuses now allowed because of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. The Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections, DISCLOSE, Act of 2012 will help to restore transparency in the campaign finance laws gutted by the narrow, conservative, activist majority of the Supreme Court in Citizens United. Two years ago, with the stroke of a pen, five Supreme Court justices overturned a century of law designed to protect our elections from corporate spending. They ran roughshod over longstanding precedent to strike down key provisions of our bipartisan campaign finance laws, and ruled that corporations are no longer prohibited from direct spending in political campaigns. I was troubled at the time and remain troubled today that in that case, the Supreme Court extended to corporations the same First Amendment rights in the political process that are guaranteed by the Constitution to individual Americans. Corporations are not the same as individual Americans. Corporations do not have the same rights, the same morals or the same interests. Corporations cannot vote in our democracy. They are artificial legal constructs meant to facilitate business. The Founders understood this. Americans across the country have long understood this. A narrow majority on the Supreme Court apparently did not.…”