Campaign Finance Reform

"Citizens United" Ruling

As a result of Citizens United's Supreme Court victory, "Dark Money", irrespective of its nefarious sources, is now "free speech" which wealthy individuals and corporations can use as a way to exert even more influence than they already have in our corrupt electoral system. Buying elections, in fact, is now easier than ever.

In the last few election seasons a high number of secretly-funded political ads have saturated the airwaves all over the U.S. with ads paid for with virtually untraceable “dark money” from super-rich "benefactors" who seek to buy elections.

Prior to Citizens United, campaign finance legislation and case law banned corporate spending on independent expenditures and electioneering communications.
Citizens United argued that these bans violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court extended First Amendment rights to corporations, such that corporations can now use treasury funds to make independent expenditures and to pay for electioneering communications in connection with federal elections.
Corporations must still adhere to disclaimer and disclosure requirements when making those communications.

Citizens United Must Be Repealed!

Proposed Solution

To keep election costs under control and mitigate the influence of runaway political contributions, a transparent Public Elections Fund should be established whereby all contributions made thereto will be equally distributed among all nominated major-party candidates on a monthly, bi-monthly basis (or other agreed-to interval) in accordance with our pre-defined 11-month-rule – all distributions to be determined by a census-based “demographic formula”.
In the event that any candidade is forced to withdraw his/her candidacy, all remaining funds shall be equally distributed between the remaining candidates.

What we must do: https://www.stampstampede.org/money-out-voters-in/overturn-citizens-united/.

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