Unlimited spending is corrupting democracy

Big spending in our elections is out of control.

Super PACs have already raised nearly $100 million to support Republican presidential candidates. That money has come from wealthy individual donors and shell corporations, set up purely to obscure the donor’s identity. 

The First Amendment is meant to protect our right to free speech. But since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, it seems like only billionaires are getting heard. 

Join the growing call for a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United today!

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson just announced he’ll spend as much as $100 million to prop up Newt Gingrich’s flailing presidential campaign - enough to make a Hollywood movie like Mission: Impossible.

Tea Party supporter David Koch has spent $700,000 supporting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is facing a recall. That’s as much as NBA superstar Jeremy Lin will earn this year. And Koch says he won’t stop there: “We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more.”

In all, about two dozen donors, many of whom attend the secretive Koch conferences every year, have spent more than $1 million each on Republican Super PACs so far. That’s an oligarchy, not democracy.

Enough is enough — we’re joining progressive heroes like Bernie Sanders and calling on Congress to overturn Citizens United with a Constitutional Amendment. Click here to add your name to our petition.

This unlimited political spending was made possible by the Supreme Court. But last week, two Supreme Court Justices said the court should reconsider.

Seeing the amount of money Super PACs have spent in just the first few months of this election year, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have had enough. After a judge in Montana asserted his state’s right to regulate and restrict corporate money in politics, Justices Ginsburg and Breyer released a statement calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider the Citizens United decision.

Hearing the case, they argued, would give the Supreme Court “an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

The winds are shifting. Big money’s toxic influence on our democracy is becoming so clear it cannot be ignored.

Grassroots support can push Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment — and put our democracy back in our hands.

Constitutional Amendments are not easy. But they happen when people rise up to demand them. The truth is, corporations are not people and money is not speech. And if we cannot find a way to stop this kind of billionaire-run politics, the damage to our democracy will be irreversible.

Forward this message to your friends, family, and anyone who believes that we must take back our democracy. — @WFP