Democrats Shut Down The Republican Party Filibuster On Citizens United, But That Fight Is Far From Won

If you signed any of the pathetic Democratic Party petitions yesterday to "tell Congress to overturn Citizens United, you can be sure yopu will be hit up for cash by corrupt Democratic conservatives like Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and that your e-mail address will be widely shared and sold and that you will wish you have never signed a petition that isn't troll Congress anything anyway.

Two extremist billionaires and their right-wing Supreme Court are trying to hijack our democracy-- and this could be our last chance to stop them.

The U.S. Senate is voting TODAY on a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United and stop corporate special interests from buying our elections.

…Tell Congress to overturn Citizens United-- we need your signature before the Senate votes on this amendment!

This amendment could be our last chance to level the playing field and repair the damage done by Citizens United. Signing only takes a few seconds; please don't let this opportunity slip away.

Sounds lovely, but accomplishes nothing at all-- except that scheming, slimy professional operatives have captured your e-mail address. Last night, the Senate voted to allow a vote on S.J. Res. 19, Tom Udall's Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. Th electoral calculus for all but the 19 most crazy, democracy-hating right-wing fanatics in the Senate was they'd better not filibuster this one. So it will actually get a vote, having passed 79-18. And the 18 most crazy, democracy-hating right-wing fanatics who didn't give a damn what Americans wanted and tried to filibuster the bill-- the usual suspects:

• John Barrrasso (R-WY)
• Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
• Tom Coburn (R-OK)
• Mike Crapo (R-ID)
• Ted Cruz (R-TX)
• Mike Enzi (R-WY)
• James Inhofe (R-OK)
• Johnny Isakson (R-OK)
• Ron Johnson (R-WI)
• Mike Lee (R-UT)
• Rand Paul (R-KY)
• Rob Portman (R-OH)
• Jim Risch (R-ID)
• Pat Roberts (R-KS)
• Tim Scott (R-SC)
• Richard Shelby (R-AL)
• John Thune (R-SD)
• Pat Toomey (R-PA)

Although 25 Republicans refused to filibuster, almost all of them-- probably all of them-- will vote later this week to kill it in a regular up-or-down vote. To pass it needs two-thirds support (67 votes), and that's not about to happen unless a significant number of Republicans are defeated in November, which looks increasingly unlikely… to put it mildly. Among the Republicans voting against the filibuster were frightened candidates for reelection in November like Miss McConnell, Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Thad Cochran (R-MS), and Susan Collins (R-ME) plus David "Diapers" Vitter, who's trying to run for governor of Louisiana.

Anyone who's been following Rick Weiland's Senate campaign for the open South Dakota seat can't be surprised that Rick is all over this issue. Harry Reid-- who has a stick up his ass about Tom Daschle supporting Rick-- won't allow the DSCC to back Rick but he's been making steady headway against GOP corporate shill Mike Rounds and is now within striking distance-- with ZERO help from the corrupt Beltway Establishment. Something tells me Rick wants to overturn Citizens United a lot more than most of the sitting senators do. Just before they voted he sent this to his supporters:

Today, the United States Senate will vote on a procedural bill which would pave the way for overturning the Citizens United decision that declared corporations are people and money is free speech. Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico has worked hard to get this bill to the floor for a vote.

Citizens United and this year’s McCutcheon decision have allowed billionaires and big corporations to drive public policy in the halls of Congress. Big Money has hijacked our government and put it on their side and against everyday South Dakotans.

...Now, the Big Money crowd is rallying behind the Paul Ryan budget that Mike Rounds supports. The Ryan/Rounds budget proposes to cut Head Start and would turn Medicare into a voucher program. The savings from these cuts and other slashes to important investments would be used to cut corporate taxes and reduce income tax rates on the richest Americans.

The price we pay for Big Money extremism is simple-- the theft of opportunity for everyday citizens to earn their way into or remain in the middle class. History tells us that democracies only work when we have a strong and vibrant middle class.

That’s why passing meaningful campaign finance reform is the single most important thing Congress could do. If we are going to start taking our country back from Big Money, this is the way it starts.

I don’t have any doubt how I would vote if I were in the Senate today. Unfortunately, Mike Rounds has so far refused to support campaign finance reform. Big Money has enough lobbyists in Washington. South Dakotans need a Senator that will fight for them everyday in Washington and with your help, we can take our small, grassroots campaign all the way to Washington.

…In my opinion, there is no greater threat to democracy today than Big Money in the wake of Citizens United. That threat is identical to every other threat history has thrown at Democracy because it is a threat to our equality at the ballot box. And if history has shown us anything it is that, when your voice is lost, your rights soon follow. The simple fact is the only way we can put government back on the side of everyday folks, and not big corporations, is to overturn the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions,” Weiland said.

All the candidates for the United States Senate have a duty to inform the voters where they stand on this issue.  Are we for unlimited corporate spending which has turned political candidates into full-time fundraisers or should we put common sense checks in place that allow everyday citizens to fully participate in the political process.  It’s that simple. So today, I ask Mike Rounds, Gordon Howie and Larry Pressler how they would vote on Udall’s proposal.

Another Blue America-backed candidate completely committed to over-turning Citizens United, Maine's Shenna Bellows hosted a press conference yesterday City Hall in Portland to voice unequivicable support for S.J.R. 19. She's running against a destructive incumbent, Susan Collins who fakes being a "moderate" while backing her party's worst anti-democracy agenda items. She voted against the DISCLOSE Act in 2012 twice and, unlike Maine's actual moderate senator, Angus King, she refuses to cosponsor this year's version.

Shenna: "Republican Susan Collins has been silent on campaign finance reform long enough. In this election cycle alone, she’s taken more than $1.9 million from corporate PACs. That’s not grassroots democracy-- that’s the rich and powerful using their wealth and influence to buy even more power at the expense of everyday Americans." On the Senate floor today, Elizabeth Warren didn't mince words about the dangers to democracy of the right-wing schemes to allow the wealthy to buy elections. “32 people spent slightly more on the 2012 elections than the 3.7 million typical Americans who sent modest dollar donations to their preferred Presidential candidate," she reminded her colleagues before they voted. "When 32 people can outspend 3.7 million citizens, our democracy is in real danger.”

She appealed to whatever sense of patriotism they have left by explaining that Udall's amendment would “try to reverse the damage inflicted on our country by these decisions. We are here to fight back against a Supreme Court that says there is no difference between 'free speech' and billions of dollars spent by the privileged few to swing elections and to buy off legislators. We are here to fight back against a Supreme Court that has overturned a century of established law in an effort to block Congress from solving this problem. There are times when action is required to defend our great democracy against those who would see it perverted into one more rigged game where the rich and the powerful always win. This is the time to amend the Constitution. I urge my colleagues to support this effort. We were not sent here to run this country for a handful of wealthy individuals and giant corporations. We were sent here to do our best to make this country work for all the people."