-By Eric W. Dolan
January 9, 2012- Marge Baker of People for the American Way predicted Monday that the movement against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling was going to continue to grow and expand through grassroots organizing.
“The only answer we really have to the toxic issue of money in politics is to amend the Constitution,” she said on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show. “We are working with a constellation of organizations with literally millions of members around the country, including Public Citizen, Common Cause, Move to Amend, our organization People for the American Way, Center for Media and Democracy, we are all working together as part of this umbrella called United as the People, and we are working to call attention to the problem of Citizens United and urge the amendment of the Constitution to address the problems.”
The controversial 2010 decision held that corporations had the same First Amendment rights as people and that political spending was free speech. The ruling allowed corporations and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, so long as their actions were not directly coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.
Numerous constitutional amendments that would overturn the ruling were introduced to the U.S. House and Senate in 2011. A number of cities, including Los Angeles and New York City, have also passed resolutions calling on Congress to overturn it.
“This is a grassroots movement that is going to grow, and I think we are going to see some real action,” Baker said.
Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below: