FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
from the California Clean Money Campaign
Contact: Trent Lange
SACRAMENTO - In an important achievement for the national
movement to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United
and McCutcheon decisions, the California State Senate today
passed SB 1272, the Overturn Citizens United Act, which
would allow Californians to vote in November 2014 to demand
a U.S. Constitutional amendment that says corporations
aren't people, and money isn't speech. The bill passed on a
vote of 23-12.
SB 1272 is part of a growing nationwide movement to nullify
the two Supreme Court decisions that overturned more than a
hundred years of campaign finance laws and allowed
corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts on
campaigns. Citizens United is deeply unpopular with voters,
with polls showing 80 percent of voters opposed to it. 16
states have already called on Congress to overturn the
decision, as well as roughly 500 municipalities from Los
Angeles to Liberty, Maine.
"If our democratic system of representative government
is to survive, these deeply damaging rulings must be
overturned," said Trent Lange, President of the
California Clean Money Campaign. "Billionaires should
not have thousands of times more free speech than the
average American just because they have so much more money
to spend on elections."
Over 37,000 people signed petitions -- including those
hosted and shared on
CREDO Mobilize,
Democracy for America,
MoveOn.org Petitions, Causes.com,
and the
California Clean Money Campaign website. Tens of
thousands signed, emailed, tweeted, shared on Facebook and
Twitter, emailed, and faxed. Hundreds applied even more
pressure by calling their legislators.
SB 1272 is authored by Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) and
sponsored by the Money Out Voters in Coalition. The Act is
supported by California groups such as the California Clean
Money Campaign, California Common Cause, the California
School Employees Association, and CALPIRG. National groups
also weighed in, with organizations like Courage Campaign,
CREDO, Causes.com, Democracy for America, MoveOn, Public
Citizen, Represent.Us, and 99Rise getting involved.
"Californians deserve the opportunity to tell Congress
to pass a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens
United and saying that money isn't speech", said Lange.
"The California Senate is to be congratulated for voting
to give them that option on this November's ballot.
Hopefully the Assembly will do the same."
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The California Clean Money Campaign is a non-partisan
501(c)(3) organization that has been dedicated to educating
the public about the need to lessen the unfair influence of
Big Money on election campaigns since 2001. For further
information, visit www.CAclean.org
SB 1272 would give California voters the opportunity to tell Congress to pass a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United
