The decision of former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) not to seek the office yet again has left a relatively clear path for Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), one of the truly knowledgeable members when it comes to communications issues. He has indicated he may seek a constitutional amendment to undo the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
According to a report in The Hill, Markey said the decision was as wrong as the one the Court made in the Dred Scott case back before the Civil War.
Markey told a Pittsfield MA assemblage, “I want to go to the United States Senate in order to fight for a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizens United. The whole idea that the Koch brothers, that Karl Rove can say we’re coming to Massachusetts, to any state of the union with undisclosed amounts of money is a pollution, which must be changed.”
RBR-TVBR observation: We take the promise to amend the Constitution as a sign that the prospects for a legislative goal are essentially hopeless. Although it is remotely possible a legislative bandaid or two may be enacted to blunt the effect of the ruling, the way we see it, there is only one way Citizens United will be overturned, and that is to wait for a new balance of power on the bench and try a new case on the same topic.
Senate Democrats could not get a bill to put so much as a dent in Citizens United past a Republican filibuster as it is, much less get it past three fourths of all state legislatures.
