In a video address to Netroots Nation 2016, played during tonight’s closing plenary session in St. Louis, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton committed to introducing a constitutional amendment to overturn the Roberts Court’s horrible Citizens United ruling within her first one hundred days in office.
“Today I’m announcing that in my first thirty days as President, I will propose a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and give the American people — all of us — the chance to reclaim our democracy,” Clinton said, drawing loud applause and cheers from the convention hall.
The video message, prepared by Clinton’s campaign and narrated entirely by Clinton, lavished praise on Bernie Sanders, the favored Democratic presidential candidate of most Netroots Nation attendees. It depicted scenes of Sanders campaigning by himself as well as with Clinton, as Clinton paid tribute to the dedication and tireless efforts of Sanders supporters.
Clinton also used her address to briefly talk about the need to eradicate systemic racism from the criminal justice system, in a nod to the predominant theme of this year’s gathering of Netroots Nation. Her campaign has already announced that many mothers of innocent black people killed by police will be featured speakers at the Democratic National Convention later this month.
Here is a transcript of Clinton’s remarks:
Hello Netroots Nation! Thanks for putting progressive issues front and center in this election and every election for more than a decade, and thanks to for shining a spotlight on the urgent pressing challenge of criminal justice reform.
It’s been nearly two years since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. With the help of activists including those in the Black Lives Matter movement our country is truly engaged in a difficult but critical conversation about systemic racism and injustice but now we need to turn talked into action.
Last week’s tragedies only underscore the urgency of end-to-end criminal justice reform and stopping the tragedy of black men and women and black children being killed by police or dying in custody. I’ve laid out a comprehensive reform agenda; now I’m proposing two additional steps.
First, as President, I’ll bring law enforcement and communities together to develop national guidelines on the use of force.
Second, I will target one billion dollars in my first budget to take on implicit bias which remains a problem across our society and even in the best of our police departments.
I’m proud that for the first time the Democratic platform addresses these issues in a comprehensive way, and that we have developed the most progressive platform in our Party’s history.
Now, I know many of the people in this room supported Senator Sanders in the primary. I’m looking forward to hearing from you, learning from you and working with you.
You’ve helped put political and campaign finance reform at the top of the national agenda, and I intend to keep it there.
Today I’m announcing that in my first thirty days as President I will propose a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and give the American people — all of us — the chance to reclaim our democracy.
I will also appoint Supreme Court justices who understand that this decision was a disaster for our democracy, and I will fight for other progressive reforms including small dollar matching and disclosure requirements.
I hope some of the brilliant minds in this room will seek out cases to challenge citizens united in the courts because I know I can’t do this alone. We need you to keep speaking out keep organizing and keep holding elected officials — including me — accountable.
We know what happens when progressive voices get drowned out by the other side, and we cannot let that happen, so I’m looking forward to fighting alongside you and with Senator Sanders in the weeks months and years to come because you know what we are stronger together. Thank you all very much.
This is great news. Our thanks to Hillary Clinton for committing to explicitly offer a constitutional amendment to stop the flood of big money in elections unleashed by the most disastrous decision of the Roberts Court.
However, we do need more than an amendment that merely reverses that decision. We need an amendment that states that corporations are not people and money is not speech. There are other Supreme Court decisions that also need to be overturned, so that our democracy can endure.
One Comment
This is pointless political propaganda since it will never get two-thirds vote in Congress. If we are serious about amending the Constitution, we must first reform the amendment process itself so that it is no longer the most difficult in the world. See http://www.amendmentamendment.com
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[…] “However, we do need more than an amendment that merely reverses that decision. We need an amendment that states that corporations are not people and money is not speech. There are other Supreme Court decisions that also need to be overturned, so that our democracy can endure.”https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2016/07/hillary-clinton-commits-to-introducing-amendment-to-ove… […]