Hillary Clinton commits to introducing amendment to overturn Citizens United

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.