Florida Senate - 2012                                    SM 1576
       
       
       
       By Senator Braynon
       
       
       
       
       33-01285-12                                           20121576__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States,
    3         urging Congress to propose an amendment to the United
    4         States Constitution to restore the constitutional
    5         rights of the people to fair elections.
    6  
    7         WHEREAS, the states adopted and ratified the United States
    8  Constitution to protect the free speech and other rights of
    9  people, not corporations, and
   10         WHEREAS, corporations are not people but instead are
   11  entities created by the law of states and nations, and
   12         WHEREAS, for the past three decades, a divided United
   13  States Supreme Court has erroneously transformed the First
   14  Amendment to the United States Constitution into a powerful tool
   15  for corporations seeking to evade and invalidate the people’s
   16  laws, and
   17         WHEREAS, this misuse of the First Amendment for the benefit
   18  of corporations reached an extreme conclusion in the United
   19  States Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal
   20  Election Commission, 130 S.Ct 876 (2010), and
   21         WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
   22  overturned longstanding precedent restricting corporate
   23  expenditures to influence elections, and
   24         WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
   25  unleashed a torrent of corporate money in political processes in
   26  a manner unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in United
   27  States history, and
   28         WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
   29  purports to invalidate state laws and even provisions of state
   30  constitutions restricting corporate expenditures to influence
   31  elections, and
   32         WHEREAS, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
   33  presents a serious and direct threat to our republican form of
   34  government, and
   35         WHEREAS, Article V of the United States Constitution
   36  empowers and obligates the people and states of the United
   37  States of America to use the constitutional amendment process to
   38  correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United States
   39  Supreme Court which go to the heart of our democracy, and
   40         WHEREAS, the people and states of the United States have
   41  strengthened the nation and preserved liberty and equality for
   42  all by using the amendment process throughout our history and by
   43  using the amendment process to reverse seven erroneous Supreme
   44  Court decisions, NOW, THEREFORE,
   45  
   46  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   47  
   48         That the Congress of the United States is urged to enact
   49  and send to the states for ratification a constitutional
   50  amendment to reverse Citizens United v. Federal Election
   51  Commission, and to restore the constitutional rights of the
   52  people to fair elections.
   53         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
   54  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
   55  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
   56  United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
   57  the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.