About gabbys injuries, and one of her neurosurgeons told me this early on, if there is any other positive thing about her injury, it is that she will not suffer from post traumatic stress. Because you dont remember . Because she was shot first and shot in the head. That memory what you remember from that day . Toyota. Mittens. Share members where she part. She remembers where she parked. Our drive to toyota to target and park, i dont remember where she part. A year to the day, she remembers where she part rate she remembered one of her Staff Members brought her mittens. No noise. Guns and law on enforcement tonight at 8 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Author Allan Hoffman shares a tale of two mississippis. Founded by hill was isaac ross, who was a revolutionary for war veteran from south carolina. When he realized he was going to die and the slaves would end up being sold or just become common slaves, he wrote in his will that at the time of his daughters death, the plantation would be sold and the money used to pay the way for those slaves to emigrate to liberia where a fee demand a Friedman Reed man he had been established. They call the repatriation and talked about going back to africa. You understand, most of these people were americans. They had been here for four or five generations. It was not like they were going home. There were going back to the confident that their ancestors originally inhabited. Risk, and so they took their culture, what they knew here, there. Some of them took the bad aspects, too, the slavery, but that was all they had ever known. They build houses like this one because after all, they are the ones who built this house. There were a lot of basically greek Revival House is that the freed slaves built in mississippi and across the river was indiana in liberia. It was settled by freed slaves from indiana. There was a georgia, a kentucky, a maryland county, and all of those people came from those states in the u. S. Explore the literary and thisric life of jackson weekend on cspan to be and sunday at 2 00 p. M. On cspan3. Now, a debate on the merits of the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United ruling, which gives corporations and labor unions the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money on on Political Campaigns. John, cofounder of free speech for the people that wants to overturn the ruling, and james bob, Legal Advisor for Citizens United and the general counsel for the national right to life committee. This that was part of a Political Campaign ethics conference hosted by the. Iamidade trust commission this is just under an hour. [applause] thank you, nelson. It was really a privilege to serve with you and serve as your executive director for 13 years. Im here simply today as a moderator. My role is pretty limited. I would like to have the two debaters,. This is a little bit difference that different. It will be a modified debate, if you will. Topic ofe debating the theaignfinance and Citizens United decision. The backdrop for all this is in 2010, the Supreme Court issued the landmark Citizens United decision and more recently in april of this year, talk about timeliness, but we were planning the conference we had no idea that we would get hit by another decision on issues involving money and politics. The decision is the mccutcheons versus the federal Elections Commission is coming out. We are entering a new world and financing Political Campaigns. I have the distinct privilege of moderating the debate between john and james. They are two of the nations bleatings authorities nations leading authorities. I can speak for a long time about each of them. Rather than bore you with that, please read your program and google them and you will be impressed with their qualifications. Mr. Bob is coming from indiana bonafotz is coming from massachusetts. We appreciate them coming down. That may explain the format to you. We will have time for questions. Initially, each individual will make a 10 minute opening presentation. Mr. Bonafotz will speak first. After the three minute rebuttals, we will open it up to the audience. If you have questions, put them in writing. At the end of the session, we will give them each a minute to sum up. With that, ill turn it over. I think is better to stay in here because cspan is recording this and i think they wanted to focus on this lectern. Thank you. Thank you to the miami miamidade commission on public trust and st. Thomas center for ethics for holding this debate. American democracy is in crisis. Ourmoney interests dominate elections and our government, drowning out the voices of ordinary citizens. Five justices of the United StatesSupreme Court have hijacked the First Amendment for the wealthy few, distorting the of a guarantee of an open and unfettered the street of ideas and undermined the promise of republican selfgovernment and political equality for all. The American People recognize this and in just four years since the Citizens United ruling, millions of citizens across the country have propelled a growing Grassroots Movement for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court and to defend our democracy. 16 states have already gone on record calling for such an montana andncluding colorado, where 75 of the voters in the 2012 election supported Ballot Initiatives demanding an amendment. Within 160 members of congress are already on record rate the United States senate will soon hold a historic vote on senator tom udalls constitutional event Amendment Bill whittle and big money in politics and restore the basic vision of our republic. Govern of, by, and for the people. I will addresss, four a central points as to why the Supreme Courts ruling are wrong and why we must fight to overturn them in the name of the First Amendment and our democracy. Money does not equal speech. In his 1976 and buckley the , the Supreme Court equated money with speech and struck down Campaign Spending in the wake of watergate. Us on our course of unlimited Campaign Spending, where our elections are sold to the highest bidders. As former Justice John Paul stevens has said, money is property. It is not speech. Speech, and for the very wealthy in our society, money enables them to be heard at the loudest decibels at the expense of the rest of us. The campaigns meaning Campaign Spending issues were regulations on the manner of speech, not on speech itself. By equating money with speech, the Buckley Court sanctioned a system that allows the very wealthy, and now corporations, to distort our political process and the very meaning of the First Amendment. No one has a2 First Amendment right to drown out other people speech. The Supreme Court stated this clearly. Cooper1949 in kovacs the v. Cooper. Trentonin the city of was blaring its message with a sound truck going down every street. In response, the city passed an ordinance saying the sound trucks can only go down every 3rd street. The Supreme Court upheld the ordinance as a reasonable regulation on the manner of speech. It found that public streets served other Public Purposes that needed to be protected and as Justice Jackson wrote in his concurrence, freedom of speech for kovacs does not include freedom to use sound amplifiers to drown out the natural speech of others. The D C Circuit Court of appeals in the buckley case recognized defining point in Campaign Spending limits to be constitutional. It would be strange if the Appellate Court said, by extrapolation outward from the basic rights of individuals, the wealthy few could claim a constitutional guarantee to a stronger little voice than the unwelcome many because they are able on wealthy many because they are able to spend more money and the amount they gives an spend cannot be limited. Limits ensureing that bigmoney interest may not drown out the voices of everyone else in our political process. Todaysmber 3 campaignfinance system violates the equal protection rights of nonwealthy candidates and voters. The Supreme Court has long held that wealth cannot be a determining factor in our elections. In 1966, and harper v. Virginia board of elections, the court struck down the poll taxes unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. High72, it struck down candidate filing fees on that same basis. The Supreme Court also made clear in the exclusionary white primary cases that eight process that has become a critical part of the machinery for getting elected must be opened to all. Todays campaignfinance system operates as an exclusionary wealth primary, in violation of the equal protection clause. Voters and candidates, lacking access to wealth, are effectively barred from the wealth primary. The wealth primary has become a critical part of the machinery for getting elected. Almost invariably, those candidates who win the wealth primary, who out raise and outspend their opponents, go on to win the election. A system that preselects candidates based on their access to wealth is contrary to equal protection in the political process and offensive to the basic principle of one person, one vote. Court inor the coat striking down high tendency it was said that we would ignore reality if we were not to recognize that the system falls with unequal weight on voters as well as candidates according to their economic status. We would ignore reality today were we not defined that this campaign were we not to find that this Campaign Falls on voters and candidates according to their economic status. Point number four Bank Corporations are not people. They slips united, away a century of president barring corporate money in election. The corporates that corporations are not merely associations of people. Such an argument would not pass a basic Corporate Law exam in law school. Corporations are artificial creatures of the state, on unlike a corporation of people, corporations have advantages we do not have. Limited liability, unlimited life, the ability to frame well. The framers understood that they were not to be treated as people under our constitution. James madison said, corporations are a necessary evil, subject to proper limitations and guards. Crushjefferson hoped to in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations. As the result of Citizens United, five justices of the court have unleashed unlimited corporate and union dollars into our elections, making a dangerously corrupting system exponentially worse and extending further the fabrication of corporate claims of constitutional rights. Constitution and under our republic, we, the people, shall govern over corporations, not the other way around. In the face of this crisis, we now use our power under article five of the constitution to enact a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court and to defend our democracy and our republic. We have done this before in our nations history. 27 times before. Seven times to overturn egregious Supreme Court rulings. We can and we must do it again. And we will. As dangerous as this moment is for our democracy, it also resents a unique and historic opportunity to unite around our common vision of america, a be divided on many Public Policy questions on the day, but we are united behind that basic and powerful idea government of, by, and for the people. Common vision fuels the Current Movement for a constitutional amendment to reclaim our democracy. As James Madison wrote in federalist papers number 57, who are to be the electors of the federal prison to give . Not the rich federal representative . Not the rich more than the poor. Not the sons of the state which name then the sons of the obscure. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. In the name of James Madison, it is time for a 28th amendment to the constitution that lists up to democracy and make sure that we the people, not corporations or bigmoney interests, rule in america. [applause] thank you mr. Bonifaz. You have 10 minutes to make an opening statement. Thank you very much. I must admit, i am one of those agents of the corporate and bigmoney interests. Wisconsin right to life, Citizens United, in the most recent mccutcheon case where all my cases. In those cases, i was representing an Advocacy Group in wisconsin whose sources of funds were people of average wass who only wanted to do lobby their incumbent members of the United States senate to urge filibuster4 not to president bushs judicial nominees and of course they ran square into mccainfeingold blackout. Which made it a criminal offense for incorporation or a labor union to run any ad that simply mentions the name of a candidate for federal office. What they wanted to do was to urge the public to contact them about an upcoming vote in congress. You might wonder, why is it that congress would pass such a blackout. . Blackout period people that come together in groups, people of average means, that is the only way they can participate by coming together as a group. Why is that congress thinks it is outrageous and a criminal have theor someone to audacity to lobby them about an upcoming vote in congress . Well, this is as old as time. Object topoliticians being criticized. They hate it when people talk about what they are doing to us and for us and office. The people who founded our country were surely some of the most Sophisticated Group of politicians and political figures that have ever come together in the history of the world and they knew that the experiment in selfgovernment, where it is the people that are going to govern themselves, was certainly would certainly fail if the government could decide if people could exercise the four indispensable democratic freedoms that allow that system of government to operate. That is speech, press, association, and petitioning the government. So they rolled the First Amendment. John did not mention it, but let me, which said Congress Shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, press, association, and petitioning. Years beforefew the Federalist Party past the alien and sedition act in 1790 to suppress the speech of the emerging public and party. Of thomas jefferson. People were prosecuted and went to jail for doing things that were considered sedition. That is to disparage the government or any public official. Criticize them about what theyre doing to us and for us in office. Well, it did not work. These attempts by incumbent politicians to protect themselves against the people and using campaignfinance to suppress their speech often does not work either. Thomas jefferson won. The alien and sedition acts were repealed and he pardoned those convicted under it. It is perfectly obvious from that experience that it is going to be very difficult to get incumbent politicians to get off the train and the train is to use government power against those, who they perceive to be their enemies. John his speech was talking about who you perceives who he perceives to be his enemies. Corporate and big money interests. Their enemies of the liberal agenda or what he thinks is the authentic will of the people. What he wants to do is suppress those voices. So he can get his agenda adopted. Well, the incumbent politicians will do that as well. It is bipartisan. It happens with people on both sides of the issue. That is why our First Amendment was adopted. It is to prevent incumbent politicians from using the power of government to suppress who they view to be their enemies. Doubt thatre any they have had a difficult time understanding what the word no means . My three daughters the when they were teenagers that no man, well it is ok this time, isnt it, dad . Passageve had periodic of laws, including the most recent mccainfeingold law and of johnsrony lambasting of his perceived enemies, the corporations and bigmoney interests, the irony that mccainfeingold that he championed targets the very groups that people of average means must have in order to participate. Mccainfeingold targeted Advocacy Groups in imposing this lack out. In terms of mentioning names of candidates in a broadcast ads. Attackeded they Political Parties, raise money and are regulated Straight Loss what state laws about candidates can say about federal office.