Mr. Franken madam president . The presiding officer the senator from minnesota. Mr. Franken i would ask that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Franken madam president , i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during todays session of the senate. They have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. I ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Frank enmr. Franken madam , im just going to come out and say it. Citizens united was one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. It was a disaster, a radical exercise of procorporate judicial activism. It was seriously flawed, both legally and factually. Legally, the court trampled its own precedence. Cases like austin v. Michigan chamber of commerce and mcconnell v. Federal elections commission, which had been on the books for years and stood for the obvious proposition that the people can enact reasonable limits on money and politics. Factually, the court rested on its rested its conclusions on the faultiest of premises, that Unlimited Campaign expenditures by outside groups, including corporations, do not give rise to corruption or even the appearance of corruption. That assessment is just disconnected from reality and is horribly out of touch with the sentiments of most americans. For example, the league the Minnesota League of women voters issued a report in which it concluded that quote the influence of money in politics represents a dangerous threat to the health of our democracy in minnesota and nationally. I think if you ask most people whether unlimited spending on campaigns has a corrupting affect, theyll agree and say, yeah, of course it does. And i think theyd be right. But Citizens United was that decision was based on this unfounded and unbelievable idea that we have no reason to be concerned about the effects of Unlimited Campaign spending. So you have this 54 Supreme Court decision that ignores the law, that ignores precedent, invents facts, and heres what you end up with as a result a Campaign Finance system in tatters, one in which deeppocketed corporations, superwealthy individuals and wellfunded special interests can flood our elections with money, drowning out the voices of middleclass americans who dont have the luxury of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the political process. This is real, madam president. Spending by outside groups more than tripled from the 2008 president ial campaign to the 2012 president ial campaign when it topped a billion dollars and went from 330 million in 201 2010 2008 to over a billion dollars, this outside money, in 2012. And what happened in the interim . Well, it was Citizens United in 2010. And the floodgates were opened. And were still the middle class isnt just being flooded, its being blindfolded, too. Because these wealthy special Interest Groups can often spend the money anonymously so voters have no idea whos behind the endless attack ads that fill the airwaves. Heres how it works. If you have millions of dollars that you want to spend, you can funnel it through back channels so that it ends up in the hands of a group, typically one with a generic and benign sounding na name. I was trying to invent one, like americans for more america, american america, as just as kind of as a joke. And it turns out there is one with that name. So they use this money to buy ads and very, very often without disclosing the source of its funds. This whole thing looks to me a lot like Money Laundering except that now its perfectly legal. And, again, this is real. A study just came out that showed that in the current election cycle alone, theres already been over 150,000 ads run by groups that dont have to disclose the source of their funding. And things are just getting worse. Earlier this year, in a case called msh cu mccutcheon v. Fedl election commission, the Supreme Court was at it again, recklessly doing away with a law that prohibited people from giving more than 123,000 in aggregate directly directly to candidates in an election cycle. 123,000 had been the limit. Had been. Now, who has that kind of money . Who has that kind of money laying around to spend on elections . Well, the superrich, i guess. But the middle class surely doesnt. The folks i meet with in minnesota who are trying to make ends meet, pay off their student loans, train for a new job, save some money to start a family, they sure dont. And those are the folks who need a voice here in washington. Yoyou know, in june, the judiciy Committee Held a hearing on the subject and we heard from a witness whose presentation i found particularly persuasive and compelling. I suggest that my colleagues read this testimony. It was a state senator from North Carolina, and heres what he said. And i quote suddenly, no matter what the race was this is in North Carolina money came flooding in. Even elected officials who had been in office for decades told me theyd never seen anything like it. We were barraged by Television Ads that were uglier and less honest than i would have thought possible, and they all seemed to be coming from groups with names that we had never heard of. But it was clear that corporations and individuals who could write giant checks had a new level of power in the state. Thats the end of the quote. He went on to explain that the vast majority of outside money that was spent on state races, including the governors race, came from one man, just one man, who reportedly poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into state politics. Before the governor was even sworn into office, he announced who would write the states budget. Yes, it was that same donor. And apparently the donor got his moneys worth. The budget he drafted was loaded with goodies for corporate interests and the superrich, provided at the expense of the middle class and working folks. I find this whole thing incredibly disturbing, madam president. This idea that a handful of superwealthy corporate interes interests, in effect, can buy our democracy. Or, in this case, one guy. Thats just not how its supposed to work. In our democracy, everyone is supposed to have an equal say, regardless of his or her wealth. The guy on the Assembly Line gets as many votes as the c. E. O. One. You dont get extra influence just because you have extra money, or shouldnt. The government should be responsive to everyone and not just to the wealthiest among us. So the way i see it is we can go two ways from here. On the one hand, we can continue to let Citizens United be the law of the land, we can perpetuate the fallacy that corporations have the constitutional right to flood our elections with undisclosed money. We can let deeppocketed special interests buy influence and access and then set the agenda for the rest of the country. Or we can say, enough is enough. We can restore the law to what it was before Citizens United was decided. And more to the point, we can restore a voice to millions upon millions of Everyday Americans who want nothing more than to see their government represent them. Thats the choice that we have before us this week, madam president. For those of us who believe that the measure of a democracys strength in votes cast not dollars spent for us, i think its an easy choice. Im going to vote to reverse Citizens United and i urge my colleagues to do the same. Thank you. The presiding officer the senator from iowa. Mr. Grassley i ask consent to speak for 25 minutes. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Grassley madam president , the proceedings on the amendment before us show just how broken the senate is under current leadership. The majority leader yesterday stated that quote were going to have a cloture vote to stop debate on this. Republicans say, well, great, well go ahead and support that because we can stall. . End of his quote. He also has said quote there will be no amendments. Either youre for Campaign Spending reform or not. So my republican colleagues can stall for time here. Now, this is an alice in wonderland, upsidedown world that the majority leader is describing. You can bet that if republicans were blocking democrats from describing this amendment, we would be accused of obstruction. But when we vote to proceed to this amendment, as we did yesterday, were also accused of obstruction. So it goes to show that whatever republicans do, we will be accused of obstruction. That is a catch22. That is the majoritys game pl plan bring up partisan measures for political posturi posturing, avoid working together to solve problems, blame the other side no matter what the other side does. Now, that is why the senate is broken. Now, the amendment before us would amend the bill of rights and do it for the first time. It would amend one of the most important of those rights, the right of free speech. The First Amendment provides that Congress Shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. The proposed amendment would give congress and the states the power to abridge that freedom of Free Speech Free speech. It would allow them to impose, according to the amendment, reasonable limits, whatever those reasonable limits mighting on contributions and expenditures. In other words, limiting speech that influences elections. And it would allow speech by corporations that would influence elections to be banned altogether. This amendment is as dangerous as Anything Congress could pass. Passing for the first time an amendment to the constitution amending the bill of rights. That is a slippery slope. Were it to be adopted and i believe that it will not be, the damage done could be reversed only if twothirds of both houses of congress voted to repeal it through a new constitutional amendment, and 3 4 of the states ratified that new amendment. So lets start with first principles. The declaration of independence states that everyone is endowed by their creator with unalienable rights that governments are created to protect. Those preexisting rights include the right to liberty. The constitution was adopted to secure the blessings of liberty to americans. Americans rejected the view that the structural limits on governmental power contained in the original constitution would adequately protect the liberties they had fought in that revolution to preserve. So before the colonies would approve the constitution, the colonies or then the states under the article of confederation insisted on the adoption or the addition to the original constitution of the bill of rights. The bill of rights protects individual rights regardless of whether the government or the majority approves of their use. The First Amendment in the bill of rights protects the free speech. That freedom is basic to selfgovernment. Other parts of the constitution foster equality or justice or representative government, but the bill of rights is only about individual freedom. Free speech creates a marketplace of ideas in which citizens can learn, debate and persuade fellow citizens on the issues of the day. At its core, it enables our citizenry to be educated to pass votes to elect their leaders. Today, free speech is threatened as it has not been in many decades. Too many people do not seem to want to listen and debate and persuade. Instead, they want to punish, intimidate and silence those with whom they disagree. For instance, a Corporate Executive who opposed samesex marriage, the same position that president obama held at that very time, is to be fired. Universities are supposed to be fostering academic freedom, cancel graduation speeches by speakers that some students find offensive. Government officials order other government officials not to deviate from the party line concerning proposed legislation. The resolution before us, the proposed constitutional amendment cut from the same cloth would amend the constitution for the first time to diminish an important right of americans that is contained in the bill of rights. In fact, it would cut back on one of the most important of those rights, core, free speech about who should be elected to govern. The proposed constitutional amendment would enable governments to limit funds, contribute to candidates and funds spent to influence elections. That would give the government the ability to limit speech. The amendment would allow the government to set the limit at old levels. There could be little in the way of contributions or election spending. There would be restrictions on public debate, on who should be elected. Now for sure, incumbents, those of us who sit in this body, would find that outcome to be acceptable because it would weaken proposed possible opposition. They would know that no challenger could run an Effective Campaign against them. What precedent would this amend create . Suppose Congress Passed limits on what people could spend on abortions or what doctors or hospitals could spend to perform them. What if congress limited the amount of money that people can spend on guns or to limit how much people could spend of their own money on health care. Under this amendment, congress could do what Citizens United decision rightfully said it could not. Examples make it a criminal offense for the sierra club to run an ad urging the public to defeat a congressman who favors logging in the national forests. Another example. The National Rifle association from publishing a book seeking public support for a challenger to a senator who favors a handgun ban. Or for the aclu to post on its web site a plea for voters to support a president ial candidate because of his stance on free speech. Nobody wants a government that powerful that could do those examples i just imaif and other i just gave and other examples. Dont take my word for it. In fact, at oral arguments in Citizens United, the Obama Administration told the court that it would be legal for a corporation to be prosecuted for publishing a book that expressly advocated for or against the election of a candidate. Sounds impossible, but thats what was said. Consequently, the Obama Administration and the democratic Leadership Support banning books they dont agree with, and consequently that should be a frightening prospect for all of us. Under this amendment, congress and the states could limit Campaign Contributions and expenditures and without complying with existing constitutional provisions. Congress could pass a law limiting expenditures by democrats but not by republicans, by opponents of obamacare but not by supporters. And what does the amendment mean when it says that congress can limit funds spent to influence elections . If an elected official says he or she plans to run again long before any election, congress under this amendment could criminalize criticism of that official as spending to influence elections. A senator on the senate floor as i am right now appearing on cspan free of charge could with immunity, constitutional immunity, defame a private citizen. The member could say that the citizen was buying elections. If the citizen spent what Congress Said was too much money to rebut to rebut that charge, could possibly go to jail. We would be back to the days when criticism of elected officials was a criminal offense, and if you think that cannot happen, it did happen in 1798 when the alien and sedition acts were passed. In that sense, our country was formed since this constitution has been governing our relationships. And yet, the supporters of this constitutional amendment say that this amendment is necessary for democracy. Thats outrageous. The only existing right that the amendment says it will not harm is freedom of press. So congress and the states could limit the speech of anyone except the corporations that control the media. In other words, under this amendment, some corporations are okay and other corporations are not okay. That would produce an orwellian world in which every speaker is equal but some speakers are more equal than others. Freedom in the press has never been understood to give the media special Constitutional Rights denied to others. Even though the amendment by its terms would not affect freedom of press, i was heartened to read that the largest newspaper in my state, the des moines register, editorialized against this proposed constitutional amendment. They cited testimony from the Judiciary Committee hearing, and they recognized the threat that the proposed amendment poses to freedom. But in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, an amendment soon may not be needed at all. Four justices right now would allow core political speech to be restricted. Were a fifth justice with the same view to be appointed, there would be no need to amend the constitution to cut back on this political freedom. Justice breyers dissent for these four justices in the mccutcheon decision does not view free speech as an end in itself as was so important to our founding fathers. He thinks free political speech is about advancing, in his words, the publics interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters. End of quote. Now, to be sure, individual rights often do advance socially desirable goals, but our Constitutional Rights do not depend on whether unelected judges believe they advance democracy as they conceive it. Our Constitutional Rights