“I rise on behalf of the majority of the American people, who believe that money is not speech, corporations are not people, and our democracy should not be for sale to the highest bidder. Overturn Citizens United. Keep the cap in McCutcheon. The people demand democracy.”
~Kai Newkirk during the SCOTUS hearing for McCutcheon v FEC.
Speaking in a clear strong voice, Kai Newkirk delivered this declaration of the people directly to the Supreme Court in their own inviolate chambers long shielded from the people’s right to know exactly how the supreme law of our land is argued and, many would say, subverted.
The matter before the court, McCutcheon vs the FEC, represents a wealthy man’s plaint that his “free speech” is limited by the amount of speech/money he is individually allowed to say/spend to sway elections.
Shaun McCutcheon, the wealthy owner of Coalmont Electrical Development, contends that the current “aggregate limits” on campaign contributions limits his freedom of speech and his right to associate with whatever politician or political group he chooses. Those limits? $123,000/election cycle.
That's double the mean income in the United States!
~Victor Tiffany, Syracuse Progressive Examiner
If McCutcheon is successful, this limit will rise to almost $6 million per election cycle. If that amount is multiplied by all the members of the 1%, Americans will see an exponentially flooding of money-as-free-speech which will completely drown out our voices.
As the SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United continues to ravage our rights as common citizens, the people cry “ENOUGH”!
Victor Tiffany of the Syracuse Progressive Examiner shares resources for people to voice their protests. A link to Public Citizen’s page where people may find out where protests or celebrations will be held across our nation when the SCOTUS ruling.
A plethora of links to organizing tools and information can be found at pewestlake article at The Amendment Gazette, kindly supplied by Victor Tiffany.
My thanks to Victor Tiffany and to ProgressiveLiberal who broke this story here and has a must-see video of Kai Newkirk speaking within the SCOTUS chambers.