America Is Screwed

We received an email asking for money to help support a movement to bring about a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s split Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings. The decisions have opened the floodgates for corporations and wealthy individuals to buy state and national elections.

We fear that movements like this, sponsored by a group calling itself the Peace Team, may be either a well-meaning effort to take some kind of action, or possibly a scam designed to rip off Americans. No one should believe an amendment to the Constitution can be a simple solution to what appears to be an impossible dilemma.

There appears to be a need to educate the nation on the way the political system works. Electing national leaders committed to seating new Supreme Court judges that may reverse these terrible rulings, and then waiting until the present judges retire, die or resign from office, is the most direct route. But even if it could be done, it will take years to accomplish. Once seated, Supreme Court judges are in office for life.

In the meantime, because of the mass political propaganda system that has been put in place, it will be next to impossible to get a majority of voters in the nation to agree on whom to put in power. We can be assured that the money will be spent on the candidates willing to keep the new status-quo.

New judicial appointments are made by presidents and then approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and finally the entire Senate. It is a process that takes months to complete. Even if the President attempts to select a fair and balanced person to sit on the high bench, his nominations can be broken by the winds of politics blowing through the Senate. Big money will always be a key part of the decision making.

An amendment to the Constitution is even more complicated. An amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate, or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the legislators in all 50 states. The president has no part in the process.

Once the proposed amendment gets enough political support, it goes directly to the Office of the Federal Register for processing and publication. From there it is submitted to all 50 states. The governors then submit the amendment to their state legislators for ratification.

The amendment becomes part of the Constitution after it is ratified by three-fourths of the states. That means the legislators in at least 38 states must approve it. This process sometimes takes months if not years. Sometimes it is never ratified by enough states.

You can bet the big money interests will be actively involved in blocking such an amendment.

It appears that this powerful gang of five: Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Clarence Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, have put the wealthy power brokers in clear and established seats of political rule over this nation. Because of the way the Constitution was drafted, its rules give us no easy way back to fair elections in America.