March 22 event in Rockford seeks to promote state resolution calling for amendment to overturn ‘Citizens United’ ruling

Online Staff Report

A “Democracy in Motion” Tour promoting a state resolution calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission will be in Rockford from 5:15 to 6:30 p.m., Friday, March 22, at Thunder Bay Grille, 7652 Potawatomi Trail.

The Citizens United ruling held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.

Aquene Freechild, senior organizer for Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People Campaign, will be the main organizer at the March 22 event. Organizers will meet with community members and provide training about how to talk across party lines and build a nonpartisan grassroots movement to help counteract the corrosive influence of money on our elections.

A resolution (SJR 27) has been introduced in the Illinois Senate calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to lessen the effect of money on our political system. As introduced, the proposed resolution will call on Congress to adopt a constitutional amendment reversing the Citizens United ruling and related cases by clarifying that corporations and other artificial entities are not people with constitutional rights.

Public Citizen — based in Washington, D.C. — is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that has worked to protect health, safety and democracy since 1971. The tour is co-sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America.

Posted March 20, 2013

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