GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 2013

S                                                                                                                                                     1

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 109*

Sponsors:	Senators Kinnaird (Primary Sponsor); and D. Davis.
Referred to:	Rules and Operations of the Senate.

February 20, 2013

A JOINT RESOLUTION requesting that congress propose an amendment to the united states constitution to overturn the united states supreme court ruling in citizens united v. federal election commission concerning corporate campaign spending.

Whereas, on January 21, 2010, the United States Supreme Court, by a five to four decision, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, overturned important provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, as well as earlier Supreme Court decisions, and swept away a century of tradition barring corporate spending in elections in the United States; and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court's ruling holds that corporations are people with free speech rights under the United States Constitution and may engage in unlimited corporate spending on elections; and

Whereas, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission unleashes the use of corporate money into the political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in United States history; and

Whereas, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission presents a serious and direct threat to republican democracy; and

Whereas, the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission grants excessive power to corporate and union interests and threatens to overwhelm the voices of individual citizens in the political process; and

Whereas, Article V of the United States Constitution empowers and obligates the people and states of the United States of America to use the constitutional amendment process to correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the heart of republican democracy and self-government; and

Whereas, corporations are legal entities that governments regulate, and the privileges they enjoy under the United States Constitution should be more narrowly defined than the rights that are afforded to natural persons; and

Whereas, the people and states of the United States of America have strengthened the nation and preserved liberty and equality for all by using the amendment process throughout the history of the nation, including seven of 10 decades of the twentieth century, and through that process have reversed seven erroneous Supreme Court decisions; Now, therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring:

SECTION 1.  The North Carolina General Assembly expresses opposition to the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and calls upon the United States Congress to propose and send to the states for ratification an amendment to the United States Constitution to restore republican democracy to the people of the United States, to clarify that corporations are not natural persons and should not be afforded the same rights as natural persons, and to state that money is not speech.

SECTION 2.  The Principal Clerk shall transmit a certified copy of this resolution to the members of North Carolina's congressional delegation.

SECTION 3.  This resolution is effective upon ratification.