San Jose City Council won't oppose Citizens United: 'That's pretty far out there,' mayor says
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Don't look for San Jose to be leading any efforts toward a constitutional amendment that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The 2010 ruling held that the First Amendment prohibits governments from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations, unions or other groups. Liberals saw it as unfairly tipping the scales in favor of moneyed corporate interests and have called for a constitutional amendment to overturn it.
But despite San Jose's general leftward political tilt, Councilman Sam Liccardo couldn't find much support at a council committee meeting last week for a memo he authored with council members Don Rocha and Xavier Campos calling for the city to pass a resolution supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision.
"I could not support this resolution to have the Constitution say that corporations or other artificial entities are not protected by the Constitution," Mayor Chuck Reed said. "That's pretty far out there."
Reed's Rules and Open Government Committee voted against referring Liccardo's memo to the Elections Commission for further study. Pete Constant and Pierluigi Oliverio sided with the mayor, while Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen dissented.
Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/ci_22460649/internal-affairs-county-meeting-runs-way-past-bedtime
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