John Birch Society hits Capitol to fight constitutional convention

[hrmjustin]

Casey Seiler, Capitol bureau chief

The John Birch Society, the arch-conservative organization that was tea party before the tea party was tea party, spent Wednesday at the Capitol lobbying against a bill introduced by Democratic Sen. Liz Krueger calling for the U.S. Congress to convene a national convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution “in order to address concerns raised by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” — the decision that is seen by critics as opening the floodgates to torrents of special-interest political spending, and by its fans as allowing fresh billows of free speech to waft through the electoral process.

While it seems a long shot that a bill proposed by a member of the mainline Democratic minority will make it past the opposition of the GOP members of the Majority Coalition (also, there’s no same-as bill in the Assembly), the Birch Society views today’s effort as “more of a pre-emptive strike — we want to educate the legislators,” according to the Society’s local field representative Hal Shurtleff, who served as MC at a press conference at the Capitol that attracted only one member of the Fourth Estate.

http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/209186/john-birch-society-hits-capitol-to-fight-constitutional-convention/

[Sunlei]

1. Kochs JBS, RW drags America back to the 1940s. Republicans let JBS sponsor their primary, set up a

booth for membership. Big money funded hate groups are like a cancer.

[hrmjustin]

2. Agreed!

[Loudly]

3. A constitutional convention does seem excessive.

How about just pushing for The Amendment:

It shall not be an infringement of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution for Congress to limit by law the raising and expenditure of money in public elections.