MADISON — By an overwhelming margin in the April 7 election, all 17 communities in Wisconsin with a “We the People” referendum on the ballot passed the measure.
“We the People” would overrule the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling on election financing and is a grassroots effort starting at the municipal level.
The referendum would need to pass at the state level in 35 states to move on to the federal level for a national referendum, according to volunteers with United to Amend, the Wisconsin organization that has successfully worked for years to put the referendum on ballots in municipalities and counties across the state.
United to Amend announced its latest round of success April 14, the day the April 7 election results were released.
Communities in Green County voted on the referendum in 2016, and it passed at the county level in 2018. It has also already passed in the City of Darlington and Village of Belmont in Lafayette County.
The referendum asks voters whether to amend the U.S. Constitution to clarify that only humans should have constitutional rights, that money is not the same as speech and political spending can be limited to allow all Americans to participate in the democratic process.
Voters in the cities of Rhinelander and Eagle River and in towns in Shawano, Oneida and Vilas counties cast their ballots on the measure in the recent election. It passed by over 75% in all 17 communities, with most voting in favor of the referendum by a margin of more than 85%.
A total of 163 Wisconsin communities have now voted in favor of the “We The People” amendment, according to United to Amend. Nationwide, the group reports 20 state legislatures have done likewise, as have more than 820 towns, villages, cities and counties.
Lafayette County is among the next targets of the effort, said Bill Holland, a retired nurse from Monroe who worked to get the referendum on the ballot in Green County communities and has volunteered with United to Amend for about seven years.
In Green County “we went out and proved ourselves in 11 municipalities” before the referendum went to the county as a whole, Holland said.
Getting “big money” out of politics is “right up my alley,” he said, noting that the United to Amend campaign is entirely run and financed by volunteers. He encourages anyone wanting to get involved to find out more at wiuta.org.