DARLINGTON — The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors on May 19 approved a resolution that supports amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling on election financing.
The effort, spearheaded by the group Wisconsin United to Amend, is part of a grassroots effort starting at the municipal level to “to combat the dominance of moneyed special interests” in politics. The organization has worked for years to put its “We the People” referendum on ballots in municipalities and counties across the state or to convince local elected officials to adopt the resolution outright.
The resolution asks for a constitutional amendment that clarifies that only humans should have rights, not corporations or other entities, that money is not the same as speech and political spending can be limited to allow all Americans to participate in the democratic process.
The goal is to get the resolution to pass at the state level in at least 35 states, then move on to the federal level for a national referendum, according to volunteers with United to Amend.
Volunteers start local first.
On April 7, 17 communities in Wisconsin passed the “We the People” referendum by an overwhelming margin. 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.
Lafayette County joins with 163 other Wisconsin communities that have called for the 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.
Resolutions introduced into the Wisconsin state legislature calling for a statewide vote on “We the People” have so far failed.
That frustrates Bill Holland, a United to Amend volunteer in Monroe.
“Citizens in 164 Wisconsin communities have passed resolutions calling for an amendment. We need state legislators to put it on a statewide ballot, but they won’t even let the bills have a public hearing,” he said.
“This is not partisan. We believe the Democrats and Republicans both can be bought,” he said.
Dale Schultz, the former Republican senator who served until 2015 in the district that includes Monroe and Darlington, said in a statement submitted by United to Amend that “we are awash in money because of Citizens United, and it puts good people in both parties in a difficult situation. We’re talking about billionaires turning this country into a Russian-style oligarchy, where there are two dozen billionaires who buy the whole political process.”
Matt Rothschild, executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said in a statement that voters “across the ideological spectrum get it: All of our voices are being drowned out by those with big money.”
United to Amend volunteers in the region are targeting Grant and Iowa counties next for a resolution or referendum, said Holland.
After the 2020 presidential election, “we’ll go over to those counties and start shaking trees,” he said. “We’re trying to get all the counties on board supporting this.”