Amended in Senate April 30, 2014

Amended in Senate April 8, 2014

Amended in Senate March 28, 2014

Senate Bill No. 1272

Introduced by Senator Lieu

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(Principal coauthor: Senator Jackson)

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(Coauthors: Senators DeSaulnier, Hancock, Padilla and Torres)

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(Coauthors: Assembly Members Wieckowski and Williams)

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February 21, 2014

An act to submit an advisory question to the voters relating to campaign finance, calling an election, to take effect immediately.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SB 1272, as amended, Lieu. Campaign finance: advisory election.

This bill would call a special election to be consolidated with the November 4, 2014, statewide general election. The bill would require the Secretary of State to submit to the voters at the November 4, 2014, consolidated election an advisory question asking whether the Congress of the United States should propose, and the California Legislature should ratify, an amendment or amendments to the United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other applicable judicial precedents, as specified. The bill would require the Secretary of State to communicate the results of this election to the Congress of the United States.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an act calling an election.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

This act shall be known and may be cited as the Overturn Citizens United Act.

SEC. 2.  

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are
intended to protect the rights of individual human beings.

(b) Corporations are not mentioned in the United States
Constitution and the people have never granted constitutional rights
to corporations, nor have we decreed that corporations have
authority that exceeds the authority of “We the People.”

(c) In Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson
(1938) 303 U.S. 77, United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo
Black stated in his dissent, “I do not believe the word ‘person’ in
the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations.”

(d) In Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) 494
U.S. 652, the United States Supreme Court recognized the threat
to a republican form of government posed by “the corrosive and
distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are
accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have
little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s
political ideas.”

(e) In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)
558 U.S. 310, the United States Supreme Court struck down limits
on electioneering communications that were upheld in McConnell
v. Federal Election Commission (2003) 540 U.S. 93 and Austin
v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. This decision presents a
serious threat to self-government by rolling back previous bans
on corporate spending in the electoral process and allows unlimited
corporate spending to influence elections, candidate selection,
policy decisions, and public debate.

(f) In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Justices
John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer begin insert , end insert and
Sonia Sotomayor noted in their dissent that corporations have
special advantages not enjoyed by natural persons, such as limited
liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation
and distribution of assets, that allow them to spend huge sums on
campaign messages that have little or no correlation with the beliefs
held by natural persons.

(g) Corporations have used the artificial rights bestowed upon
them by the courts to overturn democratically enacted laws that
municipal, state, and federal governments passed to curb corporate
abuses, thereby impairing local governments’ ability to protect
their citizens against corporate harms to the environment,
consumers, workers, independent businesses, and local and regional
economies.

(h) In Buckley v. Valeo (1976) 424 U.S. 1, the United States
Supreme Court held that the appearance of corruption justified
some contribution limitations, but it wrongly rejected other
fundamental interests that the citizens of California find
compelling, such as creating a level playing field and ensuring that
all citizens, regardless of wealth, have an opportunity to have their
political views heard.

(i) In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) 435 U.S.
765 and Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing
v. Berkeley (1981) 454 U.S. 290, the United States Supreme Court
rejected limits on contributions to ballot measure campaigns
because it concluded that these contributions posed no threat of
candidate corruption.

(j) In Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) 528
U.S. 377, United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
observed in his concurrence that “money is property; it is not
speech.”

(k) A February 2010 Washington Post-ABC News poll found
that 80 percent of Americans oppose the ruling in Citizens United.

(l) Article V of the United States Constitution empowers and
obligates the people 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 our democracy and the republican form of self-government.

(m) The people of California and of the United States have
previously used ballot measures as a way of instructing their elected
representatives about the express actions they want to see them
take on their behalf, including provisions to amend the United
States Constitution.

SEC. 3.  

A special election is hereby called to be held
throughout the state on November 4, 2014. The special election
shall be consolidated with the statewide general election to be held
on that date. The consolidated election shall be held and conducted
in all respects as if there were only one election and only one form
of ballot shall be used.

SEC. 4.  

(a) Notwithstanding Section 9040 of the Elections
Code, the Secretary of State shall submit the following advisory
question to the voters at the November 4, 2014, consolidated
election:

“Shall the Congress of the United States propose, and the
California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the
United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other applicable
judicial precedents, to allow the full regulation or limitation of
campaign contributions and spending, to ensure that all citizens,
regardless of wealth, may express their views to one another, and
to make clear that the rights protected by the United States
Constitution are the rights of natural persons only?”

(b) Upon certification of the election, the Secretary of State
shall communicate to the Congress of the United States the results
of the election asking the question set forth in subdivision (a).

(c) The provisions of the Elections Code that apply to the
preparation of ballot measures and ballot materials at a statewide
election apply to the measure submitted pursuant to this section.

SEC. 5.  

This act calls an election within the meaning of Article
IV of the Constitution and shall go into immediate effect.