Hillary Clinton and her longtime sideline adviser Sidney Blumenthal began plotting to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling just days after it was handed down in 2010.
In an “FYI” memo Blumenthal sent the secretary of state an article from the news site the Colorado Independent, warning that the new ruling could possibly allow foreign companies to “spend freely” on elections in the United States” and thus lead to “corporate globalization of the U.S. electoral system.” It went on to warn that this ruling could lead to dictators such as Hugo Chavez having undue sway in American election.
Clinton responding Blumenthal stacryingting that “[this [ruling] is unbelievable. Or maybe totally so given the forces at work.” Then the pair immediately began boiling down the plan to overturn the controversial Supreme Court case.
“Getting a legislative fix might be a good initiative for [the upcoming State of the Union address]. Let Republicans try and oppose it,” Blumenthal replied.
“Not sure if there is a legislative fix,” Clinton wrote, adding that overturning the case “May require a constitutional amendment.”
When Clinton suggested that other groups may be looking into an amendment as well and that “foreign corps may be low hanging fruit” Blumenthal agreed.Years later Clinton has made campaign finance reform one of the pillars of her 2016 run for the nomination
While the CItizens United case ruled that the government could not restrict independent political donations from nonprofits, for-profit corporations or labor unions in early 2010, Clinton did not come out against the ruling publicly until April 2015, while on the campaign trail in Iowa. There she pledged that if elected she would push back on the influx of “unaccountable money” in US politics and support a constitutional amendment to counteract CItizens United, just as she and Blumenthal discussed in 2010.
“We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all — even if it takes a constitutional amendment,” Clinton said in her opening remarks at the event.
Clinton, who is no stranger to large political donations, raised over $15 million during the first half of the year through her super PAC, Priorities USA Action, and her campaign raised over $45 million during the last fundraising quarter. This past weekend, Clinton held a fundraising event in the Hamptons to court major political donors.
