Our 28th Constitutional Amendment?

From the ratification of our first 10 constitutional amendments, our Bill of Rights, in 1791, to today, we have added only 17 amendments to the Constitution, for a total of 27 amendments in 223 years. And what has Congress now proposed to be our 28^th? An amendment that would, for the first time in history, amend not only one of the amendments in our Bill of Right, but the very first amendment in that sacred document. This proposed 29^th amendment would give our nation’s lawmakers the power to ignore the language in our First Amendment, which says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech …”

This constitutional amendment, proposed by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and endorsed by 41 Democratic senators, would give Congress the power to regulate “the raising and spending of money … with respect to federal elections.” That includes the power to set limits on: ‘‘the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.”

Simply put, this is government regulation of political speech, despite the language in Section 1 of this amendment, which says the purpose is to “advance the fundamental principle of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and electoral processes …”

It would do neither. As for advancing “political equality for all,” this amendment would give members of Congress the power to severely limit the amount of money that can be spent in political campaigns in which these same members of Congress, running for re-election, would be challenged by far less known candidates.   Name recognition being a huge advantage in politics, severely limiting the amount of money their challengers could spend to promote themselves and their positions on the issues is a huge advantage for incumbents. It is hardly “political equality for all.”

As for the “integrity of the legislative and electoral process,” as the Supreme Court has ruled many times, money is a necessary conduit to political speech, which is free speech. It takes money to run a political campaign — to hire staff, buy political advertising, print campaign posters, send out press releases, and so on. Limit that, and you have changed the political process — and the First Amendment.

Will this amendment pass? Probably not, given that you need a two-third vote in Congress and three-fourths of the states to ratify it (thank God the Founders made it hard to pass constitutional amendments). But the fact that it is even being considered is scary because if Congress can limit political speech, what’s to prevent it from limiting other forms of speech?