Reconciling the Constitution With Congress

Constitution & Governmental Gridlock Constitutional Change #1 A constitutional amendment is needed to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission. In this case, the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting political independent expenditures by corporations, associations, or labor unions. Corporations aren't people. Only people are people.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia reversed a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) prohibiting unions, corporations and not-for-profit organizations from broadcasting electioneering communications within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election that held these actions violate the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Yet two-thirds of American small business owners say that Citizens United hurts their business, but only nine percent of the small businesses polled said that it was a positive law.

An important reason for this divide is that the Supreme Court ruing in Citizens United gives corporations the right to contribute to political campaigns without restrictions and in the same manner as individual American citizens. The deep pockets of corporations enable them to, in essence, buy votes and have inordinate influence on political elections. Corporations that assert their right to "be people" and engage in tax inversion strategies should not be permitted to lobby Congress or have representation in the Houses of Congress.

Tax dollars fuel the government, and by taking their domicile oversees, these companies not only lower their tax burden, they stop paying taxes to the U.S. government. American citizens are not granted such an easy route to tax avoidance, nor should corporations be -- this regardless of their status under the law as "persons." An amendment to the Constitution is needed to restore the status of corporations as businesses with profit motives that are categorically different from the concerns of individual citizens.

Constitutional Change #2 The limits on Social Security taxation on incomes over $117,000, the 2014 figure with cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), should be revoked. Many Americans never earn high enough wages to achieve any relief from the Social Security tax, but high earners do. The cap should be eliminated such that Social Security taxation applies to all wages and salaries, regardless of the amount, subject to relief for lower income earners as applicable through current tax law.

The law currently provides advantage to those with higher incomes and those who are employed by companies that share the cost of the Social Security taxation burden. The current taxation structure penalizes self-employed people, many of whom are small business owners. Specifically, note that the combined tax rate for Social Security and Medicare is 7.65%, paid by both employers and employees, and 15.3% paid by the self-employed. For 2014, covered wage Social Security tax rate is 6.2% on earnings to $117,000, and for self-employed people, the Social Security tax rate is 12.4% on earnings to $117.

While people earning more than $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples filing joint income taxes) pay only an additional 0.9% in Medicare taxes. An amendment to the Constitution is needed to eliminate the taxation caps on income so that the burden of income taxes is not disproportionately on those who earn less than the cap. This amendment aligns with the 16th Amendment that dealt with income tax as an indirect tax, therefore exempting income tax from the previous apportionment clause related to direct taxes.

Constitutional Change #3 The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 (sponsored by Sensenbrenner, Conyers, and Leahy) would strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) in response to the Supreme Court decision last June that invalidated a critical section of the VRA. In the Shelby County v. Holder ruling on June 25, 2013, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the VRA.

This section served as a protection against voting discrimination, in that it compelled certain states with a well-documented history of voting discrimination to clear any proposed changes to voting practices or regulations with the federal government under Section 5 of the VRA. That the sections provided necessary protections is evidenced by.