City Council
MEETING DATE: 11/16/2015
TITLE:
Title
Discussion on U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United Ruling
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FROM:
Tracey Martinez, CMC
Deputy City Clerk
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Direct Staff on whether or not the City Council would like to adopt a Resolution of support to amend the Constitution rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
Body
BACKGROUND:
Council Member Shelley Kaplan received an email from Move to Amend Coachella Valley asking the Council Members of Cathedral City to take a position on Citizens United.
Move to Amend (MTA) Coachella Valley is the local affiliate of a grassroots, not-for-profit, nonpartisan, single focus national organization.
The email indicates that the Supreme Court ruling in Citizen's United and other court cases affects the amount of influence city voters have in their elections. The Supreme Court in June 2012 said the Citizen's United case meant that Montana's state law did not apply so there cannot be limits on campaign contributions in state and local elections.
There are less than fifty multi-millionaires making enormous contributions to more than 600 Super Political Action Committees (PAC's). These groups drowned out the voices or regular voters in the 2012 and 2014 elections. With these court decisions corporations could donate large sums of money to a challenger in the next city council election.
They indicated that they believe the best method of correcting the Citizens United court case is by adopting a Constitutional amendment and are requesting that Cathedral City adopt a resolution of support to amend the Constitution rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
DISCUSSION:
Attached for your review is a draft Resolution of support to amend the Constitution rejecting the U.S. Supreme Citizens United ruling. If it is the consensus of the Council to move forward with the adoption of the Resolution it will be broug...
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