Campaign Finance Constitutional Amendment. Senate Joint Resolution 19 would propose an amendment to the Constitution granting Congress and state lawmakers the \”power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to federal and state elections.\” The resolution\’s proposed amendment would also prohibit \”corporations or other artificial entities\” created by law \”from spending money to influence elections.\”
The Senate did not vote on S. J. Res. 19 itself but on a motion to invoke cloture, and thus limit debate, on the joint resolution so that it could come up for a vote. The Senate rejected this motion on September 11, 2014 by a vote of 54 to 42 (60 votes, three-fifths of the full Senate, are needed to invoke cloture; Roll Call 261). We have assigned pluses to the nays because this proposed constitutional amendment would effectively repeal the free speech provision of the First Amendment, since restricting the amount of money that may be spent on political speech would restrict political speech.
