42 PART oNE • THE AmERiCAN sYsTEm
A leader of the so-called Coffee Party speaks during a
protest in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Coffee Party
wants the Court to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission. Why does this group object to the Court’s decision?
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)The Constitution is an enduring document that has
survived more than two hundred years of turbulent
history. It is also an evolving document, however.
Twenty-seven amendments have been added to the
original Constitution. How can you, as an individ-
ual, actively help to rewrite the Constitution?Why should you Care? The laws of the nation
have a direct impact on your life, and none more so
than the Constitution—the supreme law of the land.
The most important issues in society are often set-
tled by the Constitution. For example, for the first
seventy-five years of the republic, the Constitution
implicitly protected the institution of slavery. If the
Constitution had never been changed through the
amendment process, the process of abolishing slav-
ery would have been much different and might have
involved revolutionary measures.
Since the passage of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment in 1868, the Constitution has defined who is
a citizen and who is entitled to the protections the
Constitution provides. Constitutional provisions
define our liberties. The First Amendment protects
our freedom of speech more thoroughly than do the
laws of many other nations. Few other countries
have constitutional provisions governing the right
to own firearms (the Second Amendment). Disputes
involving these rights are among the most funda-
mental issues we face.What Can you do? At the time of this writing,
national coalitions of interest groups support or
oppose a number of constitutional amendments.
One hotly debated proposal would create a consti-
tutional requirement to balance the federal budget.
In late 2011, a constitutional amendment to do just
that failed in both the U.S. House and the Senate.
The measure would have required a three-fifths
majority in both chambers of Congress to approve
any future deficit spending. If such an amendment
sounds like a good idea to you, there are a variety
of organizations you might investigate using your
favorite search engine, such as Google, Bing, or
Yahoo. These organizations include Americans
for a Balanced Budget, Americans for a Balanced
Budget Amendment, Americans for Prosperity, and
the Tea Party Patriots.making a difference
HoW CAN You AFFECT THE u.s. CoNsTiTuTioN?
Other Americans have different concerns. In 2010,
the Supreme Court struck down a wide range of cam-
paign finance laws in Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission.^17 One result of this ruling was the “super
PACs” that flooded television networks with attack adver-
tisements during the 2012 elections. Often funded by
very wealthy individuals, super PACs can spend as much
as they want, provided that they do not openly coordinate
their activities with a candidate’s campaign. A proposed
constitutional amendment would overturn the Citizens
United ruling. If getting the money out of politics is of
interest to you, you can examine the activist groups that
support this amendment. They include Common Cause,
Democracy Is for People, MoveOn.org, and Occupy Wall
Street.- 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010).
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