Lawrence Lessig Quotes

In 'Citizens United v. FEC', the Supreme Court ruled that sections of the federal campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold imposed unconstitutional restrictions on the First Amendment rights of corporations.

Citizens United fought to defend our right to free speech - and won a great victory in the United States Supreme Court.

The DISCLOSE Act is a testament to the wisdom of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. The First Amendment sought to place political speech beyond the government's control, and we can be glad that it did.

A few people have big free speech and the rest of us have little free speech. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was decided wrongly.

Citizens United was no victory for free speech.

The decision in Citizens United said that money equals speech, a position that I - and a vast majority of Americans, in poll after poll - could not disagree with more.

In the Senate, I will push to overturn Citizens United as I've been vocal about since I first served on the Town Council.

Corporations are not people. They shouldn't be funding. They shouldn't be funding campaigns at all.

With Citizens United, the Supreme Court's declaration that corporations are people, the whims of one can silence the voices of millions.

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual.

We must reduce the influence of money in politics, beginning by overturning Citizens United and taking back our system from the millionaires and billionaires who can give unlimited and undisclosed amounts of money to influence our elections.

Either you're for ending Citizens United, or you're not. So, if you're for ending Citizens United, then act like you are against corporations influencing our democratic process.

That's a question best put to Bernie Sanders himself, but I think that he will probably put forward ideas that are related to the corrupting role of Citizens United and Buckley versus Valeo court decisions and the need to restore a by-and-for-the-people republic envisioned in our Constitution instead of the of-, by- and for-the-most-powerful system that we have right now.

The SuperPACs and the Citizens United ruling that gives corporations a voice in the political process are all bad news. They made it so you can now lie, and the politician being promoted on that lie will not be held responsible for it.

History will record that the Citizens United decision is one of the worst in the history of our country.

Without putting the brakes on out-of-control campaign contributions from individuals and corporations - it will be business as usual, with 1 percent of Americans pulling the strings.

I don't think we should view corporations as people for the purposes of speech.

I have a lot of stands on a lot of political issues. I'm very big on campaign finance reform. I still think most Americans aren't aware of how the dumping of big corporate dollars and private donor dollars has totally corrupted the political system and taken it away from them.

I think we have to look at the whole way campaigns are financed. The No. 1 problem is PAC and special-interest money.

The Citizens United ruling did not invent special-interest spending; it enables corporations and unions to advocate directly on behalf of a candidate rather than running more subtle 'issue ads.'

I think the idea of getting money out of politics is critical.

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.

In terms of political contributions, the free speech rights of corporations I don't think deserve the same protections as the free speech rights of real living, breathing, voting humans.

I have introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and make it clear that the Congress and state legislatures do have the ability and the power to regulate and get corporate funding out of political campaigns.

Campaign finance reform is vital. It is impossible for us to win, especially in committees, because we can never outbid the opposition.