SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Jimmy Carter Slams Citizens United as Threat to Democracy

Former President Carter speaking on Sept. 6, 2012. (photo: Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS via Flickr)

Jimmy Carter Slams Citizens United as Threat to Democracy

Carter hopes "Supreme Court will reverse that stupid ruling."

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter issued scathing remarks on the impacts of Citizens United, slamming the "financial corruption" and "excessive influx of money" that is making the U.S. electoral process "one of the worst in the world."

Carter made the comments speaking at Conversations at The Carter Center, a town-hall style discussion event, Tuesday evening in Atlanta.

Referring to the 2010 Citizens United decision, Carter said he hopes the "Supreme Court will reverse that stupid ruling," the Associated Press reports him as saying.

"We have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United States of America, and it's almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money," he said.

"You know how much I raised to run against Gerald Ford? Zero," Carter said. "You know how much I raised to run against Ronald Reagan? Zero. You know how much will be raised this year by all presidential, Senate and House campaigns? $6 billion. That's 6,000 millions."

Newserreports that Carter instead praised a publicly-financed elections currently used by other countries, and said the U.S. should follow suit.

On January 20th, it begins...


Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy.

Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us.

As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.