Lame-duck Sen. Christopher J. Dodd announced Thursday he plans to seek a constitutional amendment empowering Congress "to regulate the raising and spending of money for state and federal political campaigns, and to implement and enforce the amendment through appropriate legislation."

The proposal comes in response to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down campaign finance laws that restrict corporate and labor union spending to influence elections. The court ruled 5-4 that such restrictions violate the constitutional protection of free speech.

While this blogger felt the court went way too far, and in the process gave corporations far too much power in the election process, amending the constitution to give Congress unfettered control of campaign financing may go too far as well.

The odds of such an amendment passing appear low. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress must vote to propose an amendment and three-fourths of state legislatures must vote to ratify.

The text of the Dodd press release follows:

DODD TO INTRODUCE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REVERSE CAMPAIGN FINANCE RULING

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced today that he will be introducing a constitutional amendment in the coming days to reverse the Supreme Court's recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The decision overturned 100 years of precedents to come to the unjustified conclusion that corporations deserve the same free speech protections as individual Americans.

"Money is not speech," said Dodd. "Corporations are not people. And in the wake of one of the most radical decisions in the Supreme Court's history of campaign finance jurisprudence, a constitutional amendment is necessary to fully restore the trust and voice of the American people. If corporations – foreign as well as domestic – are allowed even greater and more direct influence over our elections, our democracy as we know it will cease to exist. I won't stand for that. I urge my colleagues, and the American people, to join me in defense of democracy by supporting this amendment and other interim steps to mitigate the damage done by this decision."

Dodd's proposed amendment would authorize Congress to regulate the raising and spending of money for state and federal political campaigns, and to implement and enforce the amendment through appropriate legislation.