EDITORIAL: Money talks

Endangered Washington Democrats are so desperate to distract Americans from their policy failures that they’re proposing a constitutional amendment.

Not a repeal of the Second Amendment, mind you. Even in the aftermath of Sandy Hook and last month’s Santa Barbara massacre, shredding Americans’ gun rights is a political loser.

No, Democrats are attacking the First Amendment. Forty of the U.S. Senate’s 55 Democrats have co-sponsored an amendment written by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to give government the power to tightly limit all campaign contributions and all spending remotely tied to elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from limiting independent campaign expenditures by companies, unions and advocacy groups. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the court ruled that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from capping total contributions by an individual donor during a single election. The rulings left most campaign finance limits unconstitutional.

Democrats face bleak prospects in this fall’s election, thanks to Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act has held back hiring and pummeled the finances of millions of households, increased health care costs and forced untold numbers of Americans to find new doctors. Democrats own the law and all of its consequences.

But Democrats have another explanation for the harm they’ve inflicted on the middle class: Super-rich donors have bought government and rigged the economy to their benefit at the expense of working stiffs. This conspiratorial nonsense plays right with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tirades against the billionaire Koch brothers. Democrats know their plan has no chance of becoming the 28th Amendment. They want to distract and score points with voters, and nothing more.

However, if anything, the electorate should be repulsed by the proposal because it’s an incumbent-protection scheme. Giving elected officials control over the speech of their adversaries is a dangerous idea. Americans should remain free to ruthlessly criticize their government — and blow a fortune doing so, if they wish.