Ketchup king H.J. Heinz Co. announced last week that it’s work­ing with Ford to con­vert toma­to waste into auto parts. Now that’s an inno­v­a­tive Fusion!

All of this has so emboldened billionaires that one of them, Tom Perkins, said earlier this year that citizens should get one vote for each tax dollar they pay. No more one person one vote.

In addi­tion, it is fur­ther proof that Amer­i­cans can do any­thing. They sent a man to the moon and a rover to Mars. They dis­cov­ered a way to innoc­u­late against the scourge of polio. They invent­ed the slinky and the Inter­net, jazz and base­ball. They over­came a civ­il war and the Great Depression.

Amer­i­cans have proved over two and a half cen­turies that they can do any­thing when imbued with the exhil­a­ra­tion of self-deter­mi­na­tion. Amer­i­cans fought a rev­o­lu­tion to secure this self-empow­er­ment. They would con­trol their own des­tinies, not some arbi­trary king. That, how­ev­er, is all threat­ened because right wingers on the Supreme Court gave a minor­i­ty — the wealthy — legal sanc­tion to buy the gov­ern­ment. Now, democ­ra­cy-lov­ing Amer­i­cans are demand­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to return gov­ern­ing to the majority.

In a series of deci­sions, con­ser­v­a­tives on the Supreme Court took pow­er from the peo­ple and gave it to cor­po­ra­tions and the rich. This began, odd­ly, in the U.S. Bicen­ten­ni­al year with the Buck­ley v. Valeo deci­sion that assert­ed mon­ey was speech. Then in 2010, the court decid­ed in the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed case that cor­po­ra­tions were peo­ple and could spend as much mon­ey on polit­i­cal cam­paigns as they wanted.

Final­ly, ear­li­er this year, in the McCutcheon case, the court lift­ed cam­paign dona­tion lim­its so that now the über-wealthy may spend vir­tu­al­ly as much as they want to influ­ence the elec­tion of not just their own rep­re­sen­ta­tives in city halls and state leg­is­la­tures and Con­gress, but also the politi­cians who are sup­posed to rep­re­sent oth­er people.

All of this has so embold­ened bil­lion­aires that one of them, Tom Perkins, said ear­li­er this year that cit­i­zens should get one vote for each tax dol­lar they pay. No more one per­son one vote. Perkins thinks the rich have the right to buy government.

His plan would kill Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy. A Perkins Plu­toc­ra­cy is not what Amer­i­cans sac­ri­ficed their lives and limbs for dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War. But Perkins doesn’t care about all that. He believes his bil­lions enti­tle him to sovereignty.

Though bil­lion­aires’ tax dol­lars can’t buy them thrones yet, they’re using the Supreme Court deci­sions to secure con­trol. For exam­ple, the bil­lion­aire Koch Broth­ers have promised to spend at least $125 mil­lion to pur­chase right wing sup­pli­cants of their choice nation­wide. And that’s just the 2014 Koch bud­get for pur­chas­ing government.

While the con­ser­v­a­tives on the Supreme Court con­tend­ed that gifts to politi­cians of $125 mil­lion are fine and dandy, the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans dis­agree. And for good cause. They have watched as their so-called rep­re­sen­ta­tives pass leg­is­la­tion that makes it crys­tal clear they real­ly rep­re­sent some­one else — wealthy donors and corporations.

The major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans want the min­i­mum wage raised, unem­ploy­ment insur­ance extend­ed, Social Secu­ri­ty pro­tect­ed, and infra­struc­ture like high­ways improved, but that’s not what Con­gress is doing. Instead, it is slash­ing the bud­get in ways that the major­i­ty hates, includ­ing cut­ting food stamps and pre­serv­ing tax breaks for corporations.

Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Mar­tin Gilens writes about this phe­nom­e­non in his new book, ​“Afflu­ence and Influ­ence: Eco­nom­ic Inequal­i­ty and Polit­i­cal Pow­er in Amer­i­ca.” After study­ing thou­sands of pro­posed pol­i­cy changes, he deter­mined that the rich get the leg­is­la­tion they want, whether the major­i­ty agrees or not. But the reverse is not true. The major­i­ty does not get what it wants if the wealthy object.



That’s not how a real democ­ra­cy works. In a real democ­ra­cy, all cit­i­zens, regard­less of wealth or title, celebri­ty or sta­tus, beau­ty or brawn, have equal access to gov­ern­ment offi­cials and equal influ­ence on gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. Democ­ra­cy is major­i­ty rule; not minor­i­ty reign.

To restore democ­ra­cy, Amer­i­ca needs a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment. One has been pro­posed to over­turn Valeo and Cit­i­zens Unit­ed and McCutcheon, to lim­it cam­paign spend­ing by cor­po­ra­tions and the wealthy and to return pow­er to the peo­ple. A vote on the amend­ment by the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee is sched­uled for ear­ly next month.

Amend­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion sounds auda­cious. Par­tic­u­lar­ly when a pro­posed amend­ment to guar­an­tee women equal rights failed. But it can be done. It has been done. Recent­ly too.

The 27th Amend­ment passed in 1992. Before that, the 26th Amend­ment was pro­posed in March of 1971, and four months lat­er, 18-year-olds received the right to vote. That set the record for quick approval.

Work­ing to get this done are groups like Move to Amend, Peo­ple for the Amer­i­can Way, Com­mon Cause and Pub­lic Cit­i­zen. They are joined by U.S. Sen­a­tors Tom Udall (D‑N.M.), Chuck Schumer (D‑N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.).

They’ve got 43 co-sign­ers in the Sen­ate, more than 2 mil­lion names on peti­tions, and the endorse­ment of 16 states, 500 com­mu­ni­ties and retired Supreme Court Jus­tice John Paul Stevens.

And more. They’ve even got the back­ing of some rich peo­ple. On May 1, Lawrence Lessig, direc­tor of the Edmond J. Safra Cen­ter for Ethics at Har­vard, launched the May­day PAC, which is a super PAC to end all super PACs.

Non-rich democ­ra­cy lovers gave $1 mil­lion to the May­day PAC by the mid­dle of May. Wealthy democ­ra­cy lovers matched that. Among those rich donors were con­ser­v­a­tives, like Pay­Pal co-founder Peter Thiel, and lib­er­als, like LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman.

Now Lessig is rais­ing more, seek­ing $5 mil­lion in con­tri­bu­tions of $10,000 or less from Amer­i­cans who cher­ish a repub­lic of one per­son, one vote. Again, the plan is for this to be matched by wealthy donors who believe in a gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple, for the peo­ple that won’t be con­quered by cash.

That Lessig raised $1 mil­lion in small dona­tions for the May­day PAC in the first two weeks shows Amer­i­cans strong­ly sup­port this idea.

Amer­i­cans can do any­thing. They cer­tain­ly can amend their con­sti­tu­tion and pre­serve their democracy.