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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Americans Mobilize on "Citizens United" 5th Anniversary

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Wednesday, January 21, 2015   

SALT LAKE CITY - Protest events are planned around the nation today to mark the fifth anniversary of the Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling removed limits on the amount of money an independent organization can spend on political campaigns. Stephen Spaulding, policy counsel with the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, says the result is millionaires and billionaires have greater influence over elections at every level of government.

"We're calling on everyone in Utah to speak out to their Congressional delegation, to everybody in the Statehouse, and to say, 'enough is enough,'" Spaulding says. "We're sick and tired of Super PACs taking secret money from special interests, from corporations and deep-pocketed individuals who are trying to drown out the voices of average, ordinary people in Utah."

Spaulding says a new report from Common Cause shows donations from secret sources to activist organizations have influenced issues that range from minimum wage and gun control, to climate change and having an open Internet.

He adds, political campaign spending from undisclosed sources topped $170 million in 2014, and was more than $300 million during the 2012 presidential election.

"We're well over $500 million in money that is untraceable," says Spaulding. "That has been dumped into our elections, that otherwise likely would not have been spent, but for Citizens United."

Spaulding says the impact of Citizens United could be reduced or even eliminated with tougher disclosure laws for independent campaign spending. He also thinks lawmakers should support a constitutional amendment giving Congress and the states the power to regulate campaign spending and require full disclosure of its sources.


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