The Political Perils Of Citing America's Peculiar Institution
Citing American slavery to make a point about contemporary politics can be downright tricky business, as some public figures have recently learned firsthand.
Take Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who's running for the Senate seat previously held by Secretary of State John Kerry. He caused a kerfuffle by citing, in the same breath, the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United campaign-finance decision and the opinion of a much earlier court, the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision. In that case, the court told a black man seeking to be freed from slavery that he had no constitutional right to sue for his freedom.
Markey's remarks at a Tuesday campaign stop were first reported on BuzzFeed and captured on video and uploaded, of course, to YouTube:
"I want to go to the United States Senate in order to fight for a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizens United. The whole idea that the Koch brothers, that Karl Rove can sa, 'We're coming to Massachusetts, we're coming to any state of the union with undisclosed amounts of money,' is a pollution that must be changed. And the Constitution must be amended. The Dred Scott decision had to be repealed — we have to repeal Citizens United."