(Salon) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he will support a constitutional amendment introduced by Sen. Tom Udall that would, according to Udall's office, "restore authority back to Congress, individual states and the American people to regulate campaign finance." Another way that people have been describing it is as one that would "reverse recent Supreme Court decisions" — namely Citizens United and McCutcheon — "maximizing the influence of big money in politics." Reid has said he will hold "multiple votes" to press the issue ahead of the 2014 midterms.
Suggesting that a proposal would be the silver bullet needed to solve the problems maligning our election spending system is a pretty serious hyping, especially in an area of such exhausting legal whack-a-mole as keeping rich people's money away from politicians.
So, would the proposed constitutional amendment do the trick, and put in Congress' authority all the tools it needs to regulate election spending, from both campaigns and outside groups? Not really, a campaign finance expert tells Salon. The language in the amendment is still too vague to withstand inevitable court challenges.