MONTPELIER, Vt. – The Vermont House on Thursday passed a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to start the process of changing the federal Constitution to reverse a Supreme Court decision that expanded the rights of corporations to influence political campaigns.

The 92-40 vote reflected continuing opposition to the high court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 that lifted limits on corporate funding of political action committees supporting candidates. The House vote followed a similar vote in the state Senate last week and like-minded resolutions passed in 64 cities and towns on Town Meeting Day in March.

The resolution calls for a constitutional amendment to clarify that corporations are not people and money is not speech. It makes clear that Vermont is not calling for impinging on freedom of religion or the press. Similar measures have been approved in Hawaii and New Mexico and by at least one legislative chamber in California, Alaska and Iowa, according to the advocacy group Public Citizen.

Vermonters “do not want their voices drowned out by the voice of corporate wealth and influence,” said Rep. David Sharpe, D-Bristol, summing up the views of several supporters who spoke during an impassioned debate on the measure.

Opponents said the constitutional amendment would be a dangerous assault on First Amendment free speech rights.

Rep. Tom Koch, R-Barre Town, described the House as “150 of us trying to decide who may engage in political speech and who may not.” He said people need to spend money to get political messages before the public. That prompted Rep. Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, to ask if that means people with more money enjoy more First Amendment freedom.

Koch acknowledged he did not have a good answer.

“I do not like all this money that gets dumped into campaigns,” he said, adding that he had voted against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Vermont’s Republican presidential primary out of protest at the ads being bought by a super PAC.

“My vote will be different in the fall,” the Republican lawmaker added to laughter from some of his House colleagues.

The House vote came after the defeat of two proposed amendments: one by Rep. Dustin Degree, R-St. Albans, to urge Congress to include labor unions in any new speech restrictions that might apply to corporations; another by Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, to restrict political activities by U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign corporations.

Olsen is among a group of lawmakers who have been critical of a utility merger in which Colchester-based Green Mountain Power Corp., which is owned by Montreal-based Gaz Metro, plans to absorb Rutland-based Central Vermont Public Service Corp.