Skip to main content

Curb the Special Interests

Public Citizen has sent me more email that may be of interest to you my readers. Special interests have politicians in their pockets because they have millions to spend and free rein on spending it.


Joseph,

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that corporate political spending is the same thing as free speech by living, breathing people.

Hundreds of thousands of people like you have signed petitions calling for a constitutional amendment to reverse this absurd ruling. 

Now, let’s tell our members of Congress where we stand.

Tell your members of Congress to support a constitutional amendment and legislation to undo the damage of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Thanks to people like you, the movement to amend the Constitution to combat corporate control of our elections is growing stronger every day.

In addition to a constitutional amendment, there are several steps Congress can take to help stop the corporate takeover of our government:

Support the Fair Elections Now Act, which would let candidates for Congress run viable campaigns based on small-dollar donations from real people, matched by public funds, so they could avoid taking corporate cash. We expect it to be re-introduced soon.

Support shareholder protection to stop activist CEOs from using shareholder money to further their own political agendas. Corporate political expenditures should require majority approval of all shareholders. After all, corporations aren’t people, but shareholders are.

Support disclosure of election spending. The American people should know who is trying to influence their votes. New laws are also needed to prevent foreign money from flowing into U.S. elections and to stop political spending by corporations that receive government money.

Tell your members of Congress to support these critical fixes to our broken system.

Go to www.citizen.org/congress-v-corporate-influence

Thanks for all you do,

Rick Claypool
Public Citizen’s Online Action Team
amendment@citizen.org

P.S. Support our work against runaway corporate power with a contribution of $40 or more and we’ll send you “The Story of Citizens United” on DVD.
Visit our Government Reform page to learn more about Public Citizen's work to rein in the influence of money in politics. To get regular e-alerts about opportunities for activism and other ways to help with Public Citizen's work, sign up for the Public Citizen Action Network. If you do not want to receive future emails from Public Citizen, go tohttp://action.citizen.org/unsubscribe.jsp.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Seeking the Romance of Life

A recent trip back to California, where I spent the middle half of my life (the part between the Seattle bookends)  and other smaller events have made me reflective of past events and places.  My brothers and I stopped in Santa Cruz, briefly, where I had lived for years, and stopped by a nightclub I had spent time in, the Catalyst, and asked the bartender the current status of local things. I found out Club Zayante in the Santa Cruz Mountain had closed.  When I got home I researched the Club, which was once of the hottest nightclubs in Central California to learn what happened.  I found out the club had closed for financial reasons then burned down. But what I learned about the owner, Tom Louagie intrigued me. He had come out from the east coast on a romantic quest, to find the Cannery Row he had read in Steinbeck. He had the idea of moving there and living a literary dream from the past.  He didn't know that that Cannery Row had died...

Swing States Swinging Against Meat Axe Budget Cuts and Anti-Labor Laws

Polls are showing wide swings of voters away from recently elected Republicans who are charing ahead with budget cuts and dismemberment of collective bargaining for public employee unions.   These polls are holding also for many of the recently elected Republican Congress people and in many states where the politics has been less volatile than the Upper Mid-West States. In Wisconsin, polls suggest that if there was a do over of the gubernatorial race in which Scott Walker decisively beat Tom Barret, Barrett would easily win by 52%.  Walker's support in union households has dropped from 40% to 33% and Tom Barrett's union household support has jumped from 54% to 64%.  Barrett's support among Republicans has risen to 10%.  In Michigan the new Governor created what people are calling financial martical law, where he can declare a financial emergency in a local government, take it over, and void union contracts. ...