GROW – The Specific Agenda and Tactics

Email from Sen. Leahy re the SCOTUS decision:

Dear XXXX,

Today we begin the process of undoing the great harm done by a narrow majority on the U.S. Supreme Court in its recent Citizens United v. FEC decision. I just returned from our first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused specifically on how, in light of the Court’s misguided decision, we can protect our political process from excessive corporate spending.

The Founding Fathers crafted a Constitution and adopted a Bill of Rights to guarantee the fundamental rights of the American people, not corporations. After all, corporations are different from individual citizens. They do not have the same rights, morals, or motivations. They cannot vote. They are legal constructs designed to conduct commerce, nothing more.

The differences between people and corporations are obvious, and they were not lost on the great Chief Justice John Marshall when he wrote in 1819 that, “A corporation is an artificial being … the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it…”

When the conservative activist majority on the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same rights as individual citizens to spend as much as they like to influence the political process, they ran roughshod over longstanding precedent and effectively redrafted our well-established campaign finance laws.

At the core of the First Amendment is the right of individual citizens to speak and to be heard in the political process. But if the Supreme Court’s recent decision goes unchecked, it would not take much corporate money, relatively speaking, to outspend every candidate for every political party at every level of American government.

When the Citizens United decision was handed down, I said that it was the most partisan decision since Bush v. Gore. As in Bush v. Gore, the conservative activists on the Supreme Court unnecessarily went beyond the proper judicial role to substitute their preferences for the law. But Citizens United is broader and more damaging, because rather than intervening to decide a single election, the Court intervened to affect all future elections.

In the coming weeks and months I will call on you to help enact specific legislation aimed at restoring our democratic process in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Until then, please forward this email to your friends and family to continue building awareness about the grave implications of this wrongly decided case and the importance of closing the floodgates of corporate spending in American elections.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

P.S. Please encourage your friends and family to join our community by following the link below — and I’ll make sure they too know about specific advocacy opportunities in the near future, aimed at undoing the harm posed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision:

http://www.LeahyForVermont.com/Join

Email from MoveOn re:Fair Elections Now Act

Dear MoveOn members,

Last week, we launched the “Citizens’ Vote Count for Fair Elections” to make fence-sitters in Congress pick a side between citizen-funded elections and corporate-backed candidates.

We’re already seeing great results. For example, Massachusetts Representative Richard Neal’s office started off by telling callers they “don’t know his position.” But after two days of calling to follow up, his office broke the news to a constituent from Northampton that he would vote for the bill!

But your representative, Laura Richardson, still hasn’t taken a position either for or against the Fair Elections Now Act. To get her off the fence, we need to make sure she knows that constituents expect her to have a position on an important issue like this.

Can you call Rep. Richardson, and urge her to cosponsor the Fair Elections Now Act? Here’s where to call:

Representative Laura Richardson
Phone: 202-225-7924
Then, click here to share your results with other MoveOn members:

http://pol.moveon.org/fairelections/whipcount/index.html?zip=90805&id=19273-15297017-gIeC0Jx&t=2

Your call will have even more impact if you tell the person who answers the phone that you’re part of a campaign to get every member of Congress on the record on the Fair Elections Now Act, and that we’re tracking responses publicly at http://www.moveon.org/votecount. That way, they know there will be a consequence if they take no position.

Why is this bill so important? It’s the only plan on the table that would really change the way Washington works.

Under the Fair Elections Now Act, small donor candidates would receive a four-to-one match on donations from constituents, funded by a fee on big media corporations and government contractors.1 Citizen-funded elections have been proven effective and popular in states like Maine and Connecticut.2

The Fair Elections Now Act is supported by majorities of Republican and Democratic voters alike, but not the big corporations that are funding campaigns now.3 That’s why a lot of representatives think they’re better off playing it safe and taking no position

Step 1? Make government bribes a federal offense. Campaign money is expected, but lobby dollars are illegal. In fact, any unreported money, products, and promises (i.e. being promised a board position after retirement) are totally illegal.

Interview with Michael Moore that shares the same thoughts of GROW –

Michael: Well, no switch will occur until we remove money from politics. We would have to start a movement where people will be running for Congress and for Senate and signing a pledge that states that they will not accept in their first run for election more than $25 or $50 from a person. And after that, when they get in there, their number one priority is to remove funding of our elections from individuals who have the most money, and have it be federally funded like it is in most democracies.

Cenk: So you think that campaign finance reform is the critical part of this.

Michael: Cenk, there’s nothing else will happen. Look at right now. Here we are guys, we’re a year and a half away from the crash. A year and a half since the big crash. Not one single regulation has been put back in place. Not one rule. And for Wall Street, they’re back to doing the crazy derivatives. They’re back to the credit default swaps. They’re back to all the crazy loony bin casino stuff that got us in the mess that we’re in. And the Congress has not done one single thing to stop it.

http://www.alternet.org/news/145920/michael_moore%3A_there%27s_going_to_be_a_second_economic_crash_%28and_glenn_beck_can_%27f–k_off%27%29?page=entire

I have still been in contact with Jonathan Schneider the person who produced the documentary. “Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington” email address info@letsgoape.com

In my last correspondence I sent him a link to the online petition to amend the constitution to stop corporate influence on our elections
http://www.movetoamend.org/we-corporations

Here is his reply to me.

Thanks for the link. I will check it out. As I mentioned, I want to reinvigorate my work on campaign finance reform and related issues. To that end, I’d like to know a little bit more about your group. If you are the person to talk with, I’d love to chat. Is there a number I can contact you or who ever you think would be most appropriate in your group? Thanks!

Best,

Jonathan

I just did a Planet tweet for Grow. I will do them periodically during the day……………..

PlanetPOV Corp oligarchy, tired of it? Go to http://planetpov.com/2010/03/01/grow-the-specific-agenda-and-tactics/#comment-42784

Another group has emerged but against health insurance companies –

In that populist vein of if-politicians-won

Just came across this image which really says it all. Unfortunately, it’s from an artist and copyrighted I bet.

http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/13158-guillermo-bert

Cher
A little OT but when I lived in Reno even if we had not heard about Burning Man for weeks before, we always knew when it happened because of all the extremely dirty cars. I cannot even imagine how they ever entirely get the dust out of their vehicles. Oh and there was also an unusual amount of VW vans in the vicinity.

Bito
Adlib asked if we would collaborate on the twitter account the planet has, what do you say?

AdLib, and others– it just occurred to me that my son and his friends might be able to help with the video. They are a bunch of performance-type artists. (Hard to explain exactly what they do!)