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Tag: campaign finance reform
Unearthed Video Shows McConnell Seeking To Curb Big Money — In 1987

Unearthed Video Shows McConnell Seeking To Curb Big Money — In 1987

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

In recent years, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has wholeheartedly agreed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and opposed a broad swath of campaign finance regulations as a violation of the First Amendment. Citizens United equated campaign contributions with speech, and he backed that view. But an unearthed video of McConnell speaking in 1987 shows how egregiously he has flip-flopped.

Back in 1987, the Kentucky Republican (who is now 77) had only been in the U.S. Senate a few years: he was first elected to the Senate in 1984, defeating Democrat Walter Huddleston. In the 1987 video, McConnell was not only in favor of campaign finance regulations — he wanted a constitutional amendment setting limits on campaign contributions.

“The constitutional amendment that I will be introducing is rather simple, and it deals with the millionaire problem,” McConnell explains in the video. “It simply would grant to this body and to the various state legislatures the authority to regulate what an individual could put into his own campaign — just like we have the constitutional authority to regulate what any of us can put into somebody else’s campaign.

What Team Sanders Should Do Now

What Team Sanders Should Do Now

Bernie Sanders is almost certainly not going to be the Democratic nominee. Though he retains a devoted following, the crowds, the attention and the money are no longer what they were — death for a campaign built on momentum. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, holds a virtually insurmountable lead in both delegates and votes.

Passion is a valuable commodity in politics, and the time has come for team Sanders to redirect it. There are two useful paths at this point. No. 1 is joining Democrats, sensible Republicans and the rest of civilization in defeating the appalling Donald Trump. If Sanders and his troops can graft their idealism onto the realism of Clinton’s campaign, then Trump goes down in a pink puff of stage powder smoke.

No. 2 is turning that liberal energy into an enduring political force. That would require making the “movement” less about Bernie and more about ideas.

The thorny question is, how much of Sanders’ support is tied to one man? Sanders has won many young hearts, but turning a fan base into a voting bloc is not easy.

Some of Sanders’ more ardent backers seem to have taken Clinton’s criticisms of Sanders personally. A few vow to wave the bloody shirt, rather than support Clinton in the general election. It is Sanders’ job to lay out the stakes for them.

Whether he will wield that shovel is not entirely clear. Sanders says he will work to prevent a Trump presidency. But is he able to join a parade in which he is not grand marshal?

And there remain opportunities to get final digs in on Clinton. The greatest one will be the Democratic National Convention, where Sanders vows “to fight as hard as we can … to make sure that we have a progressive platform.” You wonder whom he might want to smite and about what.

This might pain some of the revolutionaries, but in terms of getting progressive policies into law, Clinton has done worlds more than has Sanders. So have Elizabeth Warren and other members of the party that Sanders chose not to be a member of.

On the plus side, Sanders gives a rousing speech, and that’s not a small thing. (If only Clinton could borrow some of his populist thunder.) And for all the misgivings many have about his quixotic visions and youthful rumblings about “the establishment,” Sanders beyond a doubt has emboldened Democrats to champion their beliefs without apology.

And on the plus-plus side, some former Sanders staffers have started a group called Brand New Congress to turn the focus toward electing strong liberals to Congress. Without a cooperative Congress, the most progressive president is hampered. Just ask Barack Obama.

Opportunity knocks. With the scary Trump at the top of the ticket, Republicans risk losing their large House majority. There’s a reason, beyond conservative principles, why House Speaker Paul Ryan has taken the extraordinary step of withholding support for Trump.

By the way, Brand New Congress is a PAC. It’s into raising money for candidates. As Sanders correctly keeps saying, campaign finance overhaul is desperately needed. But as realists say, you need money right now to elect the people who would do the overhauling.

If Democrats retake the Senate majority, which is a strong possibility, Sanders would be in line to head the Senate budget committee. This is a choice chairmanship offering much power over taxes and spending.

But there’s a general election standing between now and that prospect. Can Sanders move his fiercest devotees to cast a ballot for her? And would he actually campaign for Clinton in earnest? The answer to this we are “Berning” to know.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S., May 8, 2016.  REUTERS/Dominick Reuter 

Bernie Sanders’ Staffers Want To Replace Congress By 2018

Bernie Sanders’ Staffers Want To Replace Congress By 2018

A group of ex-staffers and volunteers from the Bernie Sanders campaign are looking past the 2016 presidential election and towards the 2018 midterms, aiming to replace the United States Congress with a brand new one – or as close to that as they can get – made up of political newbies and outsiders unbeholden to the donor-class.

Last Monday, these Sanders supporters formed a new Political Action Committee called Brand New Congress, and they’ve already raised nearly $35,000 in donations from around 8,000 pledged members. Around 300 have signed up to work for the campaign.

The group has a three-year plan: Throughout 2016 they will continue recruiting organizers and selecting a set of more than 400 candidates — from across the political spectrum, apparently — who conform to the Sanders brand of political integrity, and by January 2017 they’ll begin a hard push to the midterm elections in November 2018.

Although electing an entirely new Congress seems like a stretch, the massive mobilization we’ve seen of previously disenganged primary voters in 2016 makes just about anything seem feasible, at least on paper.

Brand New Congress doesn’t necessarily seem to want to swap out everyone on Capitol Hill — just those they deem part of the “do nothing” problem that has pushed so many voters to the fringes of their respective parties.

A statement on the group’s website reads, “America needs an honest, accountable Congress to enact Bernie’s program. But trying to win each Congressional seat one-by-one is impossible. So let’s run one campaign to replace Congress all at once…that whips up the same enthusiasm, volunteerism and money as Bernie’s presidential campaign.”

The group is pinning most of its hopes on convincing inexperienced political observers to throw their hats into the ring.

In an interview with The Attitude, a progressive talk show out of New Hampshire, Brand New Congress organizer Stacie Hopkins said “[political] experience is good to have, but it’s not always necessary to have that experience to be a good representative of the people.”

“We hope to be able to provide training to people who have natural leadership qualities,” Hopkins said. “We want to encourage people who may not have thought of running for public office, but who have the qualities that would make them conducive to being good representatives.” Hopkins noted that some congress people “may have gotten into [politics] not to serve the public, but for ego and personal ambitions, for the sake of having power.”

The group also plans on taking some of the fundraising pressure off of its newly-minted politicians, an awkward conflict with Sanders’s pledge not to accept money from outside groups. It’s a similar position to Harvard Law School professor — and one-time Democratic presidential candidate — Lawrence Lessig’s Mayday PAC, a super PAC meant to support candidates in favor of campaign finance reform.

Brand New Congress hasn’t shied away from its commitment to recruit new candidates from both parties. In an interview with the Huffington Post, organizer Zack Exley said, “We want a supermajority in Congress that is fighting for jobs, criminal justice reform and the environment. Most Americans actually want that, and I think we get it by running Dems in blue areas, Republicans in deep red areas, and by running independents wherever we didn’t defeat incumbents.”

Given the current — and longstanding – polarity of our political parties, it’s easy to disregard the potential for successfully finding Democrats and Republicans to run under the same umbrella group. According to a representative from the PAC, they plan on endorsing Republican candidates who back progressive social issues like LGBT and women’s rights — and those Republicans are out there, in and around the pro-privacy, live and let live libertarian camp.

If the real hope of Brand New Congress is to break up congressional gridlock and create an environment where all the issues can be contested on a level playing field, then this might be worth watching. It may be a long shot, but what about Bernie Sanders’s insurgent campaign for president isn’t?

Photo: Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally at Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington March 25, 2016. REUTERS/David Ryder  –  

Over 1,000 Arrests In Anti-Corruption Democracy Spring Protests

Over 1,000 Arrests In Anti-Corruption Democracy Spring Protests

Since April 11, hundreds of protesters have stood outside the U.S. Capitol, protesting political corruption and getting arrested in scores. Over the past week, over 1,000 protesters were arrested not far from the steps of the Capitol.

“We demand that Congress take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice,” read a statement on Democracy Spring’s website. The group is a coalition of 120 civic organizations pushing for action on a variety of progressive causes, central among them campaign finance reform.

“We will demand that Congress listen to the People and take immediate action to save our democracy. And we won’t leave until they do — or until they send thousands of us to jail, along with the unmistakable message that our country needs a new Congress, one that that will end the legalized corruption of our democracy and ensure that every American has an equal voice in government.”

Led by Democracy Spring, thousands of protesters arrived on Capitol Hill on April 11 with four key demands: the overturning of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, restoration of voter protections promised under the Voting Rights Act, greater transparency in the voting process, and publicly financed elections.

By the end of a week of protests, the organization claimed that around 1,300 people had been arrested for unlawful protesting. At the start of the event, 3,500 people had pledged to be arrested. The protests, initially ignored by the major TV networks, were buoyed with some coverage following the arrests of notable politically active public figures.

Rosario Dawson, who has emerged as a prominent supporter of Bernie Sanders, was arrested last Friday during the protests. On Monday, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, of Ben & Jerry’s fame, were also arrested for taking part in the protests. They too have emerged as important backers of the Sanders campaign.

Even Larry Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who briefly ran for the Democratic nomination, was arrested during the protests. “I’m a law professor,” he said. “I don’t get arrested.”

The protests highlight the deep level of dissatisfaction most Americans have with the state of their democratic institutions. The anger bubbling against the influence of money in politics may partially explain the rise of both Sanders and Donald Trump, who have each eschewed support from so-called super PACs. Trump often mentions that his supposedly “self-financed” campaign means that he is not beholden to any special interests, and while most, if not all, of the groups under the Democracy Spring umbrella are progressive, disgust with the state of money and politics appears to be bipartisan.

Photo: Flickr user alsacienne.