Saving Democracy, Documented
The official blog of MAYDAY.US
MAKE AMERICA WEIRD AGAIN?
“The establishment left and the media shouldn’t be so quick to dance on the grave of Donald Trump’s fundraising operation,” says Erik Altieri, MAYDAY.US political strategist.
When a Republican presidential campaign that spends 20 percent of its total expenditures on its own candidate’s companies qualifies as anything but a debacle, you know something is weird.
When a Republican presidential campaign that spends more than $200,000 on hats and only $120,000 on ads qualifies as anything but a farce, you know something is weird.
When a Republican presidential campaign that spends over $400,000 on its candidate’s own resort and vacation home qualifies as anything but a sham, you know something is weird.
“The alternative for a Republican nominee typically is to rely heavily on large contributions from millionaire supporters, Super PAC’s, and corporate interests.”
Let’s reject this false choice between weird and corrupt.
It’s time to elect reformers who will fight for small donor elections. It’s time for an antidote to big money in politics and weird money in politics.
Take a stand here.
For the full article, click here.
Top 10 Reasons to Support Tim Canova
- Fixing Washington is #1 on his website (and nowhere to be found on his opponent’s).
- Supports public funding of elections
- Does not accept corporate & special interest money (20% of his opponent’s money is from PACs)
- Believes reversing Citizens United should be a litmus test for any nominee to the Supreme Court
- Will organize a bipartisan congressional caucus to reform our campaign finance system and clean up our political system
- Supports full disclosure via the DISCLOSE Act (as of February 26, 2016, his opponent refused to co-sponsor this legislation which would shine a light on the flood of special-interest money)
- Entered the race because of his professional experience opposing the TPP (massive trade deal authored and pushed by corporate lobbyists, and supported by his opponent). When his opponent sided with corporate interests, Tim decided he had to step up and challenge this corruption for the American people.
- The most credible reformer in the 2016 presidential election, the Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, endorsed Tim Canova to challenge the status quo.
- Called for more open, public debates. His opponent refused to debate him in front of Florida voters and even used her leadership position to stifle the presidential debate nationally.
- Tim won’t change his position based on big money interests. For example, he supports medical marijuana for vets in FL; his opponent has offered to reconsider her opposition in exchange for political favors.
Do you agree? Chip in now to support our efforts to elect strong reformers nationwide!
Senator Warren Gets It
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) just gave a powerful speech calling upon Congress to fight big money corruption. Not only that, but she referenced a recent MAYDAY.US poll that showed overwhelming bipartisan support for the need to fight the influence of big money in our political system.
“According to a recent poll, Democrats and Republicans both agreed strongly with the idea of citizen funded elections –72% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans said yes.”
We’re backing a whole new generation of leaders with the same perspective as Senator Warren when it comes to campaign finance reform. When Congress sees this new team coming for their jobs, and when they see state after state adopting fundamental reforms to the way we fund elections - they’ll change their mind, or get out of the way!
Swing and a miss
How The White House is missing a golden opportunity
I have no interest in writing a condemnation of President Obama’s State of the Union Address. But I also have no interest in writing a back-patting celebration of his courage last night. While he mentioned many issues that are important to me, I remain convinced that they won’t be meaningfully addressed until we have fixed our democracy.
On that topic, he made a single statement about the great assault on democracy that is big money corruption. A single statement without any firm commitment to act.
“We have to reduce the influence of money in our politics, so that a handful of families and hidden interests can’t bankroll our elections — and if our existing approach to campaign finance can’t pass muster in the courts, we need to work together to find a real solution.” SOTU 2016
We need more DO
While this statement adopts the language of our movement, it is yet another example of talk when there should be action.
2007: Senator Obama commits to utilizing the public financing system for his Presidential election. Then reverses course in 2008 when he realizes how much more he can raise from the elite, private election financing system.
2010: President Obama decries 501©(4) nonprofits — so called “dark money” groups — for the millions they spend on elections with anonymous donations. Then in 2013, the Obama Campaign is morphed into this type of shady nonprofit in order to push his second term agenda.*
2011: President Obama condemns Super PACs following the Citizens United ruling: “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests.” An excerpt from his SOTU address. Less than a year later, his reelection campaign embraces a Super PAC created by former White House aides.
There is a lot of TALK about fighting the corrupting influence of big money in politics and very little DO.
What can be done
Meanwhile, the President has an ever-present opportunity to actually do something about big money corruption. Short of backing sweeping reform legislation, he could do something quite simple and immediate to impact the issue.
With the stroke of a pen, he could require all federal contractors to disclose their political contributions. Why would this be meaningful?
The largest contributors to political campaigns are the holders of the largest federal contracts. And that’s no accident.
When money is speech, speech is not free
There is a positive and statistically significant correlation between how much a corporation contributes to political campaigns and how large their federal contracts are.
According to research by political scientist Christopher Witko, for every ~$200,000 in political contributions a corporation makes, it can expect $5.3 million in Federal contracts above and beyond what they already might receive. That’s a 26x return on their investment-making political contributions more than three times as lucrative as the stock market.
If Federal contracts were their own national economy, they would be the 21st largest at $537 BILLION. That’s a lot of taxpayer money handed out to corporations in return for political contributions. Mandating that corporations disclose these contributions would allow citizens, researchers, and watchdog organizations to see the connective tissue, the flesh that we call corruption.
While I’m not optimistic any other issue will be addressed until we’ve removed big money corruption from our political system, I am optimistic that President Obama will see the importance of taking the first step with an executive order. In his own words:
How can we make our politics reflect what’s best in us, and not what’s worst?
Mr. President, you can do it on our behalf with nothing but this:
Cyrus Patten is the Executive Director of MAYDAY.US, a cross-partisan, grassroots campaign to fight big money corruption in politics by electing reformers. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
*an agenda I overwhelmingly agree with mind you. But I don’t support the system that allows unlimited and anonymous political expenditures that drown out the voice of the individual citizen.