Campaign Finance Reform
Audio: With Full Schedules, Towns Block Corporate Personhood From Ballots (VPR News)
February 27, 2012
(Host) All the towns that hold their town meetings next week will vote on municipal and school budgets and other local issues. And many towns are also taking up the hot-button issue of corporate personhood. But some say it has no place at their meetings because it is a national issue and they’ve got plenty [...]
OpEd: My Turn: Corporate citizenship is about more than campaign money (Burlington Free Press)
February 23, 2012
By Gaelen Brown People are ensured inalienable or “God given” rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from unwarranted search and the right to bear arms in our society because those rights are established in the Constitution of the United States. Corporations existed back when the Constitution was written, yet the word corporation is not [...]
United Citizens vs. Citizens United (In These Times)
February 22, 2012
By Sady Doyle Reader: I have a confession to make. I am not a lawyer. Nor am I a constitutional law scholar, a person who has studied in great detail the differences in disclosure requirements between nonprofits and for-profit corporations, or a person who reads articles with the word “finance” in the first paragraph. My [...]
Democratic senators want super PAC crackdown (Politico)
February 21, 2012
By Robin Bravender Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Election Commission to crack down on super PACs, arguing that voters deserve more information about who is funding independent political advertisements. Eleven Democrats on Tuesday sent a letter to FEC Chairwoman Caroline Hunter urging the commission to enact broad disclosure and disclaimer rules in the [...]
Real conversation about economy still lacking (MSNBC)
February 2, 2012
Bernie & Sen. Tom Coburn discuss campaign finance on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show.
“I think it’s very clear to most Americans that Big Money plays an extraordinary and very negative role in the political process in this country. On issue after issue, bills that come to the floor, the American people want to move in one direction and congress moves in another direction”
Auction 2012: How The Bank Lobby Owns Washington (HuffPost Politics)
January 30, 2012
By Dan Froomkin & Paul Blumenthal When Washington puts policy on the auction block, bankers are consistently the highest bidders. The industry’s most striking victory has been the watering down of post-financial crisis reforms, to the point that banks are now bigger than ever and the bonuses keep flowing. But Wall Street’s campaign spending and [...]
Citizens Unite! (Seven Days)
January 25, 2012
By Andy Bromage Vermont is fast becoming the epicenter of the national grassroots movement to repeal Citizens United. That’s the 2010 Supreme Court decision that obliterated federal campaign-finance laws and opened the floodgates for the sleazy, Super-PAC-funded attack ads clogging airwaves in primary states. Vermont’s own U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment [...]
Vermonters United (American Prospect)
January 24, 2012
By Sarah Harris “Hi. I’m Jerry. I’m a person,” said Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream, as he introduced himself to the crowd with an ingratiating smile. “Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Ice cream: not a person.” Everybody chuckled. A crowd at the Montpelier statehouse in Vermont rang in the second anniversary [...]
OpEd: Cash, special interests, dominate political process (Miami Herald)
By U.S. Representative Ted Deutsch As multimillion-dollar Super PAC ads begin airing statewide, Floridians are getting a firsthand look at how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has changed presidential elections. Mitt Romney may try in vain to distance himself from the Super PAC his staff founded to accept millions from anonymous donors and stamp [...]
The hard truth about Citizens United (Salon)
January 21, 2012
By Steven Rosenfeld The movement to overturn the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling and confront the doctrine of “corporate personhood” stands at a perilous crossroads. Across the country, two distinct strategies are converging on Congress. More than a million people have signed online petitions. State legislators, city and township governments, Democratic Party groups and unions have sponsored and [...]
Post Tags
Afghanistan
Agriculture
Campaign Finance Reform
Citizens United
Deficit Reduction
Dental Care
Economy
Education
Energy
Environment
Federal Reserve
Financial Reform
Foreign Policy
Fraud
Health Care
Income Inequality
Iraq
Jobs
Keystone XL
LIHEAP
Marriage Equality
Medicare
Middle Class
National Security
Nuclear Power
Occupy Wall Street
Oil
Older Americans Act
OpEd
Postal Service
Poverty
Prescription Drugs
President Obama
Social Security
Solar Power
Sustainable Energy
Taxes
Transparency
Transportation
Tropical Storm Irene
Unemployment
Vermont
Veterans
Wall Street
Women
- Pew Research study shows "A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93%": http://t.co/B1x3G2Z0gM
- Check out the op-ed The Soul of America by @FriendsofBernie in @HuffingtonPost regarding #fiscalcliff and #debtceiling http://t.co/6I505g7W