Knothead Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 http://unitedrepublic.org/ Does anyone have any opinions about this organization? Specifically this announced attempt to get a law introduced. http://act.unitedrepublic.org/event/cosponsor/2278/ Is this feasible or naive? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigD Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Not naïve, I think, but also not feasible. While I agree with unitedrepublic.org’s claimAt the root of all these problems — and so many more — are special interests using money to control politics and manipulate the priorities of our government.I don’t think that a law like the proposed “stop corruption” law, which proposes government restriction the exercise of protected speech – which, per the recent Citizens United SCOTUS decision, includes advertisements and other promotion of political candidates using anonymous sources of money – could survive judicial review, unless the First Amendment were repealed, as it violates that higher law. I believe strongly that the First Amendment should and will not be repealed, so attempts to limit the political speech of “Big Money” through laws are doomed to fail. IMHO, the only way to reduce the influence of groups that spend great amounts of money to elect state and national US government officials who favor their interests over those of others is to convince a large number, ideally a majority, of Americans to vote only for people who do not accept money or other benefits from these groups. Were accepting any money other than public election funds considered by most Americans as disreputable as, say, sexual perversion, and they considered expensive “saturation” television ads evidence that a candidate was accepting such money, I believe this serious problem that united re:public is protesting would be solved. I believe such an education-based change in Americans’ attitudes could be furthered by providing, under revised current public election funding laws, “official” television channels, and websites that would provide strictly equal airtime and visibility to all candidates. Well-funded “unofficial” sources would be permitted – indeed, must be, per the First Amendment – but would, I hope, be so strongly stigmatized that they would hurt, rather than help, candidates who attempt to benefit from them, and quickly be abandoned by their producers. Individuals and non-professional collectives could support candidates, and, depending on their reputation, be very influential, but only if able to convince voters that their efforts were genuine enthusiasm, not advertising paid for by others. People could accuse one another of being paid-for shills, but such accusations would not be protected speech, so would be subject to existing libel laws, requiring them to be provable, at risk of civil trials and penalties. The major barrier I see to my – or anyone’s – idea for stigmatizing the use of great wealth in the US politics is a wide-spread, often not consciously articulated respect bordering upon adoration of wealthy people by Americans, which carries with it the implied belief that wealthy people should be able to further their interests by exerting much greater influencing of government officials than less wealthy people. This attitude is, I think, the modern descendent of acceptance of a noble class of people more able to make decisions affecting the commons than commoners. It’s incorrect, I believe, because I believe the wealthy are not significantly better at making such decisions than the less wealthy. It is, however, a stubbornly rooted, deeply divisive idea, which will not be shamed into obscurity easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted October 24, 2012 Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 While I strongly applaud the goals of the organization, they don't seem to have any political heavyweights on their Team. The cause they back is gaining steam from the not-terribly-well-organized "Progressive Movement". A good blog to follow on the topic in general is firedoglake.com: founder Jane Hamsher is a widely-quoted promoter of the progressive movement, and while a firebrand, she has some really good investigative bloggers working for her like Dave Dayen and Jon Walker who've been busy "following the money" and exposing some of the worst abuses of SuperPACs. And then of course there's Stephen Colbert... The Colbert SuperPAC It is a well known fact that reality has liberal bias, :phones:Buffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knothead Posted October 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 Not naïve, I think, but also not feasible. While I agree with unitedrepublic.org’s claimAt the root of all these problems — and so many more — are special interests using money to control politics and manipulate the priorities of our government.I don’t think that a law like the proposed “stop corruption” law, which proposes government restriction the exercise of protected speech – which, per the recent Citizens United SCOTUS decision, includes advertisements and other promotion of political candidates using anonymous sources of money – could survive judicial review, unless the First Amendment were repealed, as it violates that higher law. I believe strongly that the First Amendment should and will not be repealed, so attempts to limit the political speech of “Big Money” through laws are doomed to fail. IMHO, the only way to reduce the influence of groups that spend great amounts of money to elect state and national US government officials who favor their interests over those of others is to convince a large number, ideally a majority, of Americans to vote only for people who do not accept money or other benefits from these groups. Were accepting any money other than public election funds considered by most Americans as disreputable as, say, sexual perversion, and they considered expensive “saturation” television ads evidence that a candidate was accepting such money, I believe this serious problem that united re:public is protesting would be solved. I believe such an education-based change in Americans’ attitudes could be furthered by providing, under revised current public election funding laws, “official” television channels, and websites that would provide strictly equal airtime and visibility to all candidates. Well-funded “unofficial” sources would be permitted – indeed, must be, per the First Amendment – but would, I hope, be so strongly stigmatized that they would hurt, rather than help, candidates who attempt to benefit from them, and quickly be abandoned by their producers. Individuals and non-professional collectives could support candidates, and, depending on their reputation, be very influential, but only if able to convince voters that their efforts were genuine enthusiasm, not advertising paid for by others. People could accuse one another of being paid-for shills, but such accusations would not be protected speech, so would be subject to existing libel laws, requiring them to be provable, at risk of civil trials and penalties. The major barrier I see to my – or anyone’s – idea for stigmatizing the use of great wealth in the US politics is a wide-spread, often not consciously articulated respect bordering upon adoration of wealthy people by Americans, which carries with it the implied belief that wealthy people should be able to further their interests by exerting much greater influencing of government officials than less wealthy people. This attitude is, I think, the modern descendent of acceptance of a noble class of people more able to make decisions affecting the commons than commoners. It’s incorrect, I believe, because I believe the wealthy are not significantly better at making such decisions than the less wealthy. It is, however, a stubbornly rooted, deeply divisive idea, which will not be shamed into obscurity easily. Most of this is over my head so I can't argue with anything you said. Especially the technical legal issues. However let me share some of the information that they sent to me after I agreed to become a "founder". (I hope I'm allowed to share this stuff). What's in the new law On November 13th, we’ll unveil the full text of legislationthat will get money out of politics and will eliminate corruption. This law is written by constitutional attorneys to overhaul the systemwithout requiring a constitutional amendment reversing Citizens United. Shine a light on dark money groups and their secret donors. Outlaw members of Congress from taking donations from the entities they regulate. Close the revolving door between Congress and K Street so politicians (and their staff) aren’t trading their power inexchange for cushy jobs when they leave office. Foster small donor contributions through citizen-funded elections.(If we shut out corrupting money, we need to enable clean money.Because like it or not, it costs money to run for office.) Stop Super PACs and dark money groups from coordinating with campaigns. Disempower Super PACs while protecting the free speech rights of Americans. Expand the definition of lobbying to include all types of influence peddlers. Limit political activities of secretly funded “501c” tax exempt organizations. Anyway, I guess that if the worst that can happen is that it gets bogged down or struck down by the Supreme Court, it might be worth doing if only to get the issue more into the public conscientiousness. I certainly can't see the harm in talking about the problem. So far I've gotten six out of the thirty names I've committed myself to obtain. I'll just keep trying to get names and wait until the 13th to see what the whole story is. Thank you both very much for your responses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deepwater6 Posted October 24, 2012 Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 I'd echo Craig and Buffy's insightful comments. I would also agree with you, not much harm in trying this. I would also like to point out, and Craig and Buffy can correct me if I'm wrong, the Supreme Court ruled contributions from foriegn contries are allowed. Having large contributions by foriegn countries influencing our elections is troublesome. They are not swaying things for America's interests they are trying to get something in return for their own countries intrests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knothead Posted November 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2012 (edited) http://anticorruptionact.org/ https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.unitedrepublic.org/docs/AACA_Full_Provisions.pdf Edited November 16, 2012 by Knothead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knothead Posted November 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2012 While I strongly applaud the goals of the organization, they don't seem to have any political heavyweights on their Team. Trevor Potter is Stephen Colbert's attorney. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/421160/november-12-2012/colbert-super-pac-shh----secret-second-501c4---trevor-potter and is the author of the American Anti-Corruption Act. Board of AdvisorsTrevor PotterFormer Chairman, Federal Election Commission Mr. Potter served as General Counsel to John McCain 2008 and 2000 presidential campaigns. He also served as Deputy General Counsel to the George H.W. Bush 1988 campaign. He is the founding President and General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit which focuses on campaign finance issues in the courts and before the FEC. Mr. Potter now represents Stephen Colbert and his SuperPAC and 501C-4. He advises Mr. Colbert on campaign finance issues on The Colbert Report.Theodore Roosevelt IVInvestment Banker Theodore Roosevelt IV is a prominent Republican conservationist, and the great-grandson of President Roosevelt, serving on the boards of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Wilderness Society, and as a Trustee for the American Museum of Natural History, and the World Resources Institute. He is the chair of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.Lawrence LessigHarvard Law School Professor Professor Lawrence Lessig is the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University as well as a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Professor Lessig is the founder of Rootstrikers, an organization dedicated to ending corruption in government. Professor Lessig also sits on the advisory boards of the Sunlight Foundation and Americans Elect.Richard PainterFormer Ethics Advisor to President George W. Bush Professor Richard Painter is a Professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota. He served as the chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush. Professor Painter has also been active in law reform efforts aimed at deterring securities fraud and improving ethics of corporate managers and lawyers.Cecelia FronteroOccupy Wall Street Cecelia Frontero is an active participant in the Occupy Wall Street movement with a focus on ending the undue influence of special interests in politics. She is an accomplished actor with credits that include numerous theatrical productions, television programs and audio book recordings.Buddy RoemerFormer Governor of Louisiana Buddy Roemer (R-LA) is a former four-term U.S. Congressman and one-term Governor of Louisiana. He is the CEO and President of Business First Bank, and a former GOP candidate for U.S. President.Tom WhitmoreDC Tea Party Patriots Tom Whitmore is the head of the D.C. Tea Party Patriots. Mr. Whitmore is a retired C.E.O. of three small businesses, and now works to create an environment that encourages new activists to step up and become involved in the electoral process.Hadi PartoviInvestor Hadi Partovi is an entrepreneur and angel investor. As an entrepreneur, he was on the founding teams of Tellme and iLike. As an angel investor and startup advisor, Hadi’s portfolio includes Facebook, Zappos, Dropbox, OPOWER, Flixster, Bluekai, and many others. A graduate of Harvard University, Hadi is a strategic advisor to numerous startups including Facebook, Dropbox, OPOWER, and Bluekai, and serves on the board of TASER International. He is also an active angel investor with a wide range of investments.Mark McKinnonGOP Strategist For three decades, Mark McKinnon has been helping to solve complex strategic challenges for causes, companies and candidates, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong and Bono. McKinnon has helped engineer five winning presidential primary and general elections. McKinnon is co-founder of No Labels, a non-profit organization dedicated to bipartisanship, civil discourse and problem solving in politics, and is co-chair of Arts+Labs. He currently serves on the boards of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Change Congress.Dennis M. KelleherBetter Markets Dennis M. Kelleher is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Better Markets, Inc., a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in the U.S. and global financial markets. He has held several senior staff positions in the United States Senate, most recently as the Chief Counsel and Senior Leadership Advisor to the Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.Jack AbramoffFormer Lobbyist Jack Abramoff is a former Washington super-lobbyist who became a master of exploiting the lobbying system, and later served three years for breaking lobbying laws. Mr. Abramoff authored the book Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist. Mr. Abramoff continues to make media appearances to educate citizens on the corrupt practices in government.Nick PennimanFund for the Republic Nick Penniman is the executive director of Fund for the Republic, a catalyst fund bringing new resources to efforts to confront the undue influence of monied interests over U.S. politics. Prior to his work at Fund for the Republic, Mr. Penniman was the Executive Director of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. Mr. Penniman has worked as either a publisher or editor for several good-government magazines and newspapers, and blogs on the issue of money in politics for the Huffington Post.David LevineAmerican Sustainable Business Council David Levine is the co-founder and CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC). ASBC is a growing coalition of business networks and businesses committed to advancing a new vision, framework and policies that support a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. Founded in 2009, ASBC and its organizational members represent more than 150,000 businesses and more than 300,000 individual entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals across the United States.Susan McCueProgressive Strategist Susan McCue is a political strategist and President of Message Global LLC, a strategic public affairs firm founded to advance progressive campaigns, global non-profit advocacy, grassroots activism and corporate social responsibility. McCue served as the Chief of Staff for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. McCue later became the founding President & CEO of The ONE Campaign and elevated ONE into a national force. GQ Magazine named McCue one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington and Washingtonian Magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful women in Washington.Albert WegnerPartner, Union Square Ventures Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures, a venture capital firm that specializes in internet/tech ventures. He has founded or co-founded five companies, an managed a broad range of technology projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lawcat Posted November 17, 2012 Report Share Posted November 17, 2012 (edited) It's feasible and doable. I don't know if this particular text is good enough, but the idea is good enough to attract fair amount of support from individuals. (unions are a different game.) The problem as always is finding the solution that works money wise. If this is to be legislated, there has to be an acceptable alternative to get the election information out through media, otherwise if fundraising is limited the elections suffer. This petition seems to be aimed at compaign contributions mostly, which is really not the heart of the problem. the real problem is the spending and lobbying for bills. I don't know how to prevent organizations from lobbying for bills that favor their interests, other than passing a law that imputes agency relationship between the elected official and the constitutents--so that the elected official must always be an adversary of the lobbying group. Edited November 17, 2012 by lawcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knothead Posted November 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2012 It's feasible and doable. I don't know if this particular text is good enough, but the idea is good enough to attract fair amount of support from individuals. (unions are a different game.) The problem as always is finding the solution that works money wise. If this is to be legislated, there has to be an acceptable alternative to get the election information out through media, otherwise if fundraising is limited the elections suffer. This petition seems to be aimed at compaign contributions mostly, which is really not the heart of the problem. the real problem is the spending and lobbying for bills. I don't know how to prevent organizations from lobbying for bills that favor their interests, other than passing a law that imputes agency relationship between the elected official and the constitutents--so that the elected official must always be an adversary of the lobbying group. There seems to be quite a bit of attention paid to the lobbyist issues. http://anticorruptionact.org/ Get Money out of Politics:Stop lobbyist bribery, End secret money & Empower voters.Download the Act 1 Stop politicians from taking bribes Prohibit members of congress from soliciting contributions from the interests they regulate, and prevent them from benefiting interests that directly or indirectly spend heavily to influence their elections. Politicians routinely host fundraisers, and invite lobbyists to contribute to their campaigns. Members of congress who sit on powerful committees get extraordinary amounts of money from interests regulated by those committees. The result is a congress made up of politicians dependent on those special interests in order to raise the money necessary to win reelection. Politicians are forced to create laws that are favorable to those interests, often at the expense of the public interest. 2 Limit super PAC contributions and “coordination” Require Super PACs to abide by the same contribution limits as other political committees.Toughen rules regarding Super PACs and other groups’ coordination with political campaigns and political parties. The Supreme Court's Citizens United and subsequent court cases ruled that SuperPACs have the right to raise and spend unlimited money influencing elections, so long as the SuperPACs do not coordinate with the candidate campaigns. Since Citizens United, we've seen tremendous coordination between campaigns and their Super-PACS, making a mockery of the "independence" that the courts thought would exist. SuperPACs have become extensions of the campaigns, and allow mega-donors to exert undue influence on election outcomes. 3 Prevent job offers as bribes Close the “revolving door” so that elected representatives and their senior staff can no longer sell off their legislative power in exchange for high-paying jobs when they leave office. 5 years for all members and senior congressional staff. (currently 2 years for Senate; 1 year for House; 1 year for senior staff) Today, politicians routinely move straight from Congress to lucrative lobbying jobs on K Street, in order to influence their former colleagues and friends. Senior staffers who work for congressmen do the same thing. This corrupts policymaking in two ways: members and their staff anticipate high-paying jobs on K Street, and routinely do favors to their future employers while still in Congress; and once out of congress they enjoy undue access and influence to members of Congress. The biggest spenders hire these influencers, and win policy as a result. 4 Call lobbyists lobbyists Significantly expand the definition of, and register all lobbyists to prevent influencers from skirting the rules. Today, the definition of who is a lobbyist - and who is not - is weak. The result: members of congress and their staff, even when they are in the cool down phase when they may not lobby (1 year for US House members, 2 years for Senators, and 1 year for senior staff) work as "historical advisors" to skirt the law while receiving big money to influence policy. 5 Limit lobbyist donations Limit the amount that lobbyists and their clients can contribute to federal candidates, political parties, and political committees to $500 per year and limit lobbyist fundraising.Federal contractors already are banned from contributing to campaigns: extend that ban to the lobbyists, high-level executives and government relations employees and PACs of federal government contractors. Lobbyists currently must abide by the same contribution limits (to candidate campaigns) as everyone else: $2500 per election. Lobbyists "bundle" these $2500 contributions with other lobbyists, and individuals working for special interests that seek to influence politicians. This adds up to serious money, and serious undue influence. 6 End secret money Mandate full transparency of all political money.Require any organization that spends $10,000 or more on advertisements to elect or defeat federal candidates to file a disclosure report online with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours. List each of the organization’s donors who donated $10,000 or more to the organization to run such ads. This includes all PACs, 501c nonprofits, or other groups that engage in electioneering. Elections are being flooded with secret money funneled though "501c" organizations that are not required to disclose the names of donors. 501c's either spend money directly to influence elections, or make unlimited contributions to SuperPAC's. This allows secret political donors to flood elections with money, and influence outcomes. 7 Level the playing field with a small donor tax rebate Empower voters by creating an annual $100 Tax Rebate that voters can use for qualified contributions to one or more federal candidates, political parties, and political committees.In order to be eligible to receive Tax Rebate contributions, candidates, political parties, and political committees must limit the contributions they receive to no more than $500 per contributor per calendar year or contributions from entities that are funded exclusively by Tax Rebates and small-dollar contributions. Nearly $6 billion was spent on the 2012 elections, and the vast majority came from big special interest donors. In 2008, less than 0.5 percent of Americans contributed $200 or more, and less than 0.1 percent of Americans contributed $2,300 or more. Politicians become dependent on this tiny percentage of the population. To change this, we need to dramatically increase the number of small donors to politics, so that politicians become dependent on everyday Americans and not moneyed interests. That's how we get politicians who actually fight for the general public. 8 Disclose “bundling” Require federal candidates to disclose the names of individuals who “bundle” contributions for the Member or candidate, regardless of whether such individuals are registered lobbyists. 9 Enforce the rules Strengthen the Federal Election Commission’s independence and strengthen the House and Senate ethics enforcement processes.Provide federal prosecutors additional tools necessary to combat corruption, and prohibit lobbyists who fail to properly register and disclose their activities from engaging in federal lobbying activities for a period of two years. Federal agencies routinely fail to enforce the anti-corruption rules that already exist because their leadership are appointed by those they are supposed to regulate. The result is a wild-west elections system, where even lax rules can be skirted or broken with impunity. 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CraigD Posted November 17, 2012 Report Share Posted November 17, 2012 While I strongly applaud the goals of the organization, they don't seem to have any political heavyweights on their Team.Trevor Potter is Stephen Colbert's attorney. ...The organizations mentioned so far in this thread are a complicated and confusing – I’m not sure, practically, who’s involved in which. :edizzy: Here’s what I’ve been able to figure out so far unitedrepublic.org, lists a team headed by one slightly famous person: Josh Silver; Seth Beer; Sue B. Larson; Amelia Leonardi; Joshua Lynn; Jasper McChesney; Allison Sobel; Devers Talmage; Todd Van Vuuren. represent.us, which also operates the website anticorruptionact.org, lists a board of advisors that includes many famous people (and arguably one infamous person!): Trevor Potter; Theodore Roosevelt IV; Lawrence Lessig; Richard Painter; Cecelia Frontero; Buddy Roemer; Tom Whitmore; Hadi Partovi; Mark McKinnon; Dennis M. Kelleher; Jack Abramoff; Nick Penniman; David Levine; Susan McCue; Albert Wegner. From the limited reading I’ve done, UnitedRepublic seems focused on forming an organization of supporters, while RepresentUs, while also interested in this, is focused on a particular proposed US law, The American Anti-Corruption Act. They’re related to each other and other organizations, at least informally via Lessig, who founded 3 other organizations, Change Congress, Fix Congress First (in 2008), and Rootstrikers (in 2011), and according to his wikipedia page, announced in November 2011 that they would be combined into UnitedRepublic. We really need an orgchart, with lots of dotted-lines, to make sense of all the organizations and players involved! Lawrence Lessig is one of my personal heroes – his 2004 book Free Culture (which, appropriately, is available online for free) had a big, formative impact on the way I think about intellectual property law, business, and society. While I didn’t recognize his name at first glance, after reading his wikipedia page, I recalled Josh Silver from his founding work ca. 2002 with Free Press, which promoted and continues to promote ideas similar to the ones I voiced in post #2. In short, based mostly on my impressions of the people in them, I’m pretty sure I agree with the goals of UnitedRepublic and RepresentUs, if not their exact strategies for achieving them. A big :thumbs_up to you, Knothead, for getting active with UnitedRepublic. I was surprised to see Jack Abramoff on RepresentUs’s board, as the last I’d heard of him was when he went to federal prison for crimes related to the worst sort of lobbying this group is dedicated to fighting. If accounts since his 2010 release from prison are to be believed, Abramoff seems to have been reformed and become an activist against his former way of life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted November 18, 2012 Report Share Posted November 18, 2012 I'm a little surprised to see Jack Abramoff on that list, not so much because he's one of the worst offenders in the money-for-influence scandals of recent years, but that anyone would want to *promote* the fact that he's a supporter of their anti-money-for-influence campaign! :o But hey, just for the shock value it might work! Pretty wide range of people on that list with very active republican's like Mark McKinnon, but no one from the Teahadist wing of the party...because those folks if they get anywhere have their pockets lined by Karl and the Koch Brothers.... Oh and seconding Craig's support for Lawrence Lessig, he's brilliant! Vunce der rockets go up, who cares vere they come down? Dot's not my depahtment, :phones:Buffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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