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Post by kelley805 on Jul 15, 2012 21:53:37 GMT -5
All
There have been both delegates that attended and people that did not attend that have been arguing for their favorite cause and grievance that may not have been in the final CC 2.0 document.
Likewise there have been people that want to rewrite the CC 2.0 grievances.
But I say lets stop wasting time reinventing the wheel and get on with the solutions.
There are two types of solutions: amendments and legislation.
The legislation solutions will only get implemented if we have a cooperative Congress that is not partisan and not influenced by Super PACs. How can we do that? Only via amendments such as the following.
The CC 2.0 agreed on "No legal person shall be permitted to contribute more than 100 times the federal minimum wage per year to federal campaigns or political action committees."
It neither mentions corporate personhood nor mentions money as free speech.
We need to work on Constitutional Amendments like the one above to get the democracy we so desperately want. All of us. This is our common thread.
Please join me in working on the real possibility of changing our country for the better. Lets celebrate the not perfect CC 2.0 approved solutions and work on getting the Constitution amended.
Mike Kelley CA-24
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Post by mikelweisser on Jul 16, 2012 0:59:40 GMT -5
I can back this as a start. We've still got a ways to go--
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Post by cybermensch on Jul 16, 2012 10:24:29 GMT -5
I may have voted for it as part of the solution, but I also voted to support Move to Amend. What are your objections, Mike, to the wording of that amendment? It seems to me that the limitation on campaign contributions that you cite is a legislative solution once Move to Amend has passed. Why do you want to include this limitation in the constitutional amendment?
Debbie Kordon
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Post by Ed Fahrenholz on Jul 16, 2012 20:12:06 GMT -5
Hi Mike, Glad to see you on here. I agree with you that we have to get on with our work. There are some delegates that are still lobbying for their fovorite cause, even though the CC 2.0 is completed. I think the ammendment you mention is the best place to start and should be one of the main focuses of our declaration. If this ammendment could pass it would immediately lead to and/or solve some of our other main grievances. Ed NJ - 1
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Post by kelley805 on Jul 17, 2012 21:04:19 GMT -5
Thanks to Ed NJ-1 and Debbie "cybermensch" Kordon for your support.
Debbie Too many people including 99D delegates that did attend CC 2.0 and those that did not, feel the corporate personhood is a deal breaker especially with the conservative side. Though I know the 99D and MoveToAmend.org are mostly progressive, I feel the solution above involving campaign funding is the knight in shining armor that will get the anti-Super PAC supporters of all parties involved. Since the Supreme Court has turned back the clock 100 years on campaign limits, our only recourse is a Constitutional Amendment to put it back.
Thanks Mike PS Nice nickname.
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Post by Mike Gentilucci on Jul 18, 2012 0:23:09 GMT -5
That is actually a pretty elegant solution Mike, I've been wondering how to deal with the issue of allowing the minimum contribution to increase with inflation and this solves it pretty nicely.
You've actually given away more than other proposed solutions do though...Buddy Roemer wanted $100 cap. There are other issues we need to fix too that are related to this that may be fixed with legislation, but I think more than endorsing a particular solution, we should lay all the options out on the table for people to see, then say this is the current situation (graph the exponential increase in campaign spending, amount of time fundraising/campaigning, etc) and here is a series of proposals by this group and that group, and sort of put them on a scale from right to left and offer a pointed critique of each. Then put them all on a ballot, and let people pick their top 3 preferences or something. And I don't mean just the delegates, I mean The People.
Then part II of this solution is to call for the states to call for an Article V.
And for the record, I'm one of those folks who didn't show who has been saying "end corporate personhood" is a deal breaker, and hundreds of my friends I've spoken to about it agree...we can get where we need to go without it.
Also for the record, I'm making the above happen with or without CC2.0, so it's up to you guys whether you want to be on board with the consensus plan that some of us are developing, or not.
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Post by kjlowry on Jul 18, 2012 11:29:13 GMT -5
Headline? "New Progressive Centrist group producing model legislation!" First item: Campaign finance reform
Whattaya think?
Write-up and circulate to state and federal congresses a piece of legislation to address some of the solutions below?
The people have been discouraged from voting in America by an election system that is unjustly weighted in favor of the two major political parties and has an enormous cost for financing campaigns for office. This system has subverted our democracy, has a wide variety of state restrictions, and is organized in a way that is detrimental to optimal voter turnout.
Suggested solutions for this grievance:
a. All polling days/election days, Federal, state, municipal or otherwise must be holidays. b. Easier absentee voting process should be implemented. c. New standardized laws should be enacted to ban all rules in the states that hinder the right to vote. There should be no tests, special ID or fee requirements in one state over another. d. The Social Security Administration could distribute free voter photo identification to be used for federal elections and create a permanent voting roll. e. The Electoral college should be abolished in favor of the popular vote in presidential elections in order to more accurately reflect the will of the people. f. A non-partisan commission or neutral group shall redraw district lines based on geographical borders which are compact, contiguous, and reflective of socio-economic demographics. g. New federal laws should be enacted requiring that no political party shall be privileged or receive special advantage in any state for their candidates running for congress or the Presidency. h. New election laws or a constitutional amendment to provide for a gender balance in the Senate. One Senate seat from each state is to be reserved for a man and one for a woman. i. Campaigns for sufficiently popular candidates shall be financed by a public campaign fund and radio and TV broadcasters shall provide free and equal air time to those candidates. j. No legal person shall be permitted to contribute more than 100 times the federal minimum wage per year to federal campaigns or political action committees. k. Include vote counting transparency and reform as no election reform will matter unless votes are counted correctly. Voting machines should be abolished unless they can be verified from beginning of the vote process to end. l. New laws should be enacted so that Senators will not serve consecutive (six-year) terms and Representatives shall not serve more than two (two-year) terms consecutively. This would not represent a law requiring term limits, just a limit to the number of consecutive terms allowed and thereby, eliminate the need for elected officials to devote so much of their time in office to campaigning and raising money.
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Post by frankleespeaking on Jul 18, 2012 13:39:07 GMT -5
I'd say first, the grievance is wrong. People being discouraged is an effect, and we need to get to the root cause. The real grievance first grievance is the inherent conflict of interest created by our campaign finance and lobbying systems.
That the amount of money required to run a successful campaign is growing exponentially, that our officials are spending more and more time campaigning and fundraising, and less time doing the business of the people. That something like 94% of elections are won by the person that spends the most money. That special interests can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections with no transparency. This leads to a situation where when bills are written, or voted on, there is often a conflict between doing what is best for the people, and doing what one's major campaign contributors want, or might secure one a sweet lobbying job at the end of their public service. Virtually all the academics and past presidents are in line on this point.
As far as the solutions go, first we need a robust discussion from constitutional scholars and reformers on what reforms really require constitutional solutions, and what can be done legislatively. As far as what is proposed here:
A - D: Sounds Good E: Personally I'm sort of ambivalent F: Definitely Yes, no one should disagree G: This is way too vague, and campaign finance reform should give 3rd parties a more level playing field on which to compete. So this needs to be more specific if it is to be included. For instance, I've heard someone say parties need to pay to use public voting systems if their primaries are not open, which I would support. H: We're not balancing on race, religion or anything else, so No. I: Sounds good J: This is actually more conservative than most plans I've seen, but I would suggest laying out all possibilities here rather than endorsing one K: Down with the concept, but maybe we need to specifically address the companies that provide voting machines/software, and oversight, proprietary info, and paper trails. L: No, for a variety of reasons, but not necessarily a deal-breaker
And now going through all the solutions, I think that this could be done more cleanly if the issues were separated into 2 grievances...first, the one I mentioned above regarding campaign finance and lobbying which pertains to I and J. To this I might also add restrictions on lobbying, and addressing loopholes that allow donors to give more than the maximum by doing things such as donating to state parties, which can transfer unlimited funds between each other.
The second is election reforms. The grievance is more that political parties are attempting to manipulate the system to their advantage through gerrymandering, and scaring people into thinking voter fraud is a bigger problem than it really is, and using that to create more restrictive voting rules. This would pertain to solutions A-F and K.
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Post by frankleespeaking on Jul 18, 2012 16:54:01 GMT -5
Also, you know we don't allow cigarette companies to do TV ads, and alcohol ads are restricted...what if we just ended all political advertising for or against candidates on TV and radio period.
I'm sure a lot of people would have something to say about this (maybe not in this group, but in general) but I would really like to see shorter campaign cycles that focus mainly on debates and town hall meetings. Advertising, especially through passive mediums such as radio and tv basically spoonfeeds biased information and does not encourage voters to think critically or present a truly accurate picture.
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Post by kjlowry on Jul 18, 2012 17:38:24 GMT -5
YES!!!!!! This is my rant which I have used numerous times on forums and websites...
Do you want fair government that responds to the will of the people? Make ALL campaign finances come from public funds! No contributions from ANY individuals, special interest groups, unions, or corporations! We can decide our votes from debates, interviews, and campaign speeches...we don't need billions to be spent on TV advertising! Paid TV ads are all lies anyway! Outlaw lobbyists! Legislators can decide on their positions related to proposed bills and regulations by listening to citizen input, sworn expert testimony in public hearings, and doing their own research (their paid staff will do it anyway). The oligarchs will try to convince the public that it will just cost too much taxpayer money! BUT that is not true, because it will NOT cost us much at all AND we would get a government that cares about all the citizens and not just the rich campaign financiers!
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Post by frankleespeaking on Jul 18, 2012 19:00:04 GMT -5
This is why I would rather lay everything out and say here are our options than endorse a particular plan. I would support public financing, but I would also support a voucher system or reasonable caps on contributions. Really, I support any reasonable improvement over the current system. I'm not super picky on the details, but I am very adamant that we do SOMETHING to address the influence of special interest money over our democracy.
There are in fact already limits in place for direct campaign contributions, though at the very least, I would like to see them lowered to an amount that most Americans can afford. The bigger issue may be the loopholes I pointed out before, as well as issue-related spending...which is where the unlimited dark money comes in. Again part of it is actually enforcing regulations already on the books...with Crossroads GPS in particular...there looks to be a lawsuit that they are violating their 501c4 status...which could lead to penalties and forced donor disclosure, though likely not until after the election. I'm not saying that we should limit issue-related spending necessarily, but we need clearer boundaries and stronger enforcement of those boundaries between issue ads and ads for or against candidates.
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Post by Ed Fahrenholz on Jul 25, 2012 20:04:35 GMT -5
Let the voters/constituants decide what the issues are/should be, according to their situation and what the candidates feel are the important issues. There does not really need to be any issue related spending. The candidates can spend as much of their designated funds on any issue they like. Drive it to the moon or into the dirt. I too would like to see an end to all paid political ads on television and radio. Can you imagine the cries and gnashing of teeth from the corporate media. frankleespeaking is correc that there are already caps on contributions but one would never know it because they are not enforced.Thus we probably do need Move to Amend. SCOTUS needs to overturn CU. We must help them with that. Ed Fahrenholz NJ 1
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