Thanks to the Citizens United decision, you certainly can influence government, provided that you are a billionaire. Our Zoom-In group examined the need for campaign finance reform in a previous meeting. The featured video was a TED Talk by Lawrence Lessig, which explained how money corrupts our faith in government. He laments that we cannot addressed the problems that we care about unless we first fix campaign. For group members who missed that meeting, I suggest you watch it before coming to the meeting.
In our next meeting, we will view Lessig's follow-up talk where he promotes the grassroots movement that he is leading to force Congress to fix the problem. You might be surprised to learn that Columbia's Congressman John Sarbanes has introduced a bill, H.R. 20, to do just that. Sarbanes explains his bill HERE. So far H.R. 20 has 151 cosponsors, including the entire Maryland Democrat delegation. Unfortunately, there is only one Republican cosponsor. Nancy Pelosi is urging us to show support.
But what can you do? THIS TED Talk has a suggestion.
Note, the videos about H.R. 20 pertain to 2014, but the bill has been reintroduce for 2015. Track it HERE.
ReplyDeleteThis is a test . . . .Thanks
ReplyDeleteFor those not familiar with the Aaron Swartz case HERE is a summary.
ReplyDeleteSome MD legislators are trying a different approach. If you know how to find the Maryland General Assembly website and search for SJ2, you'll find a resolution that passed both bodies in different forms in the 2015 session and was sent to conference committee, where it ran out of time. Another attempt will be made in 2016. Do a Yahoo search on Article V Constitutional Convention re Citizens United and you'll see what this is all about and how it stands nationally. Four states have already requested such a Convention. No matter the approach, with a Republican Congress, real reform is going to take time.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.getmoneyoutmd.org/
DeleteThis is the link for the prime organization that is pushing for a constitutional convention re Citizens United. I should have included it in my last message.