election

Arm Yourself For Fiscal Cliff Arguments

Dave Johnson — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:27:53 -0500

I joined Campaign for America's Future's Richard Eskow to talk about the "fiscal cliff" scare, austerity, Social Security, Medicare and how we WON the election so we really should be talking about jobs instead.

This was a GREAT hour, and hold the information you need to arm yourself to win holiday-dinner conversations with your right-wing brother-in-law.

The conversation refers to my post, Fiscal Cliff Scare Talk Follows Shock Doctrine Script as well as several posts by Richard Eskow including, Wall Street Finds a ‘Third Way’ to Plunder Our Wealth, The “Fiscal Cliff” Is a Hoax … and a Mel Brooks Routine, The Grand Swindle – Veterans on a Cliff, After the Election, a New Mandate – and New “Fiscal Cliff” Math

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Let’s Compare the Constitutional Amendments Proposed after Citizens United

Greg Colvin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:45:15 -0400

Among those who feel the only way to overcome the Citizens United decision, which opened the door to unlimited corporate spending on elections, is to amend the U.S. Constitution, the question on everyone’s mind is: “So what’s the language?”

I offered a version of my own, the Citizens Election Amendment, posted three months ago at this site. It got a pretty good response (over 400 people “liked” it on Facebook) and last week I was in Washington, DC, talking to several members of Congress about it.

The main approach I take is to build upon the individual citizen’s constitutional RIGHT TO VOTE (a right that Americans have shed blood and died for), protecting and expanding it to give citizen human beings the right to be the sole source of funding for election campaigns.

I feel obliged, though, to try to compare several alternative versions that have been offered. Drafting the language is a difficult challenge. There are problems of purpose, scope, clarity, and unintended consequences—not to mention acceptance by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, three-quarters of the state legislatures, and the American people.

Here are the five options I’ve looked at, in addition to my own. My analysis is summarized in chart form at the bottom of this post, titled “Comparing Draft Constitutional Amendments after Citizens United” (problematic elements highlighted in yellow).

1. Rep. Donna Edwards, introduced in January, 2010, found here.
2. Sen. Max Baucus, introduced in July, 2010, found here.
3. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, introduced in January, 2011, here. This is similar to, but shorter than, a version introduced in 2010 by Senators Dodd and Udall.
4. A version from Jeff Milchen and David Cobb, from Thom Hartmann's book excerpt "Wal-Mart Is Not a Person," found here. Milchen and Cobb are associated with MoveToAmend.org, which is going through a broad democratic process before presenting an official version.
5. From Free Speech for People, two versions (A and B), found here. See FreeSpeechforPeople.org.

The proposed amendments basically fall into two categories, with differing purpose and scope:

• Fix Campaign Finance (Edwards, Baucus, Kaptur, Colvin)
• Abolish Corporate Personhood (Milchen/Cobb, Free Speech for People)

The amendments introduced by Edwards, Baucus, and Kaptur have no automatic impact on the financing of American elections; they simply authorize Congress and the States to pass campaign finance laws without fear that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitutional. This is a moderate approach, aiming to revive the reform legislation passed during the forty years before Citizens United.

The earliest version, from Donna Edwards, authorizes regulation of “expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity.” No definition of “political speech” is provided. Further, only corporate entities and LLCs are covered, leaving unions, banks, trusts, coops, unincorporated associations and other legal entities unregulated.

The Baucus version addresses only corporations and labor organizations, leaving LLCs and all the other forms of legal entities untouched.

The Kaptur amendment, like the Dodd/Udall version from 2010, authorizes Congress and the States to set limits on the amount of contributions accepted by, and the amount of expenditures made by, in support of, or in opposition to, a candidate. This has the advantage of covering all players: corporations, unions, LLCs, any other kind of legal entity, and wealthy individuals.

Milchen/Cobb and FreeSpeechforPeople offer amendments to establish that constitutional rights are only for natural persons (human beings), stripping corporations and perhaps some other types of entities of any constitutional rights, including political and commercial speech, and other civil rights in areas such as search and seizure, eminent domain, criminal defense, due process, and equal protection of the law.

Remember, when we use the word “corporation” we are referring not only to Wal-Mart, Exxon, and General Motors, but to nonprofit organizations like the Sierra Club, the AARP, and your favorite church, hospital, and university.

In other words, the complete dismantling of corporate rights under the U.S. Constitution could have unintended consequences. If such an amendment were adopted, Congress and each State would need to adopt a patchwork of new laws, likely to vary among the jurisdictions, in order to fill the gaps.

Looking at the specific amendments, Milchen/Cobb goes further and would prohibit corporations and “other for-profit institutions” from influencing elections, legislation, or government policy. Nonprofit rights are unclear.

Free Speech for People offers two versions: (A) is a complete removal of corporate constitutional rights and (B) would remove only corporate First Amendment rights. Both use the same incomplete language as the early Edwards version, “corporation, limited liability company/entity, or other corporate entity,” leaving the rights of unincorporated unions, trusts, banks, associations, etc., untouched.

None of the anti-corporate personhood proposals would deal with campaign spending by wealthy individuals, including the candidates themselves. So, the corporate CEOs and rich stockholders could spend enormous amounts from their personal fortunes (as the ancient Romans did) to influence the outcome of elections in their favor.

Finally, the Citizens Election Amendment that I propose is limited to the problem of campaign finance. Unlike Edwards, Baucus, and Kaptur, it has automatic effect by making individual citizens the only permitted source of campaign funding, eliminating corporations and all other entities from the field. Like the Kaptur amendment, it would allow Congress and the States to regulate the personal spending of wealthy individuals, so that the intention of this reform could not be circumvented.

Unlike the others, my amendment would specifically: (1) address how citizens might legally aggregate their contributions (via a registered political committee; think MoveOn.org Political Action), (2) cover initiatives, referenda, bonds, and other ballot measures, and (3) permit public financing of elections.

Should we be debating which version is the best? Or should there be two—one to thoroughly address campaign finance reform and another to abolish or restrict the constitutional rights of corporations and other legal entities?

Perhaps both are worthy of consideration and should be advanced on separate, but complementary tracks.

Then, we can evaluate the options based on our experience in 2012, likely to be the most expensive campaign season in American history.

Greg Colvin is an attorney in San Francisco specializing in tax-exempt law, including political and lobbying activities of nonprofit organizations, who has written and lectured on the subject for over 20 years. The Citizens Election Amendment was developed in concert with Barry Kendall, executive director of Progressive Ideas Network, a project of Demos, and Lisa Graves, executive director of Center for Media and Democracy.

colvin@adlercolvin.com
415-421-7555 x211

About Voting

Dave Johnson — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:53:08 -0400

Polls show that a significant number of people who might be on "our side" are not going to bother to vote. Some are even switching sides. The big corporations and right-wing billionaires are spending millions upon millions of dollars bombarding them with propaganda on "news" shows, TV ads, setting up phony astroturf organizations and running PR scams to convince them not to vote or to vote for Republicans. They are spending that money because it works. How do we reach them?

There's no question that everyone reading this is going to vote. You are well informed, you care, you seek out information, and you have found this website. Unfortunately you are not like a lot of people in this country -- especially when it comes to the "informed" part. So what can you do?

What can you do?

Here are a few simple questions to put in front of people. Maybe they will help cut through the fog that millions and millions of dollars of nasty corporate-funded smear ads throws in front of people's faces:

1) Under Bush we were losing almost a million jobs each month. Since Obama's stimulus we have been gaining jobs every month. Not enough, but gaining. Doesn't this mean we shouldn't go back to Bush's policies?

2) If American government is supposed to be about "We, the People" making the decisions, doesn't "less government" means less "We, the People" making decisions? Isn't that just what has happened since Reagan made government smaller?

3) What is the alternative to government? Doesn't less government mean more big corporations running things?

4) Reagan cut taxes for the rich, and then we had huge deficits. Clinton raised taxes for the rich, and then we started paying off the debt. Bush cut taxes for the rich again, and now we have huger deficits again. Doesn't it make sense that "cutting the government's allowance," as Reagan called it, means the government will have trouble paying its bills?

How about adding some short points in the comments, that we can get out there this weekend, and maybe get a few more people to show up and vote?

How Did We Get Here?

How did we get in this mess? American democracy has had problems from the start. There has always been a tension between the power that great wealth brings, and the idea that everyone should have an equal voice. There were times in the past when great wealth almost completely dominates, and few times when the voice of the people really ruled. There was the Populist movement that grew out of the days of the "Robber Barons," there were the great social reforms that occurred under FDR, and there was the era of Civil Rights. These were the results of movements that "make them do it."

For one reason and another Progressives have not yet built the kind of far-reaching, non-party social movement that reaches and persuades large numbers of people to support our cause. This has to happen outside of the electoral process and outside of political parties and has to be focused on year-round persuasion and not on short-term electoral goals. We need to be reaching people and explaining the benefits to them of a progressive approach to their problems and the benefits of one-person-one-vote democracy over one-dollar-one-vote corporatism. In the last few years a lot of work has been done to get this moving. We have built up the blogosphere with its great conversation. Labor unions have modernized and begun efforts to reach o,ut. But now we need to start to see ourselves as a movement, and to understand that we need to reach wider and wider audiences with a message that resonates and explains why they are better off keeping democracy.

Reaching Low-Information Voters

How often do you read, hear or see someone in the big-corporate-run newspaper, radio or TV media explain the benefits of government, taxes or regulation, vs how often you hear about how bad these are? When was the last time you read, heard or saw in a corporate media outlet an explanation of the benefits of joining a union? That's right, you only get the pro-corporate viewpoint now. In the 1980s the Reagan administration got rid of the "Fairness Doctrine" and eliminated requirements for public-service programming to provide the information necessary to citizens in a democracy. Democrats tried repeatedly passed bills to restore these but Reagan and the first Bush vetoed their efforts and Republicans filibustered their efforts under Clinton. Democrats didn't even try to restore it under Obama. And deregulation, including the 1996 Telecommunications Act enabled a few corporations to buy up almost all of the country's information sources. Once they were released from a requirement to serve democracy they immediately stopped serving democracy. Once they were allowed to concentrate media into a very few corporate hands they immediately concentrated media into a very few corporate hands. So here we are.

Efforts to provide alternative sources of information like Air America or starting new TV networks have not been funded for the long term by progressives. Fortunately we have a few shows on MSNBC, like Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Keith Olberman (out of how many presenting the corporate/conservative viewpoint?) And we have the Internet, with sites like OurFuture.org, Huffington Post and Daily Kos. But corporate efforts to undermine Net Neutrality threaten to cut those off from many people. (Please watch Sen. Al Franken speaking on this at Netroots Nation.)

Reaching The Poor

ACORN was a very important part of getting people out to vote, registering millions of voters and helped get them to the polls. All but 7 Senate and 75 House Democrats fell for the right-wing hoax about a "pimp" and voted to defund ACORN. So now there is no ACORN to help get people to the polls.

Many Democrats helped try to get rid of MoveOn, too. They joined Republicans and voted to censure the organization for opposing politicization of the Iraq war.

Cutting off your nose

A lot of people say they want to "punish" Democrats for disappointing things "they" have done themselves, or let happen, or for just basic incompetence. I have a looooong list of my own, and it's always fun to run through it. Like negotiating against themselves on the stimulus instead of asking for doubled what they wanted to end up with. That way they could be saying right now that they were right that more stimulus was needed. Or letting Republicans hold up the health care bill for so long, only to get no Republican votes anyway. Killing the public option. ...

But you have to choose between to options here. Which do you want more, to punish incompetent Democrats, or a better world? (Tough choice, I know.)

We need to rely on ourselves, and go get people out to vote. Door to door. The alternative is frightening. The right this time is even worse than when Bush was President if you can imagine. For those of you old enough to remember the government shutdowns, investigations and impeachment of Clinton, trust me that you don't want that again.

Vote For Jobs

Dave Johnson — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:19:25 -0400

Visit the "I'm Voting For..." campaign

Should you vote? Does your vote matter? If you care about jobs, your vote really, really matters this time. If the Tea Party wave does manage to take over the House and/or Senate the plans they have announced will mean a jobs crisis far beyond anything we are seeing now.

Republicans say that cutting government spending to reduce deficits (and cutting taxes on the rich to bring them back) will create jobs by lowering interest rates. While they refuse to say what they will cut, they pledge to cut a lot. What will be the effect of cuts on jobs? Lowering interest rates is not going to happen because interest rates are already zero, but the cuts will clearly cost jobs. We know this for sure because in the last two years state budget cuts caused layoffs that simply overwhelmed job creation elsewhere -- so many people were laid off by states that jobs created by the stimulus and private sector just didn't register. So we can expect more of this.

Will their tax cuts for the rich create jobs? Bush cut taxes for the rich, and his two terms created a net of ... wait for it ... zero jobs. So don't hold your breath waiting for jobs to come out of that plan. Businesses need customers, not tax cuts.

So what about ideas to get customers to businesses? Don't get your hopes up there, either. Republicans want to get rid of any remaining stimulus designed to take up the slack in demand in our economy.

How about jobs from maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure -- and the long-term job creation that comes from making our economy more competitive? Republicans call maintaining and modernizing the infrastructure "government spending" and since government spending is bad, ain't gonna happen.

What about doing something about companies that send jobs out of the country? Well just a few weeks ago Democrats voted to repeal the tax break that encourages job outsourcing. Every single Republican voted to keep it. So don't get your hopes up there, either.

So what about working with the other side to come up with new ways to create jobs? Republicans blocked everything for the last two years -- something like 420 bills were filibustered, plus many nominees to agencies and the courts. So expect more stalemate – which means no action on jobs, unemployment or anything else.

If You Care About Jobs

If you care about jobs you had best get out and vote. The change that is coming if you don't vote is not the change you want.

Axelrod Is Wrong: Obama Must Protect American Families From Wall Street Fraud

Zach Carter — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:32:56 -0400

If senior White House adviser David Axelrod’s comments this weekend are any indication, the Obama administration is woefully misreading the foreclosure fraud crisis currently gripping the U.S. economy. Axelrod refused to commit the administration to a national moratorium on foreclosures, and mischaracterized a massive, systematic fraud perpetrated by Wall Street banks as a set of unfortunate “mistakes.” This is not a minor scandal and it will not simply go away. President Barack Obama needs to stand up for the middle class and protect our economy from Wall Street theft. If he doesn’t, the economic and political price will be devastating.

The full transcript of Axelrod’s appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation with Bob Shieffer is here, but here are his key comments, emphasis mine:

“It’s bad for the housing market and it’s bad for these institutions which is why they’re scrambling now to-- to go back through and-- and-- and through their documentation for all of this as they should. The President was concerned enough to veto a bill that came to him last Thursday, that would have unintentionally made it perhaps easier to make mistakes. . . . I’m not sure about a national moratorium because there are, in fact, valid foreclosures that-- that-- that probably should go forward. And where the documentation and paperwork is-- is proper, but we are working closely with these institutions to make sure that they expedite the process of going back and reconstructing these and throwing out those that don’t work . . . . Our hope is that this moves rapidly and that this gets unwound very, very quickly.”

Let’s straighten some facts out first. Lenders aren’t just making “mistakes”—they’re fabricating documents, forging signatures and lying to judges in order to illegally throw people out of their homes and slap them with thousands of dollars in illegal fees. Consumer advocates were not worried that the bill Obama vetoed on Friday would make it easier for lenders to make “mistakes”—they were worried it would make it harder to expose rampant, systematic fraud committed by Wall Street banks against American families.

Nor is this a problem that can be resolved quickly. Banks are resorting to fraud for a reason—they don’t have the documents that prove they have the right to foreclose. It’s not like JPMorgan Chase or GMAC need to dig through a filing cabinet to find the right form—the form doesn’t exist. Banks willfully, knowingly destroyed key documentation in order to cut costs and boost bonuses. Other banks that bundled these mortgages into complex securities didn’t ask for this documentation for the same reasons.

This creates legal liabilities for the banks that can push them into failure. A lot of these securities were packed with fraudulent mortgages—loans where banks falsified borrower information in order to push them into predatory loans. Investors who bought these mortgages have been trying to force banks to repurchase the fraudulent loans. But now that banks cannot even document which loans they own, the entire fraudulent mortgage securitization framework may land on the banks’ doorstep. If that happens, we’re going to see some very big banks go under.

What does all this mean for borrowers? We’ve already seen plenty of cases in which banks are foreclosing on the wrong homes—kicking out borrowers who haven’t missed any payments, or borrowers who are working with the bank on receiving a loan modification to keep them in their homes. But even for borrowers who have stopped paying their mortgages, the fraud process creates serious dangers. Banks charge all kinds of fees on borrowers when they foreclose—fees that often amount to thousands of dollars. The current wave of fraud is enabling an onslaught of grotesque, illegal fees. When you create new documents and forge signatures, you can claim people agreed to ridiculous things they never agreed to, tell ridiculous lies about the house being foreclosed on, and generate thousands of dollars in improper fees.

In other words, banks and their lawyers are breaking the law to steal from borrowers facing financial hardship. This impropriety may create losses so big that megabanks are going to fail. Smart political leaders need to get out there right now and prove that they are backing American families, not Wall Street elites. A foreclosure moratorium is the first step, the second is a major new initiative to reduce mortgage debt to a level that borrowers can afford—that prevents foreclosures and keeps this mess from spiraling into a financial calamity. The mortgage market needs to reflect economic reality, not inflated banker dreams.

Other leaders have figured this out. If Obama refuses to stand up for the middle class, he’ll be hanging many embattled Democratic members of Congress out to dry, politically undercutting them on an issue of household financial security in the middle of a brutal recession. Swing-state Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla., and Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Carolyn Kirkpatrick, D-Mich., have already endorsed foreclosure moratoriums. Attorneys general in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Iowa, Texas, and Ohio have either imposed state-wide moratoriums or investigations into foreclosure fraud, and Ohio is already suing GMAC. Why does the president want to kneecap members of his own party?

What’s more, Axelrod’s comments put the White House on the same side as Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., a Wall Street crony who voted to bailout the big banks with no strings attached, but refused to support Wall Street reform. For his services, Wall Street rewarded Cantor with $2.1 million in campaign contributions for the 2010 elections. Here’s what Cantor said on Fox News Sunday:

“If you impose a moratorium on foreclosures, what you're telling people and institutions that lend money is they do not have the protection to take the risk they need to, to extend credit so people can get a mortgage . . . . You're going to shut down the housing industry if that's the case . . . . People have to take responsibility for themselves.”

Cantor’s reasoning is, of course, complete nonsense. People do need to take responsibility for themselves, which is why the government has a responsibility to stop banks from systematically defrauding borrowers on an epic scale. But note Cantor’s positioning on the issue. He claims that if the government does anything to help troubled borrowers, that assistance will cause a financial catastrophe. It's a phony story that completely ignores the financial catastrophe already brewing, one created by massive Wall Street fraud, not the government's big, bleeding heart. Cantor is peddling a monstrous lie, but if Obama doesn’t push-back against it, he will politically hamstring any opportunity to fend off the economic fallout from this mess, and leave troubled borrowers at the mercy of Wall Street predators.