The Strategy To End Corruption In Congress

[Nordberg]

Politicians that I know say they spend most of their time on the phone raising money. Once you get inside, you have a huge advantage in connections and money contacts. A company asked for a donation is talking to someone who has real power. They can do something. A person who is challenging may just be a waste of donations.
Incumbency has lots of advantages.

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Politicians are supposed to represent us. But most Americans have a near-zero impact on public policy.

America's corrupt political system is a complex problem. The American Anti-Corruption Act is a comprehensive solution.

The American Anti-Corruption Act sets a standard for city, state, and federal laws that break big money's grip on politics. It will:

Stop political bribery by making it illegal for lobbyists to lobby a politician and donate to their campaign. You can lobby, or you can donate, but you can't do both.
End secret money so Americans know who is buying political power.
Fix our broken elections so the people, not the political establishment, are the ones in control.

Bring conservatives and progressives together to pass Anti-Corruption laws in cities and states across America.

In communities across America, RepresentUs members – conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between – are working together to pass local Anti-Corruption Acts. Member-led RepresentUs chapters are leading the fight to protect our communities from the corruption that plagues Congress. Every town, city, state, and county has a unique political makeup, so every Anti-Corruption Act is uniquely tailored to the needs of each community.

In 2018, RepresentUs members helped to pass 23 anti-corruption reforms across the nation—that's more than at any other time in history.

By 2022, we'll pass dozens more, in pursuit of a tipping point where 'a rush of state activity leads to a change in federal law.'

STUDY: Passing state laws leads to federal reform.

The biggest changes in America almost always start in the states. From Women's Suffrage to Interracial Marriage, states led the way to federal reform. And it still works today.

Every municipal and state Anti-Corruption Act creates common-sense ethics, conflict-of-interest, transparency, and campaign finance laws. State Acts create the opportunity for federal candidates from that state to campaign on the anti-corruption platform – accountable to their constituents, not special interests.

Candidates who win election on this platform have a built-in incentive to champion Anti-Corruption laws in Washington, D.C. (because that's what got them elected). Every state we win gets us one crucial step closer to passing the American Anti-Corruption Act in the federal government.

The Strategy To End Corruption In Congress

how about we reverse citizens united?

The 2010 Supreme Court decision further tilted political influence toward wealthy donors and corporations.

January 21, 2020 will mark a decade since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.

While wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have long had an outsized influence in elections, that sway has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.

What was Citizens United about?
A conservative nonprofit group called Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential primaries.

A 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, ruling that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections.

What was the rationale for the ruling?
In the court’s opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that limiting “independent political spending” from corporations and other groups violates the First Amendment right to free speech. The justices who voted with the majority assumed that independent spending cannot be corrupt and that the spending would be transparent, but both assumptions have proven to be incorrect.

With its decision, the Supreme Court overturned election spending restrictions that date back more than 100 years. Previously, the court had upheld certain spending restrictions, arguing that the government had a role in preventing corruption. But in Citizens United, a bare majority of the justices held that “independent political spending” did not present a substantive threat of corruption, provided it was not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.

As a result, corporations can now spend unlimited funds on campaign advertising if they are not formally “coordinating” with a candidate or political party.

How has Citizens United changed elections in the United States?
The ruling has ushered in massive increases in political spending from outside groups, dramatically expanding the already outsized political influence of wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups.

In the immediate aftermath of the Citizens United decision, analysts focused much of their attention on how the Supreme Court designated corporate spending on elections as free speech. But perhaps the most significant outcomes of Citizens United have been the creation of super PACs, which empower the wealthiest donors, and the expansion of dark money through shadowy nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-wo...ited-explained

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State capture is a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state's decision-making processes to their own advantage.

The term was first used by the World Bank, around the year 2000, to describe the situation in certain central Asian countries making the transition from Soviet communism. Specifically, it was applied to situations where small corrupt groups used their influence over government officials to appropriate government decision-making in order to strengthen their own economic positions; these groups' members would later become known as oligarchs.[1]

Allegations of state capture have led to protests against the government in Bulgaria in 2013–2014 and in 2020-2021 and Romania in 2017,[2] and have caused an ongoing controversy in South Africa beginning in 2016.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capture

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state capture and fascism are not meaningfully different.

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corporations arent people.

money isn't speech.

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what you think about undoing citizens united, politalker?

I suspect you're an insincere reformer aka a lying cum guzzler.

[PoliTalker]

Hello Nordberg,

Politicians that I know say they spend most of their time on the phone raising money. Once you get inside, you have a huge advantage in connections and money contacts. A company asked for a donation is talking to someone who has real power. They can do something. A person who is challenging may just be a waste of donations.
Incumbency has lots of advantages.

If they are not fund-raising directly, they are networking with those who can make donations. They call that 'working on legislation.'