Citizens United to End Political Bribery (Working Group)

Overview

Citizens United to End Political Bribery (CUEPB) is a Working Group pursuing the goal of getting corporate money out of politics.  We focus on realistic actions in Massachusetts, but also extend our efforts to nationwide politics.  This wiki page serves to collect information and discuss ideas before bringing proposals to Occupy Boston General Assembly.  Everything here should be considered a draft, unless conspicuously labeled otherwise.  To participate, come to one of our scheduled meetings or comment on the discussion tab for a page.  You can also edit a page, but we'd like to know who's involved, so please introduce yourself.

• Contact us at citizensunited@occupyboston.org
• Sign up to join our email list by clicking here. 
• Visit our website for a list of groups, events, and actions.
• View the schedule of our Rally-Summit that was held on the anniversary of Citizens United.  Live streamed videos of some sessions are available.

Meetings:

Jan 23 Discussion Meeting/Call

ACTIONS

§  Heleni to draft thank you email, Andy to send it out from CU email on behalf of WG

§  GoalPersuade senators to submit a letter after the hearing supporting it 

SOMEONE NEEDS TO TAKE POINT ON PLANNING FOR FEB. 28  Below is Laura's proposed action plan.

• Goal: to pursuade senators to sign a letter that favorably report on the hearing.
• §  Feb 28 hearing (have a rally, some of us be prepared to speak on the event).  Make sure to ask to include public financing in the resolution.
• §  1 week out lobby day
• §  2 weeks out call in and writein in day
• §  3 weeks out proposal to GA
• §  4 weeks out present to GA

Congratulate ourselves on being awesome!  The event was a huge success.  Go around and tell success stories or good things we heard from other

§  Pam mentioned a potential donor

§  This event was “unprecedented”

§  Think about different approaches to this besides just an amendment

§  Tiny Tents were great.

§  Mark’s banner was awesome

§  The Balloons

Brief announcements (each one is to be 5 minutes or less)

§  Mention the CU Task Force for passing a Boston Resolution. 

§  Anyone want to dial in to the Public Citizen "report back" conference call on Wednesday at 8pm? - Heleni said that she could.

§  National day of action for Presidents Day (Theresa)

Talk about what went well and what to improve (or make sure to do) for next time

§  Be prepared on the day of event bringing markers, paper, tape, swiss army knife, ...

§  Have big signs ready pointing out where meeting is

§  Figure out what the heck to do about political candidates

§  Have an OB table next to all the other tablers.

§  Add a dryer next to the donation washer (Washer=General Fund, Dryer=CU WG)

§  Make sure to have a disclaimer for the event that we do not necessarily support what speakers say.

§  Publicize it more

§  Doing everything way too late (including the flyer)

§  Focus on other sorts of solutions besides amendment

§  Be careful that people are clear about who is presenting what?

§  It’s good to rotate lobby groups to get different ideas on how to lobby

• We’d have called time and had people rotate from group-to-gorup

• Instead of letting the question/answer go long and skip the breakouts, have the questions become a breakout session
• More time to set up the event is needed
• Spread out all the todos around better so a few of us aren’t swamped
• Sticking to schedule (didn’t succeed into connecting people to WGs)

Language for the amendment resolution

• there was a very long discussion here.
• People definitely wanted public financing mentioned in the resolution
• Some people also wanted "public ownership" of the airwaves to be mentioned

Brainstorm our next activities

·      Rep. Capuano – turn down money from banks

• People were ok with Andy trying to write a grant application to United Republic

Division of Labor

each task below can involve multiple people, but we should start having people volunteer to do specific things so that the person/people who are taking point on an event know they don't have to keep track of everything and so everyone knows who to contact with questions.  Note, multiple people should sign up for at least some of these things, especially under Organization.

§  EVENT JOBS

§  ​Media (coordinate live streamer, press releases)

§  Signs

§  Recruiting (OB info tent table, buttons, and keep track of sign in sheets)

§  Food

§  Event coordinator (MC event, make sure things are ok with room and know how to work AV equipment)

§  Recording - Minute taker and time keeper

§  Set up and decorations

§  ...

ORGANIZATION

§  ​Recruiting (maintaining member list(s)) 

§  Event planning

§  Coalition building

§  Maintaining website

§  Donations / Grant Writing 

§  ...

Stance on political candidates

All of us present (Big Mike, Laura, Heleni, Nick, Andy) were interested in having candidates at our events and be part of our working group.  

We had mixed opinions as to whether and to what extent candidates should be permitted to campaign at our events.

• Some thought we should forbid campaigning
• Others thought we should allow it (since when did Occupy Boston start censoring what people can say?)

We did not discuss what to do about politicians in our working group. 

We all want to be able to have candidates at our events and 

§  What do we want politicians to be able to say at our meetings?

§  What do we do about politicians in our working group?

Minutes from Previous Meetings

• 2012, Jan 16 Rally and Summit Organizational Conference Call
• 2012, Jan 11 Rally and Summit Organizational Meeting
• 2011, Dec 22 CUEPB
• 2011, Nov 30 BAAC
• 2011, Nov 22 CUEPB
• 2011, Nov 16 CUEPB
• 2011, Nov 12 Open Discussion of Udall Amendment

Background Information:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Opinion

Full Text: [1]

• The minority dissenting opinion quoted at this link gives arguments against the Supreme Court's majority opinion. After a summary, the opinion continues (not quoted here,) describing in detail the laws and rulings related to corporate personhood.
• Under U.S. law, a corporation is a "corporate veil," protecting individuals inside a company from being prosecuted for the actions of the business. In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations are entitled to many rights accorded to citizens, in its decision of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road Co.
• In 1907 Congress passed the Tillman Act, prohibiting corporations from donating money directly to national political campaigns. This still holds, but in January 2010 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (in Citizens United v. FEC) that corporations can spend unlimited amounts on political advertisements as long as they don't directly coordinate that spending with an actual candidate.
• The Citizens United v. FEC decision invalidated protections that had existed in Massachusetts General Law, according to a March, 2010 ruling of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Many bills are now being introduced in Massachusetts and at the federal level to counteract the wide effects of last year's Supreme Court decision by restricting corporate money from influencing politics.

Campaign Finance Legislation (passed and pending)

• Click here for a list of legislation

Additional Resources

• The Campaign Finance Institute
• How to End Corruption (according to Jack Abramoff)
• Lawrence Lessig talk, Author of Republic, Lost. Basically the same talk he gave at the summit.
• Truth Out's article disputing that it's not about personhood