Citizens United to End Political Bribery (Working Group)

ATTN Working Groups: Please update your pages with mailing list and other contact info.

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Citizens United to End Political Bribery (CUEPB) is a Working Group formed to pursue goals related to getting corporate money out of politics.  We will focus on realistic actions in Massachusetts, but will also extend our efforts to nationwide politics when we can.  This wiki page and its subsidiary pages will be our place 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 somewhere in some fashion.

Meetings:

Next Meeting will be:  6PM Tuesday, Nov. 22, in room 920A of the BU Law School, at 765 Commonwealth Ave. Take the "B" branch of the MBTA Green Line to the "Boston University (BU) Central" stop and cross the street. The School of Law is located directly behind Marsh Chapel and to the left.

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Notes from Nov. 22 CUEPB Meeting

Notes from Nov. 12 Open Discussion: SJR29

Minutes from Nov. 1

 

Next Steps Agreed on:

Gather interested people - People are invited to participate here and/or email sandersh6000@gmail.com to identify themselves as part of this Working Group. The Nov. 12 Open Discussion group recommends that we collaborate with existing activities on campaign funding by Move to Amend and the Coffee Party.

Collect and summarize information on the wiki - Edit the Background Information pages below (eg. Campaign Finance Legislation) to add links and/or summarize what's in a link.

Other Ideas Not Endorsed in a Meeting:

Decide what proposed state and/or federal legislation we support. This is also a topic at Move To Amend, so we can work together on this research.

Prepare a proposal to GA endorsing Move to Amend's Occupy the Courts on the anniversary of Citizens United (January 20, 2012). Occupy the Courts will be a one-day event/occupation of federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday January 20, 2012. Volunteers across the U.S. will lead the charge on the judiciary that created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights and again call for local and state resolutions demanding a constitutional remedy. Activity in Boston is being discussed now. Ideas are welcome in a discussion thread to be created soon.

Prepare a proposal to GA endorsing Public Citizen's Democracy is for the People action on the anniversary of Citizens United (January 21, 2012). Occupy the Corporations will be an action on Saturday, January 21, when people either occupy or hold an event outside of a corporate target – primarily at Bank of America or British Petroleum locations. Activists there will make a citizen arrest of the corporation (e.g., a sign or other non-human stand-in) for infringing upon our democracy. Those who wish to can then march to their city or town hall and ask their elected officials to support them in calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Better yet, you can meet an elected official there who had or will announce the introduction of a resolution to call for a constitutional remedy to this travesty.

Sub-topics: 

• End Corporate Personhood

  

Background Information:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Opinion

Campaign Finance Legislation (passed and pending)

Politicians and Candidates

Campaign Finance Institute (Nonpartisan? Resource)

Jack Abramoff: How to End Corruption (in Politico.com)

Groups Outside Occupy Boston (In alphabetical order)

Calendar of Boston-Events

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Common Cause Common Cause is working diligently to expose the role of special interests, and promote reforms that put democracy back in the hands of "we the people."

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Coffee Party USA and Boston Coffee Party "The nonpartisan national Coffee Party movement is a call to action, to make government more accountable to the people.  The Greater Boston chapter focuses on state and local issues, in addition to participating in national Coffee Party campaign.  We are currently working for passage of key state legislation in two areas: money in politics, and civic education."  Contact coffeepartybostonma@gmail.com

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Democracy Fund "Democracy Fund is a new operating foundation created to dramatically increase the funding, strategic focus, effectiveness and coordination of existing and emerging efforts to curb the undue influence of corporate lobbyists over the U.S. political process. " Contact info@democracyfund.org

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Democracy is for People related to Public Citizen. The propose a constitutional amendment to ban money to corporate electioneering. In addition, they are pursuing several reforms. Public financing of elections, a shareholder protection act and a constitutional amendment go together as a package response to rein in the excessive influence that unrestricted, massive corporate expenditures can exert over our democracy. A constitutional amendment offers the long-term solution to address the other damaging effects on our society of treating corporations as if they’re entitled to the same rights to express themselves as real people.

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Free Speech for People Proposes the following amendment:

• Section 1. We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons.
• Section 2. People, person, or persons as used in this Constitution does not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state, and such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected state and federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.
• Section 3. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people's rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable."

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Get Money Out Supports a constitutional amendment: "No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office"

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Move to Amend  We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

• Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
• Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
• Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.

The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. We Move to Amend.

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People for the American Way "The Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC threatens to tear apart the fabric of our democracy and grant powerful corporations unfettered influence in our political process. It's a drastic departure from previous law and our core values as a nation and it must be met with an appropriate response."

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Public Citizen (sponsors Democracy is for People above)

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Rootstrikers "Our republic is dangerously out of balance. Well-financed special interests routinely bend the levers of power to benefit the few at the expense of our general welfare. Political bribery has been legalized by the courts, and both major parties have been co-opted and corrupted by the system... Rootstrikers is aimed at restoring power over American politics and government to 100% of the people. We hope patriots of all political persuasions will join us to help build an unstoppable grassroots movement that demands and delivers lasting reforms."

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Key Local Experts and Opinion Leaders

• Lawrence Lessig - Harvard Law Professor, Founder of Rootstrikers, author of Republic Lost. Contact: Admin Szelena Gray

• Julius Levine - BU Law Professor Emeritus, long time Brookline political activist

  

Contact for Working Group "Citizens United to End Political Bribery"

Honi Sanders: sandersh6000 at gmail dot com

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