The Bad News!
Did you know that fundraising for the November Congressional elections has already reached $1.2 BILLION? That’s far ahead of the last mid-term election. And who have members of Congress been taking campaign money from? The same old corporate interests as in the past – only more so.
Just a couple of examples: New York Senator Chuck Schumer has already raised over $62 million for his campaign, more than a quarter of which comes from people in the finance, insurance and real estate industries. And representing New York in the House of Representatives, Congressman Michael McMahon has already raised almost $2 million, with investment giant Goldman Sachs as his largest contributor.
Unfortunately, according to an article in the recent Mother Jones, “business rules the political money game,” with business-related contributors giving 74% of the money in the 2008 election. And this year will be even worse, with the Supreme Court decision that lets corporations give unlimited amounts to sponsor ads and influence the elections.
The Good News!
So what can we do? We need to fight back by changing the way campaigns are financed. We need to get the big corporate-based money out of our representatives campaign coffers so that they can listen to our voices, not the interests of their big funders.
The Fair Elections Now Act does just that. With over 160 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and national organizations including the NAACP, Sierra Club, National Council of Churches, Brennan Center for Justice, National Organization for Women and many more, the chance to deepen our democracy is real.
We need government of by and for the people, not of bought and paid for by corporations. Call or write your member of Congress today to say you want them to support and vote for “Fair Elections.”