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Thursday, July 8, 2010
Want better government? Get behind the "Fair Elections Now Act"
Everyone complains about government. Sure. We always have and always will.
But doesn't it seem as though it's gotten far worse?
Doesn't it seem as though the big corporate money and lobbyists and problems have pretty much taken over?
Would you want to take our government back?
I know I would.
This is a big part of how we could do it:
In a push to implement a publicly-financed election system and curb moneyed interests in politics, a pair of good-government groups is launching a television ad campaign with a noteworthy price tag.
Common Cause and Public Campaign, two organizations known for exposing the murkier influences on legislative and electoral processes, are staking $8 million to try and burnish Congress with the willpower to pass the Fair Elections Now Act. And they're willing to spend as much as $15 million on their campaign-season gambit.
We need to get campaign finance reform, shorten our elections as the British have done (this isn't pushing for that, unfortunately), and get big money, the corporations and their lobbyists out of our government.
We need to take our government back and this is how to do it.
You need to be aware of this and we all--Right, Left, Center, Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, everyone--need to get behind this.
It's not about taking a voice away from any one of these groups (except maybe fatcat, corporate Republicans).
It's about giving a voice BACK to the American people.
Let's do this.
Link to original post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/07/good-government-ad-campaign_n_638887.html
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5 comments:
Let the incumbents set up rules to decide how election money is spent...Of course that will be completely fair and won't favor incumbents at all, right?
If you believe that, I've got a bridge for sale...
No, Mr. Cynic, Mr. "There's No Possible Solution to Any of Our Problems So We May As Well Give Up", I'm saying we all put, in effect, a legislative gun to their heads and force them to take the money out of government. Isn't that what the Tea Party is about? Taking back our government? Do you want to just bitch about shitty government all your life like some bitter old man or are you willing to get off your ass and really make something happen? It sounds like the former.
Bitching and kvetching accomplishes nothing. Working for a better situation is the only chance we've got. If you're just going to bitch, don't write me any more. There's no point. If you're into true solutions, let me know. You seem far too young to just be only complaining, I believe and think.
mr
I'm certainly not smart enough to figure out the solutions to everything. I do know that solutions often have unintended consequences, and for something as important as our election system we need extraordinary care--finding fatal flaws before it is too late is as important as proposing changes. Who determines which candidates get how much money, and how will third party candidates be treated? This has the potential to turn us into a democracy in name only, where the choice is between government (incumbent) approved candidates only. That scares the hell out of me, and avoiding that is far more important than curbing moneyed interests.
Incumbents already have too many advantages--can you honestly figure out a version of this that would not favor incumbents even more, but has an even remote chance of being passed by them? The best chance of passage is during a lame duck session when elections have shifted the majority party--but even that is slim.
Solutions? I don't think campaign finance is major compared to other problems. I'd like to see every bill available to the public on the internet for at least 5 days before it can be voted on, and revisions start the clock over. I would love to see instant runoff elections rather than party primaries that effectively limit us to 2 major party choices.
But none of that is any more likely to be passed by incumbents than a fair public finance bill.
I'm going to leave it up to your judgement if my bitch to solution ratio is too low for you--but feel free to reject this post, or let me know any other way and I'll abide by that and quit commenting here.
No one is smart enough to solve all our problems, God knows--not you, not me, no one. But we have to try to come up with solutions and throw them out there. This one, where people try to get corporations and their money out of our government seems like a good and important one to me. It's one I've advocated for a long time, along with people like Molly Ivins, God rest her soul, before she died.
My deal is I'm getting old and crotchety and I'm sick of people just complaining and/or crtiquing but not either offering solutions or latching onto any.
When you griped about this one, it just set me off.
You need to throw out possible solutions, I do, whatever and whomever and as much as possible. I've decided I'm going to try to work on this one that they've proposed--it's that important to me. Seriously.
You've been great at evaluating in the past and backing up those evaluations with hard information. That's valuable and respectable, heaven knows.
I think we should all be "big boys and girls" and say what we mean and mean what we say. While harsh, I stand by what I said. I should have just climbed down a bit.
I value your input and the computer world is a big place out here. There are all kinds of things to read and see so I value that you take time to read and respond. That said, I can't force anyone to read these blatherings, for sure.
The long and short of it is what I've written several times in the past here--that we need to work together as Americans and solve our problems. Surely that should sound familiar to you, in particular here.
Money out of our campaign system and corporations and lobbyists out of our government, as it is in at least some governments in the world (e.g., Norway and their oil companies, for instance), would help solve a great deal of our problems and get the government and our representatives working more for you and I, instead of those same corporations. We also need to make, as you've said, those incumbents work more for us and less for themselves.
We also need to legislate shorter campaign seasons but as you and I both know, incumbents won't do that unless we force them and Americans are still too enamored with NASCAR, football and the latest sex rumors and scandals to do anything about it. It's only once we're truly on the edge of crisis and/or collapse that we'll rise up, I believe and fear, unfortunately.
Side note: I love your profile picture and I'm not just saying that now to "suck up" to you.
I'm going to keep writing. If you keep reading and commenting when you feel like it, I'll be sure not to "go off" on you. How's that for a deal?
Have a great weekend,
mr
I took my profile picture outside a Comp USA store, where a pair of geese had nested in a planter on the sidewalk. Goose was objecting to people in 'his' territory.
Don't worry much about going off on me, I'm not easily offended--otherwise I'd have quit when you kept calling me a Conservative.
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