It’s Time to Clean Up Missouri Politics: About the CLEAN MISSOURI Ballot Initiative

Today I had the privilege of attending an informational meeting regarding the CLEAN MISSOURI ballot initiative. The organization will be finished collecting signatures in a few weeks, and is on target to having the initiative on the Missouri statewide ballot this coming November. Who could possibly be against a Ballot Proposition that will read exactly like this:

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to: ● change process and criteria for redrawing state legislative districts during reapportionment; ● change limits on campaign contributions that candidates for state legislature can accept from individuals or entities; ● establish a limit on gifts that state legislators, and their employees, can accept from paid lobbyists; ● prohibit state legislators, and their employees, from serving as paid lobbyists for a period of time; ● prohibit political fundraising by candidates for or members of the state legislature on State property; and ● require legislative records and proceedings to be open to the public? State governmental entities estimate annual operating costs may increase by $189,000. Local governmental entities report no fiscal impact.
Here is the Policy Summary. Here is the actual text being proposed for the Missouri Constitution. Here is the website for Clean Missouri. If you would like to get involved in this effort, contact Campaign Director Sean Soendker Nicholson at sean@cleanmissouri.org.

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Post-Citizen’s United Confessions of a retiring member of the House

"A fund-raising consultant advised that if I didn’t raise at least $10,000 a week (in pre-Citizens United dollars), I wouldn’t be back." There it is: the most important task for members of the house of representatives, according to this NYT article by Steve Israel. It gets even worse: There were hours of “call time” — huddled in a cubicle, dialing donors. Sometimes double dialing and triple dialing. Whispering sweet nothings and other small talk into the phone in hopes of receiving large somethings. I’d sit next to an assistant who collated “call sheets” with donor’s names, contribution histories and other useful information. (“How’s Sheila? Your wife. Oh, Shelly? Sorry.”) . . . I’ve spent roughly 4,200 hours in call time, attended more than 1,600 fund-raisers just for my own campaign and raised nearly $20 million in increments of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 per election cycle. And things have only become worse in the five years since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which ignited an explosion of money in politics by ruling that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in elections. Title of the article: "Confessions of a Congressman."

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Bernie Sanders sticks to the issues

It's extraordinary the extent to which "news" personalities are trying to bait Bernie Sanders to abandon the issues and engage in personal attacks or horse-race politics.   This recent interview with Andrea Mitchell is a good example of this approach by a interviewer and Bernie Sanders' approach to bringing the discussion back to concrete issues.

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Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.

Here's the bottom line of a Princeton study, "Does the Government Represent the People?":

Gilens & Page found that the number of Americans for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that Congress will make it law.
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” Economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence.
The study found that nearly every issue we face as a nation is caught in the grip of corruption. Industries given special attention are those who provide the most funding to politicians: Energy, Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals, Defense, Agribusiness and Finance.

Continue ReadingPublic opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.