August, 18 2009, 02:45pm EDT
Public Citizen Urges Public Outcry, Launches Web Campaign In Advance of Pivotal Campaign Finance Case
U.S. Supreme Court May Open Floodgates, Allow Corporate Cash to Swamp Elections
WASHINGTON
Public Citizen today launched a campaign designed
to draw attention to the potentially monumental consequences of a case
the U.S. Supreme Court will rehear Sept. 9. The justices are using the
case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to reconsider -
and possibly roll back - a century's worth of legal precedents designed
to curb corporate influence over federal elections.
The court heard the case during its last term, but in a stunning
move, said in late June that it would rehear it and simultaneously
reconsider two previous landmark campaign finance cases, Austin v.
Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Election
Commission. In other words, the Supreme Court has transformed a case
that posed a limited challenge to the McCain-Feingold law into a
sweeping challenge to a century-old pillar of campaign finance
doctrine: restrictions on direct corporate and union financing of
candidate campaigns.
"Overturning these well-established laws would turn our elections
into free-for-alls with massive corporate and union spending, and would
make officeholders beholden to the deep pockets that promote them,"
said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch
division. "Corporate influence would likely be strengthened over all
policy decisions - on health care reform, climate change, trade -
everything. The public would be further shut out of its own government."
For that reason, Public Citizen is launching a "Don't Get Rolled"
campaign to organize protests on the day of the re-argument and beyond.
On www.DontGetRolled.org,
citizens sign the "Pledge to Protest" indicating they will take action
on Sept. 9 to raise awareness of the main potential ramification of the
case: that corporations would get a license to steamroll citizens. At www.DontGetRolled.org,
people can find suggestions for actions to take such as spreading the
word through video, e-mail or blogging, or hitting the streets with a
traditional picket or street theater.
The site provides background information, history and solutions to
curbing the influence of money in politics, and recommends a variety of
communication tools voters can use to let others know that the Supreme
Court should provide voters with more - not less - protection from
wealthy corporate interests.
"Clearly, now is not the time to give Wall Street and big
corporations more power in Washington," said Angela Canterbury, an
advocacy director at Public Citizen. "We have already received a lot of
enthusiasm from people all over the country who want to do something to
protest more corporate money and influence in politics. We hope the
campaign will encourage everyone who cares about the democratic process
and retaining our hard-won campaign finance reforms to get involved."
The Citizens United case started out as a controversy over the
application of the McCain-Feingold law to a film about 2008 Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, titled "Hillary: The Movie."
The film, produced by a right-wing group called Citizens United, which
accepts corporate funds, is a non-stop attack on Hillary Clinton's
fitness for office.
Citizens United planned to show the movie through on-demand
satellite transmissions and to run TV ads promoting it in areas where
then-Sen. Clinton was on primary election ballots. Both the satellite
transmissions and the ads would fall under the McCain-Feingold law's
definition of "electioneering communications." The satellite
transmissions would be subject to restrictions on who could pay for
them that would forbid use of corporate or union funds, and both the
transmissions and the ads would be subject to funding disclosure
requirements. (McCain-Feingold refers to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform
Act of 2002.)
In 2007, Citizens United sued, challenging the constitutionality of
the law's provisions governing disclosure and funding of
"electioneering communications." The U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia denied Citizens United's request that the court
prevent the FEC from enforcing the law. The court later dismissed
Citizens United's lawsuit, and Citizens United petitioned the Supreme
Court to hear the case.
For a century, the Supreme Court has recognized that the large sums
of money corporations and unions can tap into to influence elections
can corrupt our political process, so the justices generally have
granted deference to Congress when it restricts corporate campaign
contributions and expenditures. In past rulings, the court has
recognized that the wealth of corporations and unions, when used to
affect candidate elections, could have "untoward consequences for the
democratic process." The court has defended Congress's efforts to
protect the electoral process "from what it deemed to be the corroding
effect of money employed in elections by aggregated power."
Note: Public Citizen's Scott Nelson is one of the attorneys
representing the key congressional sponsors of the McCain-Feingold law
and co-authored their amicus brief, available HERE.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Progressives Sound Alarm as Harris Courts Crypto Industry
"Harris' promise to balance the industry's interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction," said the executive director of the Revolving Door Project. "Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent."
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Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' increasingly open embrace of cryptocurrency during her 2024 bid for the White House has sparked alarm among progressives, who have pointed to the still-nascent industry's pervasive fraud and opposition to regulatory guardrails as all the evidence the vice president should need to end her courtship of the sector.
Semaforreported Thursday that in addition to speaking publicly about "a friendlier approach to cryptocurrency than President Joe Biden," Harris is "dispatching aides to court well-heeled crypto investors and their Democratic allies in Congress."
"Harris debuted her newly crypto-coded message in remarks to Wall Street donors this past weekend," the outlet added, "and her campaign's quiet work with crypto allies indicates that she sees a space to compete on that turf with former President Donald Trump—who this month endorsed a still-unclear crypto platform launched by his sons."
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said earlier this week that he believes cryptocurrencies have "a great future" and suggested the U.S. could pay off the national debt with digital assets. Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have donated to Trump's campaign—contributions "motivated by areas like crypto and AI regulation," Axiosreported.
Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), is friendly with the crypto industry and personally owns hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin.
Harris, for her part, gave a nod to the cryptocurrency industry during a major economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, saying she wants the U.S. to "remain dominant" in "emerging technologies" such as the blockchain.
"Acceding would not only set the dangerous precedent that motivated industries can purchase the regulatory framework that best suits their interest, but also open Americans to fraud."
Harris' economic policy platform states that, if elected in November, she would "encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors."
Billionaire investor and outspoken Harris supporter Mark Cuban told Semafor that he intends to visit Capitol Hill to "personally lobby lawmakers on any major crypto bill that gets a vote in the future, whether it’s industry-favorable or not."
In a statement earlier this week, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) warned that the Harris campaign's "acquiescence" to crypto would "lead to disaster."
"The cryptocurrency industry has doggedly pursued its mission to flout longstanding securities laws and robust SEC oversight," said Jeff Hauser, RDP's executive director. "Weak regulation is crucial to the industry's continued business strategy of serving as a conduit for money laundering, assisting ransomware rings, terrorist organizations, and those importing fentanyl."
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Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, toldThe Washington Post on Thursday that while he gets that Harris "doesn't want to alienate the crypto folks," the federal government "should not be encouraging speculation in this stuff."
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Crypto industry spending on federal lobbying surged to an all-time high of $24.7 million in 2023, according to OpenSecrets, and the cash blitz has continued this year as major digital currency asset players and their congressional allies in both parties fight off regulatory efforts.
The industry has also spent big on the 2024 elections: An analysis released last month by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that crypto firms have poured more than $119 million directly into federal elections so far this year, making them "by far the dominant corporate political spenders."
"Crypto-influenced lawmakers bending over backwards to benefit Big Crypto means weaker protections preventing individual consumers from being defrauded by reckless crypto scams—and softened regulations protecting our financial system from destructive innovations that exploit consumers while enriching insiders," Public Citizen said at the time. "The influence of Big Crypto is more evidence a constitutional amendment is needed to overturn Citizens United—and restore our democracy to one where people call the shots, not corporations."
Hauser also expressed concerns about "the idea that crypto insiders would have any sway in policymaking," which he warned would "just further put Americans in harm's way, once again disproportionately harming the poor and communities of color."
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Several world leaders condemned Israel's aggression during their U.N. speeches this week.
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Pew Research Center surveyed 9,720 adults across the United States in late August and early September, and found that 63% want to abolish the process outlined in the U.S. Constitution and replace it with a popular vote approach, compared with just 35% who favor keeping the current system.
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Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen confirmed Tuesday that he has no plans to call a special legislative session to restore a winner-takes-all approach before the November election, in which Trump is set to face Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
There have been just five presidential contests in which the Electoral College winner did not also win the nationwide popular vote—1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and most recently in 2016, when Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by securing key "swing states."
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