DUBLIN, N.H. (AP)-- A New Hampshire woman who was known as Granny D and walked across the country a decade ago to publicize the need for campaign finance reform has died. She was 100.
Spokeswoman Maude Salinger says Doris "Granny D" Haddock died Tuesday night at her home in Dublin. Salinger, who is also a family friend, says Haddock died of chronic respiratory illness, surrounded by her family.
More...
March 10, 2010
March 8, 2010
We Can’t Blow This
Note: While I'm consulting to the nonpartisan reform groups Public Campaign Action Fund and Common Cause to advance comprehensive campaign finance reform, these words are my own.
Let's remind ourselves that we're in charge of the train wreck that has stalled the important work of Congress. With large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, voters clearly understand that we're driving the train.
More...
Let's remind ourselves that we're in charge of the train wreck that has stalled the important work of Congress. With large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, voters clearly understand that we're driving the train.
More...
March 6, 2010
Bill Hedrick– The Best Of Us, Not A Political Insider
A few days ago I interviewed Florida Democratic candidate Heather Beaven on behalf of Blue America. She was sharp and savvy, outspoken and principled. But something that stuck with me was how she responded to the question about campaign finance reform. She peeled back the onion by another layer.
We have crap (and by crap I mean ill-thought out, ineffective and expensive) policy spewing from legislators at every level because we have no diversity in the membership of those bodies. Diversity? You ask. Yes, diversity of life perspective.
More...
March 3, 2010
I’m David Price, and I Approve This Column. . .
If you think special interest money plays too large a role in politics, be prepared for an election cycle that will confirm your worst suspicions -- unless Congress is successful in a race against time to dampen the deeply corrosive effects of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn century-old campaign finance precedents in Citizens United v. F.E.C.
By now many of you are familiar with the Citizens United case, in which five Supreme Court justices gutted campaign finance law as we know it by empowering corporations, unions and associations to spend unlimited funds to directly influence the outcome of elections by advocating for or against a candidate. Today, I joined with Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) in a bipartisan effort to fight back against the Court's regressive decision.
More...
By now many of you are familiar with the Citizens United case, in which five Supreme Court justices gutted campaign finance law as we know it by empowering corporations, unions and associations to spend unlimited funds to directly influence the outcome of elections by advocating for or against a candidate. Today, I joined with Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) in a bipartisan effort to fight back against the Court's regressive decision.
More...
February 26, 2010
La-La Land Gets Feisty
L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon is hopping mad about the way his City and his people are being treated by the banking and finance industry and he's building a template for how the City of Los Angeles will respond to it. He wants banks doing business with the City to prove they are involved in "investing local" and he is not of a mind to shy away from divesting Los Angeles' treasure from banks who do not.
And how much treasure is that? Start with around $28.9 billion dollars in city operating and related pension funds the City can influence directly. Then there's the wealth of ordinary people and businesses local leaders can influence by example. When I testified to the Jobs and Business Development Committee on February 23rd I included in my testimony a 17 page table detailing the amounts of deposits in small and large bank branches in every zip code in Los Angeles County. It contains a powerful message that the actions of the City of Los Angeles messages a resident and commuter economic base of nearly $300 billion dollars in bank deposits presently split equally between large and small banking institutions. If such an effort activate an "invest local" movement succeeds, that is a potential public-private economic powerhouse.
More...
And how much treasure is that? Start with around $28.9 billion dollars in city operating and related pension funds the City can influence directly. Then there's the wealth of ordinary people and businesses local leaders can influence by example. When I testified to the Jobs and Business Development Committee on February 23rd I included in my testimony a 17 page table detailing the amounts of deposits in small and large bank branches in every zip code in Los Angeles County. It contains a powerful message that the actions of the City of Los Angeles messages a resident and commuter economic base of nearly $300 billion dollars in bank deposits presently split equally between large and small banking institutions. If such an effort activate an "invest local" movement succeeds, that is a potential public-private economic powerhouse.
More...
February 15, 2010
A New Phase, Not Just Another Recession
It is becoming increasingly clear that the financial meltdown of 2008 and the subsequent economic contraction that continues to this day represent more than just another recessionary cycle. More importantly, they represent a structural change, a new phase, the phase of the dominance of "finance capital," as the late Austro-German political economist Rudolf Hilferding put it.
Although the current domination of our economy by finance capital seems new, it is in fact a throwback or "retrogression" (as financial expert Michael Hudson puts it) to the capitalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; that is, the capitalism of monopolistic big business and gigantic financial institutions. The rising economic and political influence of powerful financial interests in the early 20th Century led a number of political economists (such as John Hobson, Rudolf Hilferding and Vladimir Lenin) to write passionately on the ominous trends of those developments -- developments that significantly contributed to the eruption of the two World Wars and precipitated the devastating Great Depression of the 1930s, by creating an unsustainable asset price bubble in the form of overblown stock prices.
More...
Although the current domination of our economy by finance capital seems new, it is in fact a throwback or "retrogression" (as financial expert Michael Hudson puts it) to the capitalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; that is, the capitalism of monopolistic big business and gigantic financial institutions. The rising economic and political influence of powerful financial interests in the early 20th Century led a number of political economists (such as John Hobson, Rudolf Hilferding and Vladimir Lenin) to write passionately on the ominous trends of those developments -- developments that significantly contributed to the eruption of the two World Wars and precipitated the devastating Great Depression of the 1930s, by creating an unsustainable asset price bubble in the form of overblown stock prices.
More...
February 4, 2010
Sherrod Brown: Citizens United Decision Will Make Congress Even More Timid
One of the leading progressive Democrats in the Senate warned on Thursday that Congress threatens to become even more politically timid if it fails to pass a comprehensive legislative response to the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance law.
"It's going to make it difficult for people to show the courage they need to show here," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said of the Court's recent ruling that allowed corporations to spend unlimited funds in political campaigns. "I mean, courage is in pretty short supply anyway in Congress and it will clearly be harder."
More...
"It's going to make it difficult for people to show the courage they need to show here," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said of the Court's recent ruling that allowed corporations to spend unlimited funds in political campaigns. "I mean, courage is in pretty short supply anyway in Congress and it will clearly be harder."
More...
Corporate Speech Is Not “Free”
Last week, the Supreme Court caused an uproar when it struck down a campaign finance law that barred corporations from making political expenditures. The Court said that corporations are entitled to the same freedom of speech as people.
But corporate speech isn't "free."
More...
But corporate speech isn't "free."
More...
February 2, 2010
John Kerry: Amend The Constitution In Response To Citizens United Decision
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wants to amend the Constitution to restrict the free speech rights of corporations after last week's landmark Supreme Court campaign finance ruling.
At a hearing on Tuesday, Kerry said that in the short term he wanted Congress to quickly pass countermeasures that would require corporations to get shareholder approval for political spending and prohibit spending by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations and government contractors.
More...
At a hearing on Tuesday, Kerry said that in the short term he wanted Congress to quickly pass countermeasures that would require corporations to get shareholder approval for political spending and prohibit spending by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations and government contractors.
More...