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Important News

 

Please read May 14 Important Message    April Legislation Hearing Update    Letter Campaign    March 2015 Update    Important News for 2015

 

May 14, 2015

HP 956, the resolution using the same language as the petition (a call for an Article V Constitutional convention to write a US Constitutional amendment to revoke corporate personhood and regulate campaign spending) has now been referred to the Committee on State and Local Government. Please see our page with information about HP 956 and plan to attend the public hearing for this important legislation.

 

April 8, 2015

Billionaires Are Buying Our Democracy by Selma Sternlieb

 

January 30, 2015

To supporters:

There is a bill in the Maine legislature which could obstruct or at least slow down the flow of corporate money to candidates and campaigns. We are sending this to you as you may be interested and available to testify at a legislative committee on your feelings about corporate money in politics. This bill is separate from the We The People Maine resolution which has not yet been assigned to a committee.

The public hearing for LD 53, “An Act To Require Shareholder Consent for Corporate Political Contributions,” will be at the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee meeting in Augusta on Wednesday, February 4, at 10:00 am. Testimony is limited to 3 minutes. Please contact the bill's sponsor, Rep. Deane Rykerson (D-Kittery), if you would like to submit testimony (rykersonforkittery@gmail.com, 207-439-8755). Read LD 53.

Jan Carpenter for

 

Wednesday July 31, 2014

Vox 40 charts that explain money in politics

Tuesday June 17, 2014

Today Senator Harry Reid announced his support for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United and McCutcheon: read the story and see the video. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said

Every American should have the same ability to influence our political system. One American, one vote. That’s what the Constitution guarantees. The Constitution does not give corporations a vote. And the Constitution does not give dollar bills a vote. From what I’ve heard recently, my Republican colleagues seem to have a different view. Republicans seem to think that billionaires, corporations and special interests should be allowed to drown out the voices of Americans. That is wrong and it has to end.

Published on Friday May 2, 2014

Vermont Becomes The First State To Pass Wolf PAC Resolution to get money out of politics.

Today Vermont became the first state to call for a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which precipitated a flood of cash into politics.           YouTube video: The Young Turks Live Show

Wednesday April 30, 2014  U.S. Senate
Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens Testified Wednesday at a Senator King Led Committee Hearing on Campaign Finance

This is dynamite! watch the hearing

Tuesday April 22, 2014  By Steve Burke, Special to the Bangor Daily News
Corporations are not people, money is not speech,
   and the Constitution should say so

There have been 19 Supreme Court decisions, beginning in 1886, that have increasingly granted more rights to corporations and wealthy individuals. The two most recent decisions have put this gradual transformation on steroids.    read more

Tuesday April 21, 2014  New York Times
Justice Stevens Suggests Solution for Giant Step in the Wrong Direction

Excerpts from interview with Justice Stevens who was . . . indignant about more recent decisions that he regards as wrong. Take the Court’s decision earlier this month in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, in which Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion for the five-to-four majority invalidated over-all limits on campaign contributions.“ It’s a grossly incorrect decision,” Stevens said. “The very first sentence of the Chief Justice’s opinion lays out a basic error in this whole jurisprudence. He says that there is ‘no right more basic in our democracy’ than to pick our elected officials. But the case is not about whether individuals can pick their own congressmen. It’s about giving lots of campaign contributions, picking other people’s congressmen, not your own.”    read more

April 6, 2014
Princeton Concludes What Kind of Government America Really Has,
  . . . and It's Not a Democracy

March 9, 2014 in Portland Maine
Lawrence Lessig Supports an Article V Constitutional Convention

On Sunday March 9, in Portland Maine, Lawrence Lessig responding to a question about amending the U.S. Constitution endorsed an Article V convention (the approach called for in Citizen Initiative petition).    read more

 

 
     

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