Campaign Finance Reform

The Senate advanced a constitutional amendment meant to reverse two recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign spending after Republicans opted to back proceeding to debate on the measure.

Democratic political groups, such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), pushed hard for a vote, saying the issue motivates Democrats to go out to the polls.

“Citizens United gives corporate special interests the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money in our elections,” said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who is up for reelection this November. “It’s wrong and I’ve been fighting it since the day the Supreme Court announced its egregious decision.”

We are proud to announce our endorsement of Ruben Gallego, who is running for Congress in Arizona!

Ruben is an Iraq veteran and state legislator. He is also a young activist who has worked to increase the number of Latino voters and led fights for worker rights, immigration reform, marijuana legalization, and marriage equality.

He supports expanding Social Security benefits and taking on the student debt crisis.

Ruben Gallego is a bold reformer committed to aAi??constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and the Government By The People Act — a bill would create a system where small-dollar donations will be matched with public funds to gives a $100 donation from a high school teacher the same weight as aAi??lobbyist who contributesAi??$700.

Read more on Ruben’s website:

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And check out Ruben’s responses to our questionnaire:

Ruben faces a tough primary on August 26th against a more conservative opponent.

Most importantly, Ruben and his team are building infrastructure. They have built an amazing grassroots movement of young people who are knocking on doors every day. They aren’t just trying to win a congressional race. They are trying to build progressive power in Arizona.

This is a safe Democratic district — so it’s important that a true progressive win the election.

Ruben has received numerous endorsements, including from Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Planned Parenthood, The Sierra Club, MoveOn.org, VoteVets.org, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and a dozen unions and labor organizations.

The Progressive …

Check out the Top Ten Highlights of 2013 from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee!

It’s been a great year. Thanks to all of our bold progressive members for being part of it!

1. “Expand Social Security”

In July, we announced a big strategic shift: Instead of playing defense, we would rally around bills to EXPAND Social Security benefits.

Along with our allies, PCCC members deliveredAi??petitionsAi??to congressional offices around the nation. We releasedAi??pollsAi??showing this idea was popular by 2 to 1 in Kentucky and 3 to 1 in Texas!

After the Washington Post op-ed pageAi??attackedAi??”bold progressives” for leading the way on this issue, Elizabeth Warren made national news that day by endorsing Social Security expansion on the Senate floor (and in an email to PCCC members).

Nobel economist Paul Krugman writes, “a funny thing has happened in the past year or so. Suddenly, weai??i??re hearing open discussion of the idea that Social Security should be expanded, not cut.ai???

2. PCCC membersAi??Ai??Elizabeth Warren

When Elizabeth Warren called for students to get the same low interest rates as big banks, over 1000 professors (who are also PCCC members) endorsed the idea.

When Elizabeth Warren demanded bank regulators crack down on Wall Street crimes, PCCC members pressured the SEC to listen!

When Elizabeth Warren was attacked, PCCC members attacked back!

Warren’s hometown Boston GlobeAi??profiledAi??us recently. They wrote, “A group called Progressive Change Campaign Committee is waging the most visible of these pro-Warren crusades.”

The NationAi??writes, “Warrenai??i??s voice is amplified by groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which have identified her as their ‘north star’ in the fight to renew the Democratic Party. That scares corporate interests.”

A progressive group announced Tuesday morning theyai??i??ll be hosting a ai???first of itai??i??s kindai??? debate in Massachusettsai??i?? 5th congressional district, where five Democrats are vying to replace the seat now vacated by Sen. Ed Markey.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee says their ai???Open Debate,ai??? where all questions will be submitted and chosen by the public, could serve as a model in future races and someday (they hope) presidential races.

ai???Open Debates, where the public submits and votes on the questions, will hopefully be a game changer in our political process. What starts here in Massachusetts will hopefully become the norm for local, state, congressional, and even presidential debates in the future,ai??? said PCCC spokesman Matt Wall.

Yesterday, eight progressive organizations — the Progressive Change Campaign Committee,Ai??MoveOn, DFA, CREDO, Rebuild the Dream, Wolf PAC, Working Families Organization, and Daily Kos — sent an open letter to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. John B. LarsonAi??(D-CT), chairman of theAi??House Democrats’ Task Force on Election Reform, and Ranking Member Robert Brady (D-PA)Ai??urging them to take up legislation to create real citizen-funded elections — and not a weaker system that would reward candidates who continue to rake in big-dollar contributions. The letter reads as follows:

Leader Pelosi, Representative Larson, and Ranking Member Brady:

We have been following the work of the Task Force on Election Reform. We write to applaud your leadership and attention to the critical issue of campaign finance reform ai??i?? and to inform you that we stand ready to mobilize millions of Americans around strong legislation that brings forth citizen-funded elections for Congress.

For us, the goal of such legislation is to increase the power of ordinary Americans in our democracy and to incentivize candidates to spend their time talking with ordinary Americans instead of special-interest donors. We ask you to put the full weight of Democratic Leadership behind a bill that achieves those goals ai??i?? a bill such asAi??The Fair Elections Now Act (HR 269, Yarmuth)Ai??andAi??Grassroots Democracy Act (HR 268, Sarbanes).

While these two bills have differences, their core similarity is that they create a robust system of matching funds for candidates who opt to only raise small-dollar donations. This would be game changing. Candidates would be incentivized to spend their time courting ordinary Americans and would have dramatically less incentive to court big-money, special-interest donors. We understand that progress is being made on merging these bills into one, and we look forward to rallying the public around such a bill.

We cannot get behind …

A coalition of progressive leaders, including MoveOn.org Executive Director Anna Galland, Rebuild the Dream President Van Jones and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas are pressuring Democratic House leaders crafting campaign finance reform legislation to be introduced this year…Signing the letter, along with Galland, Jones and Moulitsas, are Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founders Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green, Democracy for America chair Jim Dean, CREDO CEO Michael Kieschnick, CREDO political director Becky Bond, Wolf PAC founder Cenk Uygur and Working Families Party Executive Director Dan Cantor.

A group of liberal groups is out with a letter Wednesday urging Democratic Hill leaders to come to a consensus on a public financing elections bill. Currently, three different proposals are being considered — and the groups urged lawmakers to merge the bills into one proposal. At the heart of the bills is a proposal to create a system of publicly financed congressional elections. The groups — which include the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, MoveOn.org, Democracy For America, CREDO and others — support the Yarmuth and Sarbanes proposals, but they oppose the Price bill.

The failure of the Manchin-Toomey legislation yesterday to expand background checks for gun purchases has been blamed on a variety of factors. But one key detail is the fact that the gun lobby — consisting of the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and other groups funded by the gun industry — was a major fundraiser for Senators that opposed the reform bill.

The Center for Responsive Politics laid out donors to senators who both supported and opposed Manchin-Toomey, and found that lawmakers who opposed it received nearly eight times as much funding from the gun lobby. Meanwhile, it found that only $5,000 came from pro-reform groups (to the “yes” side):

Click here to sign our petition in support of background checks for gun purchases.

Ai??Click here to join our Take Back Democracy campaign to help kick money out of politics.

Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Edward Markey reached out to progressive activists around the country on Thursday, doing a 45-minute phone call with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee… [He] touted his history favoring public financing of campaigns, advocating for net neutrality, opposing the Defense of Marriage Act and supporting a public option in health insurance, and eventually a single payer system.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is behind the ad, and they released some polling earlier this week as well, showing that 82 percent of Kentuckians favor criminal background checks for gun owners (versus 13 opposed) and 50 percent favored an assault weapons ban (versus 42 opposed). It was conducted by Public Policy polling, rated by Fordham University as the most accurate pollster in 2012.
Now, in more PPP polling results released first to The Nation, we see that hitting McConnell for his gun industry backing is indeed fertile territory in Kentucky.

With the last outstanding race for a New York State Senate seat called on Friday, campaign finance reform in the Empire State is also looking like a winner. Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk’s victory over Republican George Amedore means there are now a majority of sitting senators who support the passage of reform, including the public financing of elections statewide.

Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also credited “a grassroots army” for Tkaczyk’s victory. “Members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee worked with our allies to make 25,000 calls to voters and 215 donations, and helped secure the 19 vote margin of victory,” Taylor said in a statement.

Join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

The Republican Party has completely embraced money in politics. Its leaders refuse to even support campaign finance disclosure laws that they once supported.

In an interview with radio network WUIS, incoming Illinois Republican Congressman-elect Rodney Davis indicated that he would be in favor of disclosure of donors to outside electoral groups and even support spending limits:

Rodney Davis is the only Republican among the six men and women who will soon be Illinoisai??i?? newest Congressmen. He also won with the narrowest margin of victory. Even so, Davis says he has something in common with his fellow legislative freshmen.

DAVIS: ai???We all had to withstand a barrage of false and misleading ads.ai???

Thatai??i??s in part because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling (PDF) that allowed unlimited amounts of money, often from secret sources, to flood the airwaves with attack ads. The case was called Citizens United.

DAVIS: ai???I think all us that have been impacted by Citizens United ai??i?? and impacted during this election cycle, by spending that we canai??i??t control ai??i?? weai??i??re all going to have a say in what happens in the future, and I think something needs to be done.ai???

Davis, who is from Taylorville, says he thinks the identity of donors should be public. And he says heai??i??d consider supporting limits on the amount of money outside groups can raise or spend. But thatai??i??s just the kind of law the Supreme Court overturned in the Citizens United case.

The question is, will Davis stick to his stated statements to reform the campaign finance system, or will he defer to House Speaker John Boehner, who totally opposes all reforms?

It’s time to reclaim our democracy from Big Money donors. Click here to join our …

In his most famous role as Jack McCoy in Law & Order, actor Sam Waterston took on all sorts of corrupt criminals. Now he’s tackling corruption in politics by backing the campaign for public financing of campaigns in New York.

Watch a video of Waterston explaining the problem of money in politics and urging New Yorkers to get involved to pass public financing:

Join the fight for Fair Elections in New York. Sign up for PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

This afternoon, President Obama engaged in a question and answer setting with Reddit users. Suzanne Merkelson, a staffer with the campaign finance reform organization United Republic, asked Obama, “What are you going to do to end the corrupting influence of money in politics during your second term?” In his his response he endorsed a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United:

Obama: Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs; they fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress – to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who. We should also pass legislation prohibiting the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.

(Over 55,000 people have applied pressure for this change by endorsing the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s Take Back Democracy agenda.)

At a Senate hearing about overturning Citizens United last month, Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig outlined such a process.

LessigAi??called for Congress to establish 4 non-binding citizen conventions in different regions of the country, with 300 people picked at random for each. This would be akin to picking and compensating a jury. Each convention would deliberate and recommend a Constitutional Amendment.Ai??Congress could then use the results …

Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan is often praised as being a mainstream and serious leader.

But the centerpiece of Ryan’s ideology — his budget plan that hands over seniors’ health care to insurance companies that we’ve dubbed “Medicare for None” — is anything but moderate.

A July 2011 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that just 35 percent of American adults supported Ryan’s plan (even 54 percent of self-described conservative voters disapproved).

Let’s put that into perspective by looking at some progressive policies that have much more support. Take, for example, marijuana legalization. Although the issue is often portrayed as fringe in the mainstream media, an October 2011 poll found that half of Americans support legalizing the use of marijuana. You’d have to go back to 2003 to find the cause to be as unpopular as Ryan’s budget plan is today.

Here are a few other progressive policies that are much more popular than Ryan’s proposal:

Ai??Medicare for All:Ai??Ryan wants to end Medicare as we know it by eliminating itsAi??guaranteedAi??benefit and handing it over to the insurance companies. But Americans actually really like this single-payer health care system for theAi??elderly and want to expand it to everyone. In 2007, the Associated Press and Yahoo asked Americans if we should “adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers.” 65 percent of Americans agreed that we should. Majorities of Americans have continued to support the idea since then.
Marriage Equality:Ai??Romney and Ryan oppose marriage equality, but Americans back it. A June 2012 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that 54 percent of Americans want the government to recognize gay and lesbian marriages as valid.
Public …

… Sometimes the best way to tackle corporate influence in our politics is to name and shame corporations that are secretly financing front groups to manipulate our democracy… On a recent national call with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), leading campaign finance reformer Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) endorsed a version of this tactic to tackle dark money in our elections.

For two days in the middle of July, Whitehouse led Democrats in holding the Senate floor to try to open debate on the Disclose Act, a bill that would force groups spending more than $10,000 on elections to name their contributors. The bill was blocked — twice — by a Republican filibuster. “We can’t give up in the Senate,” Whitehouse said on a conference call organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Tuesday. “I talked to my colleagues about what I call the Jericho principle, which is just because you didn’t win the first time around doesn’t mean you aren’t going to win down the road.”

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s national profile continues to rise. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee will hold a national conference call on Tuesday at noon for its members and the press where Whitehouse will discuss efforts to overturn the Citizens United ruling and his Disclose Act, WPRI.com has learned.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy group, has generated hundreds of calls to Senate offices and launched an online advertising campaign targeting several Senate Republicans on the eve of the Monday vote. Ads were aimed at GOP Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.), Susan Collins (Maine), John McCain (Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Dick Lugar (Ind.) and Olympia Snowe (Maine.)

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has just announced this afternoon that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has said that there will be a vote on the DISCLOSE (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections) Act on Monday. The DISCLOSE Act helps make election spending more transparent, by requiring the disclosure of donors to certain groups that run advocacy ads intended to influence elections.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched an effort to reform the nation’s campaign finance system

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee will release a five part campaign today aimed at overturning Citizens United. The plan includes some of the following points: “Pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, require corporations to get shareholder approval before any political spending…”

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is launching “Take Back Democracy” a five-part campaign to overturn Citizens United and fight corporate money in politics.