Fix Congress First!

The Democratic leadership in Congress just announced its response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, the case that struck down limits on independent corporate campaign expenditures.

As Lawrence Lessig put it: hopeless.

The package the Democrats are proposing is filled with ideas that either won’t work or that, if they worked, would only invite the Supreme Court to strike again.

Congress had a chance to do something real here, but rather than supporting a bold reform that would make our democracy function better, they failed; they changed nothing. And as a result, our representatives’ dependency on campaign funders — the central corrupting force acting on our government — will continue for another day.

We all knew that’s what would happen, of course. Members of Congress don’t have much incentive to buck a systems that keeps their campaign coffers full. Here’s what Change Congress has to say on the matter on their Fix Congress First! website.

The Fair Elections Now Act is the reform we need, and we still have the chance to push Congress to pass it. So far, 135 Members of the House have signed on as co-sponsors, but we must continue to urge all of our representatives to support this crucial bill. You can use our simple tool to email your members of Congress and tell them that this issue won’t fly under the radar in 2010: http://fixcongressfirst.org/email

If the Democratic Party wants to lead, then they need to show us they’re ready to lead. And if the Republican Party wants to rise back to power, they need to prove they’d use that power to enact the will of the people.

Incidentally, I think you should read professor Lawrence Lessig’s response to the changes that the Democratic leadership is proposing. The bottom line is that these changes won’t help: they won’t make Members of Congress any less dependent on special interests and corporate fundraising, and they almost certainly won’t stand up to scrutiny by the current Supreme Court.

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