There's strong voter support for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and allow restrictions on corporate spending, according to a poll conducted by PPP and paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Ryan Grim of HuffPost has reported:
Nearly a fifth of voters remain undecided on an issue that has only been live since the Supreme Court overturned a century of legislation and precedent in a 5-4 ruling whose effect was visible to anybody with a television through the months of September and October. Of those who have an opinion, 46 percent said that "Congress should consider drastic measures such as a constitutional amendment overturning the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections," while 36 percent disagreed. The survey, which was provided to The Huffington Post, was conducted by the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling on November second and third and reached 548 voters.
A Constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and must be ratified by three-quarters of the states. But, said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the author of an amendment that would overturn Citizens United, there have been times in American history when amendments have caught fire and ripped right through the land. "The process is very rigorous, and it should be," Edwards told HuffPost. "But there have been plenty of examples of amendments to the Constitution that have happened, actually, with fairly rapid-fire when they catch on."
Edwards, an attorney, said she wrote the simple text of her amendment the night that Citizens United was handed down. "I really concluded that the Supreme Court actually put the challenge out to us, here in the Congress. They said, you know, you could make a judgment that this is not really good for the system, but the fact is that the Constitution doesn't allow you to regulate this. Congress, you have no-- the Court told us directly-- Congress, you have no authority to regulate. And when the Court says that so directly, it only leaves us one choice," said Edwards.
In the Senate, John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have both gotten behind the effort. "Max Baucus and I, probably, if we had to serve in the same body, we probably don't agree on a whole bunch of stuff. But on this, he really gets it," said Edwards.
"Max is always willing to work with anyone toward the common goal of making sure Montanans' voices don't get drowned out by out-of-control corporate campaign donations," said Kate Downen, a Baucus spokeswoman.
Adam Green, cofounder of the PCCC, sees the amendment as a winning political issue. "It's time to stop thinking small-bore. The solution to Citizens United is not merely disclosure, it's to overturn Citizens United -- and even last November's Republican-skewed electorate agrees," Green said.
The article goes on to note the barriers such an amendment would face: the parties' reliance on corporate spending, the GOP takeover of 19 legislative chambers in the midterms, but continues:
But, said Edwards, Democrats need to embrace the idea that the Constitution is a political ground worth fighting on. "A lot of progressives are not accustomed to using the mechanisms of the Constitution. The right has used-- has tried to do that an awful lot of times on a whole range of different things in state legislatures and across the board. And as progressives, we're not accustomed to doing that, and this is one instance, though, where the populist demand is there, and our energy and our policy has to match that demand and a Constitutional amendment does that."
And it notes:
The amendment has strong support from law professors and former attorneys general.
But one more thing ought to be noted: the barrier of GOP obstructionism on this issue could actually be turned into a blessing--although it won't be easy to do, at least at first. During the last election, big business managed quite successfully to channel Tea Partiers populist rage at the government, not them. And this won't be a hard trick to replicate in the future for most of the hardcore ideologues. But repealing Citizens United and directly confronting the untrammeled, anti-democratic power of big business could be just the thing to wreck havoc with the Tea Party narrative for the broader public. Having a clearly-defined fight over a Constitutional amendment to take back our democracy from big business would provide a constant narrative backdrop for all manner of corporate abuses, such as recent revelations of how fiercely the health insurance industry fought against health care reform. There is a real opportunity here--and if it does catch fire, as Donna Edwards points out if possible, that opportunity could huge. The only question is whether we're willing to think big enough to take advantage of it.
We at Sum of Change, attended a health care town hall last night, hosted by Congresswoman Donna Edwards. The Congresswoman gave a brief speech, and then opened the floor for questions. The town hall was heated, which should come as no surprise. Not only were conservative groups organizing to get people out to these town halls (with detailed instructions about how to act and talk), OFA 2.0, several Unions, and liberal bloggers pushed progressives to turn out as well. The debate was vigorous, but not disrespectful. If anyone came there with the intent of disrupting the town hall, they failed miserably.
We'll go through a round of the Q&A's. I strongly recommend watching these all the way through, the Congresswoman knows how to finish an answer.
On Thursday, July 30th, the Progressive Caucus held a press conference to draw a line in the sand when it comes to the inclusion of a strong public option in the health care bill.
An exciting announcement: Representative Donna Edwards will be answering your questions on Open Left today at noon eastern.
Use this thread to ask Representative Edwards some questions beforehand. Right now the political focus is obviously health care, but feel free to ask any questions you like.
Update (12:11): Representative Edwards is logging on now. Check the comments for her responses to your questions. Also, I imagine there is still time to ask a couple questions.
Update 2: Having some technical difficulties. I am now posting her answers as she sends them to me over email.
Update 3: Votes will be called soon. Representative Edwards has to go vote, but will return soon to answer more questions. I will be posting her responses in a separate thread later today.
Update 4: Another response posted. Representative Edwards thanks everyone for posting questions, and that she looks forward to coming back again soon. I'll see if I can get more answers to your questions later today.
Update 5: Looks like that is all Representative Edwards can do today. I am sorry to everyone who didn't have their question answered--it is my fault, due to technical difficulties. However, she says that she will come back soon, and I think we made some news with at least one of her answers. Representative Edwards is taking the FDL pledge!
As you may have noticed, we busted through our goal of 600 donors on the Better Democrats page. We're amazed and shocked that people here were able and willing to raise this much money on our little ole blog for progressive Democrats in such a short amount of time. I think what it means is that there's a real hunger not just for change, but for progressive change. And that's the key. In 2009, we could be sitting with a Blue Dog swing block or we could be sitting with a progressive swing block. And the difference between the two is immense.
A couple of big donors have stepped up to match donations of up to $3000 apiece for the women on the page. I've moved them all up to the top. Alice Kryzan just got the Working Families party line, which should help her immensely. Darcy Burner, Debbie Cook, Annette Taddeo, and Sam Bennett are all facing tight races, but all of them are winnable. Chris and I have blogged about how the caucuses are divided not just by ideology but by gender, so having more women in Congress will be very important. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are nearly all men. In 2006, most of the new Democrats were men. This cycle, we need to even out the freshman class.
Now, Chris and I are shocked that 600 of you have thrown some cash towards Better Democrats since we set up the page. But that's still about 1% of the daily readership of this blog. That means that a lot of you haven't given. Well now's a great time, since you can get your donation matched to a great progressive Democratic woman. Even if it's just $5, it matters. So give. And don't be shy about throwing some cash to some of the men, too, they're ok I guess.
Ok, so we made it through that $50K barrier for Better Democrats. I suppose it's time for a little update on how our candidates are doing.
Markos and Crisitunity blog the new Dailykos/Research 2000 poll (these polls are such an awesome concept), which shows the race all tied up at 46-46. It's a random digit dial, which makes this kind of poll more favorable to Reichert since cell phone only and VOIP users aren't sampled. The stats seem to bear that out; Obama's ahead by only 6 points in the poll, and most people think he's up more than that in WA-08. Trendwise, it's very good news that Darcy's gone up by 8 points since the last Kos poll, when she was behind 49-41. Reichert's dropped 3 points and Darcy's gone up 5.
The Mormons are pulling the plug on Prop 8 calls from Utah.
Progressive Democrat Senate candidate Jim Martin is about two points off of Chambliss in a composite of polls, which is far closer than anyone could have imagined a month ago. Al Franken is up by three, Begich leads by two, and Merkley's up by six.
We managed to convince Debbie Wasserman Schultz to back Annette Taddeo, which is not a small feat. Taddeo is in a tight race with Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the district that encompasses South Beach. South Beach. That's the setting of the Bird Cage movie.
Massa's opponent is on the 'death list' of Republicans, Dennis Schulman and Tom Perriello are closing, and Grayson is up over 10 on his opponent.
When Blue Majority split up earlier this year, it took us some time to figure out the right way to add to the Democratic wave. In retrospect, the Better Democrats concept should have been obvious - with our work on Donna Edwards and Ed Fallon, it was pretty clear the direction this community was headed. I'm really proud of what all of us have been able to do with Better Democrats. In the waning days of a campaign, money becomes less important, because the electorate is basically settled. In this case, though, there are so many seats on the bubble, including many of our best Better Democrats (Merkley, Darcy, Perriello, Martin, etc), that a little more cash to bring them up to the level of Obama actually matters. So to those of you who have given till it hurts, thank you. And for those of you who haven't, what are you waiting for?
How's that Wall Street bailout working out for you?
Even after Wall Street panicked Congress into approving up to $700 billion to buy "toxic" mortgage-backed securities, the stock market continued to plunge and credit markets tightened. But a week after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reportedly told President Bush "There is no Plan B," it turns out there is one: The Federal Reserve, on its own authority, plans to buy unsecured short-term debt ("commercial paper") to corporations needing credit to maintain operations.
"This will keep the credit markets working even if the zombie banks aren't up to the task," Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote at Prospect.org (Oct. 7). "In other words, the threat of a complete meltdown in the absence of a bailout was nonsense and the media once again got taken for a ride by the Bush administration."
Baker, like many progressive economists, favored a direct injection of capital into the banking system instead of overpaying for bad assets, as Paulson proposed.
As I said before, Donna Edwards trusts Barack Obama, and it looks like her 'yes' vote was a result of a conversation with him. She secured a pledge from him that he would "work to provide direct relief to homeowners facing foreclosure by enabling home mortgages to be dealt with in the context of personal bankruptcy and looking at a program such as one that existed in the 1930's to 1950's to work directly with homeowners to mitigate foreclosures."
She used leverage to extract a pledge from him. I still think that her vote was wrong, but note that she got something for homeowners for her yes vote, unlike the yes votes on Monday. Her full statement is below.
Here's their statement. I am leaving now for religious reasons, so anyone who wants to pick up this thread and add more details in the comments would be most welcome. Great progressives like Donna Edwards, Peter DeFazio, and Mazie Hirono are pushing this rescue plan. More information is here.
Meanwhile, Obama is demanding 'no vote' Democrats and Republicans "step up to the plate and do what's right for this country." Congratulations, all of us have just been called unpatriotic by Barack Obama for objecting to the bailout.
You guys are amazing. 43 donations in 12 hours is remarkable, not because of the number but because this site spends A LOT of time criticizing Democratic leaders, so turning around and investing your faith in Democratic politicians requires a dexterity of mind and a realistic optimism that we find quite rarely. We're going to shoot for 100 donations, because Better Democrats are the most important thing we can aim for this cycle. And as evidence, this is what having Better Democrats means.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR-04), an outspoken critic of the Bush/Paulson bailout, along with Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02), will introduce legislation today to address the failures in the financial markets. DeFazio believes that the Paulson/Bush proposal is based on a flawed premise: if the American taxpayers spend $700 billion to buy Wall Street's toxic assets - a plan pundits are calling "trash for cash" - it will create liquidity in our financial markets and will somehow trickle-down to Main Street.
DeFazio's plan is not in any way based on the Paulson/Bush plan. Instead of throwing taxpayer dollars at the program and crossing our fingers that the plan work, the measure will direct the Administration to take five simple steps, suggested by noted economist and former head of the FDIC, William Isaac, to re-regulate the markets and move America towards a healthy financial future.
The legislation will be available at the press conference.
Who: Rep. DeFazio, Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02)
What: Press Conference to introduce legislation to fix financial markets
Where: House Radio and TV Gallery
When: 3 pm TODAY
I'm amending my position on a bailout from hell no to HELL YES. Here's a video from the night of Donna's victory, where she thanks OpenLeft for her victory.
We did this. We helped put Donna in office, and she's showing leadership. She's making us proud. And I know many of you gave to her and volunteered for her, and you should be very very proud. For those of you who didn't, you now have another chance to put people into office who will band together, as these progressives are doing, not when it is easy, but when the pressure is on, when it is hard. I know this is an uncertain time, nerves are raw, and we're playing with trillion dollar decisions. But this is when it is most important to stick to our values, to show that progressive leadership IS powerful and IS meaningful and that we will reward those who stand up.
Join us. Give a little today. And in 2009, we'll have a powerful caucus of Better Democrats in the House and the Senate. I can see it now, Donna Edwards, Darcy Burner, Alan Grayson, Jeff Merkley, Annette Taddeo, Sam Bennett, etc.
21:03 - Someone just announced a 10 minute delay to the start of this.
21:28 - "please take your seats, our presentation will take place in one moment" - still alt-rock on the feed. That Michael jackson cover from a few years ago "Smooth Criminal"
21:32 - And we're off, further updates below the fold.
Donna is going to give the keynote on Saturday. She also got on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Science and Technology Committees. The Transportation committee is going to be significant next year because the highway bill is going through in 2009.
Whenever a newly elected Democrat turns out to be a disappointment on a key vote, media messaging, or other campaign, there is a long-standing, knee-jerk response. In such situations, some variation of "well, I suppose you would rather have a Republican in that seat instead," is often brought up to quell dissent and keep the troops in line.
However, in Congress, there are now more than more than enough Democrats instead of Republicans to form a majority. To be precise, there are 236 Democrats in the House in seats that could otherwise be held by Republicans, and 49 Democrats in the Senate (plus two others who caucus with Democrats). Further, all indications are that in November, these majorities will grow substantially, providing Democrats will clear majorities in both branches of Congress of such size that Republican opposition could be rendered inert. In this situation, we are past the point of needing more Democrats in Congress. Now, unless we want a repeat of FISA and Iraq on virtually every issue, even under a vast Democratic trifecta, we have to work to make sure that we elect better Democrats.
It is with this principle in mind that today Open Left is introducing its first multi-candidate Act Blue page, simple entitled Better Democrats. In 2008, progressives do not have to, and should not, work to just elect any and all Democrats in every district across the country. Instead, we need to focus our efforts on those candidates who will be strong progressive voices in Congress, whose victories will help define the 2008 elections as a progressive victory, and whose victories will help ensure a long-term Democratic majority for years--maybe decades--to come.
Starting with our first seven candidates, Better Democrats will endorse those candidates whose victory, in our best estimation, will have the largest progressive impact on Congress as a whole. While there is no single criteria for our first seven candidates, there are several important factors we took into consideration. Endorsing The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq helps. Being from a blue district that will be easier to defend helps. Also, being a woman and / or a minority helps, given that the vast majority of conservative in the Democratic Congress are white men. Even though it is a generalization and not a hard rule, electing more women and minority Democrats to Congress means electing more progressives. Further, Willingness to speak out against Democratic capitulation on issues like Iraq and FISA helps. Yet further, running a primary campaign against a conservative Democratic in Congress really helps. The candidates who most closely match these criteria will end up on the Better Democrats page.
Our first seven candidates are:
Donna Edwards, the newest member of Congress from Maryland's 4th Congressional district. In February, Representative Edwards defeated incumbent Al Wynn in the Democratic primary, but she will surely face strong, more conservative competition in 2010.
Darcy Burner, Democratic nominee from Washington's 8th Congressional district. Darcy is a long-time netroots favorite, even a blogger herself, and hails from a very winnable, very blue district. She is also the organizer of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.
Jeff Merkley, Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. After a hard fought primary that was waged largely online, not only is Merkley from a blue state, but he is the only Senate nominee to endorse the Responsible Plan.
Regina Thomas, State Senator from Georgia, who is challenging Bush Dog John Barrow in the July 15th Democratic primary for Georgia's 12th congressional district.
Sam Bennett, Eric Massa and Tom Perriello, who are respectively running in the lean-blue Pennsylvania 15th, the lean-red New York 29th and the reddish Virginia 5th. All three were among the original ten endorsees of the Responsible Plan. Not only will they be a step up from the Republicans who currently hold those seats, but they will also be a step up from the many Democrats who capitulated to Bush on FISA and Iraq last week.
More candidates will be added as time goes on, but for now we will start with these seven. Dollar for dollar, you won't find seven candidates who will create more progressive change for your money than these. Make progress happen--give today.
Here's Donna. Notice the Republicans cheering loudly when she talks about not having time to waste to deal with gas prices - they believe in pushing this drill drill drill message.
This is Adrienne Christian, her new chief of staff.
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