Money and Politics

Tom Huffman interviews Mike Dean about American Promise and Spencer Graves about Represent.Us.  AmericanPromise.net is working with Move to Amend and Wolf PAC to pass local initiatives supporting a constitutional amendment to declare that corporations are not people, and money is not speech. Represent.Us is organizing local initiatives to pass the American Anti-Corruption Act, which is a collection of measures to stop political bribery by overhauling lobbying and ethics laws, end secret money by dramatically increasing transparency, and give every voter a voice by creating citizen-funded elections.  The measures in the American Anti-Corruption Act have so far been deemed constitutional and would be useful whether or not a constitutional amendment overturned the Citizens United decision of the US Supreme Court.  Represent.Us works to bring conservatives and progressives together to pass these initiatives.  Represent.Us groups in eight states succeeded in getting anti-corruption measures passed on Nov. 8.  This included the first state-wide measure, in South Dakota plus local measures in CA, IL, OR, ME, MD, MO, and RI.  In addition, California voters approved a measure, “Prop 59” to support overturning Citizens United.

The American Anti-Corruption Act was initially drafted in 2011 by Republican Trevor Potter, who was nominated as head of the Federal Election Commission under Democratic President Clinton.  The drafting process included consultations with dozens of strategists, democracy reform leaders and constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum.  Potter also supports American Promise.

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