On June 4th, the Middletown City Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning Citizens United, and calling for electoral reform. Peter, Nishi and myself had been working on this cause for months, and we got it passed in time to coincide with a national movement doing the same. The resolution reads as follows:
Whereas, the Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission, Buckley v. Valero and SpeechNow v. FEC legal decisions have changed the national landscape on how elections are financed, and
Whereas, the Supreme Court ‘s Citizen’s United decision has led to a flood of money from individuals, corporations and special interest groups being used for political purposes, and
Whereas, Super Political Action Committee’s (“Super PACs”) now enjoy unlimited spending from wealthy individuals and corporations, and
Whereas, outside spending by Super PAC’s, corporations, special interest groups and others totaled over $900 M or 2.5 times as much as spent during the same period in 2008 and six (6) times as much as in 2004, and
Whereas, huge sums of money are now being decried as securing elections to ensure allegiance to a specific political agenda, and
Whereas, the influence of excessive and anonymous money in political campaigns can lead to corruption, limit political discourse, subject the citizenry to unlimited and extensive “spin” which shadows the facts for any political campaign.
Whereas a coalition of groups throughout the United States are working to pass over 100 new local resolutions during Resolutions Week in June calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, challenge corporate power and eliminate unlimited campaign spending.
Now Therefore Be It Resolved by The Common Council of the City of Middletown that:
We join in the efforts of groups and organizations throughout the Unites States to remove the overt influence of money on our political system and stand with other communities across America to protect our democratic system by supporting public funding of elections, reducing the unnecessary time required to select candidates and conduct elections and make any and all political spending to be open and transparent.
Be It Further Resolved that
We hereby instruct our State and Federal Government Representatives to end the influence of money in politics by enacting resolutions, legislation and constitutional amendments to advance these principles.
I’ve been working on Dawn quite a bit as well, and though I’m far behind where I thought I would be, I’m about 50% done. I haven’t gotten anything done on the bus, and I’m really behind on projects in general. SomDay went unobserved for the first time since its inception. But the money keeps rolling in, which will allow me to get around to these things sooner or later.
Mostly later.