Politics

Fair Elections Now

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

The campaign finance reform group Public Campaign is pushing the Fair Elections Now Act as the legislative solution to today’s Supreme Court ruling to let corporations and other special interests spend as much money as they want on political ads:

The public has lost confidence in Congress’s ability to pass laws in the public interest and this decision could make an untenable situation worse. Congress should respond forcefully by passing the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752, H.R. 1826), which expands the importance of the public’s voice in politics.

Support for the Fair Elections legislation in Congress is at an all time high. The bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), has bipartisan and cross-caucus support of 124 co-sponsors. The Fair Elections Now Act “would give our members the time they deserve to focus on the issues and their constituents, instead of dialing for dollars,” Rep. Larson said at a Center for American Progress panel on the legislation in December. “We see a great opportunity to pass this bill, and we see Citizens United as part of that backdrop.” Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is the lead sponsor of the Senate companion legislation.

The Fair Elections Now Act and similar programs in the states have repeatedly passed constitutional muster and would allow members of Congress to opt-out of the demoralizing and debilitating chase for big campaign cash.

Full post as published by Open Congress on January 21, 2010 (boomark / email).