Sep 06 2012
New Organization, Fix Our America Launches Campaign to Overturn Citizens United Decision
Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and current Chicago Mayor announced his departure from President Obama’s reelection campaign yesterday. The announcement came just a day after his speech at the Democratic National Convention. Emanuel will now focus his efforts on raising money for so-called super-PACs supporting the president. Super PACs have played a huge role in this year’s election, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to campaign for their favorite candidate.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, super PAC supporters of GOP candidate Mitt Romney have raised nearly $250 million dollars, while pro-Obama groups have raised just under a quarter of that amount, at $65 million. The conservative super PAC, Restore our Future has raised the most, of all such groups – more than $82 million and counting.
PAC money has resulted in a flood of campaign ads, more so during this election than any other. The unlimited campaigning was unleashed by the 2010 Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign advertisements so long as there is no direct coordination with any candidate.
The decision has provoked a mass movement around the country to overturn such campaign spending. Efforts like Democracy is for People, and Move to Amend, are seeking to amend the US constitution to prohibit the level of campaign funding seen in this election.
A new organization called Fix Our America has joined the effort. Fix Our America is a private organization founded by media and business based civic activists to use the internet and social networking, as well as traditional media to raise public awareness of the need for a constitutional amendment. According to their website, Fix Our America aims to mobilize “a mass citizen base of folks who will notify their lawmakers once a month that campaign financing corruption is the Number One issue to them.”
GUEST: Jay Levin, co-founder of FixOurAmerica.org, and founder of the LA Weekly
Visit www.fixouramerica.org for more information.
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