<< LABOR'S EDGE BLOG ARTICLES

It’s Time to Clean out Dark Money in Politics

During his State of the UnionTell the CA Supreme Court: Give CA voters the opportunity to overturn Citizens United! address last night, President Obama reflected that his former congressional colleagues have often told him that the job isn’t what they signed up for when they first entered into politics. He called for better politics “where we spend less time drowning in dark money for ads that pull us into the gutter”.

We agree, Mr. President. It’s time to clean up our political system and get rid of dark money.

Today marks the five year anniversary of Citizens United — the U.S. Supreme Court’s most damaging decision in the history of American democracy, which opened the floodgates for corporate money in politics and unlimited spending by billionaires such as the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson.

To mark this anniversary and mourn the death of democracy in America, we are standing up to the CA Chamber of Commerce — one of the worst dark money culprits in our post-Citizens United democracy — as well as the CA Supreme Court, demanding an end to corporate influence in our elections.

Hundreds of courageous Californians are taking to the streets in San Francisco and Los Angeles to show that people power can defeat corporate power. For those of you who can’t make it today, you can still make a difference by signing our petition to the Supreme Court.

In order to shine a light on the corruptive corporate influence on our elections, not only do we need hundreds of people at each march, we need even thousands of more signatures.

Sign the petition, stand with Courage Campaign members who are rallying to get money out of politics, and demand that Californians have a chance to help overturn Citizens United on the November 2016 ballot!

In 2014 we witnessed the most expensive midterm election in our country’s history, where our democracy became an extension of the Koch brothers’ bank account. In this very same midterm — after an intense lobbying effort by big corporations — California voters were DENIED the right to weigh in on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United when Prop 49 was removed from the ballot.

Across the country, tens of millions of Americans support a constitutional amendment to overturn the disastrous Citizens United ruling — and more and more states are signing on to help fast-track the plan.

That’s why we are fighting to reinstate Prop 49 to the ballot in 2016, a measure which asks California voters whether the U.S. Congress and California Legislature should approve a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. When millions of Californians weigh in on this critical issue, it will send a strong message to Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court and corporate America.

Stand with thousands of Californians to demand that Prop 49 be put back on the ballot in 2016 and say, “money is not speech, corporations are not people, and it is time to overturn Citizens United.” Sign the petition today.

Money’s influence in politics has distorted our democracy and it is directly impacting our elected officials’ ability to govern the way our democracy was intended — FOR the people, NOT for corporate interests.

Billionaires should not be afforded more political power than YOU or me, or any average citizen, yet due to the corruption of our democracy they have become a major political force. Now is the time for Californians and all Americans to stand up and reclaim our democracy.