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LONG BEACH (coup2k.com) March 16, 2001 -- "The Diva" calls for passage of the McCain-Feingold-Cochran Bill (S. 27), as scary as that may be...
SUPPORTERS
If you're only going to do one good deed as a citizen this year (or this decade) this is the time to make your voice heard.
-- Molly Ivins, "You, too, can reform campaigns" March 12, 2001
Congress is unable to deal objectively with any issue, from a patient's bill of rights to taxes to energy policy, if its members are receiving vast open-ended donations from the industries and people affected.
-- The New York Times, "Mr. Bush's Reform Subterfuge" March 16, 2001
The League supports the campaign finance reform bill without weakening amendments. This is our best chance to tell our Senators that we NEED this critical legislation.
-- League of Women Voters, ACTION ALERT! "LWVUS Urgent Lobby Request #107-1" March 16, 2001
I hope our senators don't ruin this chance for reform by defeating the bill or perverting it with amendments that enable other kinds of donations to double or triple. The whole point is to reduce the amount of special interest money in elections. I hope everyone will call their Senators and implore them to vote for the bill as it was introduced, and to keep the cap on other kinds of giving.
-- Granny D (Doris Haddock), ACTION ALERT! "Senators, if I can keep walking the reform walk, certainly you can, too!"
The sweet smell of cash wafts across just about everything that happens in Beltway land. Politicians constantly worry about raising it and taking care of those who provide it, even as they publicly pledge to clean up the system. That's why the anxiety level over the McCain-Feingold measure is so great - for once, it actually might pass. No more feelgood votes in the comfortable knowledge that nothing will change.
-- Howard Kurtz, "Washington Awash in Talk of Money" March 16, 2001
OPPONENTS
Groups including the AFL-CIO, the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Christian Coalition all are fighting provisions in the McCain-Feingold bill that would restrict spending on so-called issue ads prior to an election and would limit coordination between candidates and interest groups.
-- opensecrets.org, "Strange Bedfellows: A Look at the Lobbying Behind the Campaign Finance Debate" March 12, 2001
McCain conceded that a couple of Democrats "may be getting a little nervous, or maybe even looking for an exit sign. We always knew this was going to be tough."
-- New York Daily News, "McCain Rips Bush On Election Reform" March 15, 2001
WHY I SUPPORT THIS BILL
I am fully aware that this bill may make hard money more important, and that the Democratic Party has not raised as much hard money as the Republican Party in the past.
I DON'T CARE.
I want principled politicians to be my leaders, and money turns would-be heroes into whores. Yes, whores. Whores do it for the money. I have seen leaders I respect, leaders whose hearts I KNOW are in the right place, support legislation that I KNOW they do not agree with, and for what?
THE MONEY! TO GET DONATIONS FOR THEIR PARTY!
Look... Money bores me. Talk of money bores me. Reading about money bores me. Writing about money bores me. The specifics of Campaign Finance Reform bore me. I am not enjoying writing this.
But I AM writing this, and for one reason: I WANT MY HEROES BACK! I don't want to watch politicians I believe in cave to the moneyed special interests. I don't want to be forced into the "they're-all-crooks" cynicism that keeps half (or more) of the electorate spectators during each election.
I know that organized labor (WHICH I STRONGLY SUPPORT) hates this bill. I have one thing to say to that. If the ONLY REASON the Democratic Party has been a friend to labor in the past was for the money, and if the Democratic Party abandons the cause of working people when that money dries up...? Well, that is something I need to know before the next election.
If you agree with me (and many of you may not), then please click on the masthead above, visit Granny D's site, join her march if you are in DC, act on the ACTION ALERTS below, and help take our heroes back!
ACTION ALERT! GRANNY D
ACTION ALERT! LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS
ACTION ALERT! STRAIGHT TALK AMERICA
NEXT: REPUBLICANS ARE FROM MARS...
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