News
In a letter sent today to the Justice Department, Democracy 21, joined by the Campaign Legal Center, applauded the Justice Department’s recent action to enforce the coordination standard in the campaign finance laws and emphasized how important it is for the Department to play an active role in enforcing the campaign finance laws in the […]
In a letter sent today to the House Administration Committee, reform groups urged Committee members to oppose H.R. 412, legislation introduced by Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) to repeal the presidential public financing system. The groups also urged Committee members to oppose H.R. 195, legislation introduced by Representative Gregg Harper (R-MS) to terminate the Election Assistance […]
The Justice Department today issued a release announcing a criminal conviction for violating the federal rules prohibiting coordination between federal candidates and their campaigns, and Super PACs and other outside spending groups. According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer: This is an extremely important development and sends a warning signal to all federal candidates in […]
Two weeks ago, according to press reports, a roomful of multi-millionaires decided they are going to raise and spent about $900 million to make the 2016 elections turn out their way. This money is going to be donated to outside spending groups in very large amounts by very rich people. Much of the money will […]
The American Constitution Society Five Years Later, Citizens United Wreaks Havoc on Our Democracy By Fred Wertheimer, President, Democracy 21. Democracy 21 is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen democracy, prevent government corruption and empower citizens in the political process. On January 21, 2010, five Supreme Court justices rejected decades of the Court’s […]
The Stop Super PAC-Candidate Coordination Act (H.R. 425) sponsored by Representatives David Price (D-NC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD deals with two important campaign finance problems. The Act shuts down individual-candidate Super PACs and strengthens the rules that prohibit coordination between other outside spenders and candidates and parties. The provisions in the Act are also […]
The DISCLOSE Act is sponsored in the House by Representative Van Hollen and in the Senate by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and has been introduced in each of the past two Congresses. In the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court, while striking down the ban on corporate expenditures in federal elections, upheld, by an 8 […]
The Stop Super PAC-Candidate Coordination Act is also sponsored by Representatives Price and Van Hollen and contains just the super PAC/coordination provisions found in the Empowering Citizens Act. Both bills define a super PAC to be coordinated with a candidate when: – the super PAC is directly or indirectly established by or at the request […]
The Empowering Citizens Act, sponsored by Representatives David Price (D-NC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), is the most comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation in Congress. The legislation would repair the presidential public financing system, create a public financing system for congressional races, shut down individual-candidate super PACs and strengthen the rules prohibiting coordination between candidates […]
Five years ago today, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Citizens United, a 5 to 4 decision that has wreaked havoc on our democracy. Chief Justice Roberts and his four colleagues ignored the country’s history, the Court’s own jurisprudence and the need to protect America’s representative system of government against corruption. Instead, Citizens United […]
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