Today’s badly broken campaign finance system benefits wealthy interests, and leaves hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans on the outside looking in at Washington’s rigged system.
Today’s campaign finance system floods Washington with unprecedented levels of influence-seeking and influence-buying campaign money. It is an unfair and corrupt system. It is also an obscene system where, for example, former President Donald Trump reportedly told top oil executives they should raise $1 billion for him. In return Trump said he would, if elected, immediately reverse […]
“If money is buying influence and results over government policies, then most Americans are shut out, because the campaign finance system is dominated by people who are putting up very large sums of money.” – D21 President Fred Wertheimer There’s a corner of the 1970s Watergate scandal with far-reaching impact, according to National Public Radio’s Planet Money in […]
Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD), joined by Representatives Joe Neguse (D-CO), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), and Chellie Pingree (D-ME), recently reintroduced the Government By The People Act, which would establish a small-donor campaign matching program for candidates running for the House of Representatives. Democracy 21 strongly endorses the Government By The People Act, essential legislation that would help […]
“States and municipalities aren’t waiting for Congress to lead on limiting big money in politics,” Democracy 21 advisor Matt Keller and Christine Wood, co-director of the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, write in an op-ed published in The Hill. “All in all, 14 states and more than 20 localities provide the option for candidates to take advantage […]
In this week’s note, Fred examines two issues in the news — first, the growing dangerous rhetoric coming from former President Donald Trump, and second, Washington’s corrupting campaign finance system and the record-breaking growth of influence-seeking money in politics. >> Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric An adage among lawyers goes like this: “If the facts are on […]
Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the “Saturday Night Massacre” – the firing of Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox in October 1973 that set off a firestorm and created a constitutional crisis. The Watergate scandals led to Richard Nixon’s resignation, the first and only resignation of a President, and spurred a series of historic […]
Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | March 30, 2023 Presidential and congressional candidates from both parties, a feckless Federal Election Commission (FEC), and a Supreme Court majority extremely hostile to campaign finance laws have combined to eviscerate federal contribution limits – a key to restricting political money corruption in Washington. The result: a campaign finance system […]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) today reintroduced the DISCLOSE Act to continue his decade-long effort to end secret contributions, or “dark money,” from being spent in federal elections. The Act was first introduced in 2010 by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Chris van Hollen (D-MD) and has been introduced and advocated by Senator Whitehouse in […]
Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | October 27, 2022 As we head into the final days of the midterm elections, Americans are facing two fundamental threats to our democracy. Threat One: Baseless attacks on our elections, led by former President Trump and his followers, are dangerously undermining the faith of tens of millions of Americans in […]
Democracy 21 today strongly urged the Senate to vote to invoke cloture and support enactment of S. 4822, the DISCLOSE Act, when it comes to the floor this week. The DISCLOSE Act would require 501(c)(4) dark money groups which spend money in federal elections to promptly disclose donors who have given $10,000 or more during […]
Sign up for Democracy 21’s email list(s) to receive “Wertheimer’s Political Report” our weekly newsletter released every Thursday and/or our regular news releases. (And, we won’t share your email.)
