Can things get still worse in Washington?
Yes, they can. And they will, if the Supreme Court decides for corporations and against real human beings and their democracy in a case the Court will be hearing today, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
For those still clinging to quaint
notions of the American ideal, these have been a faith-shaking 10
years. Just as evolutionary science once got in the way of
creationists’ catechism, so has politics now undermined patriots’ naive
belief that the United States is a functioning democracy.
Once an election is done, it is hard to undo.
That's true in Iran, and it's also true in the United States.
This is why it is important to get the rules by which elections are held right before elections are held.
For this reason, one of the essential components of the Voting Rights
Act -- arguably its most powerful tool for combating discrimination and
disenfranchisement -- has long been a requirement that officials get
approval from the Department of Justice before they change the way in
which elections are conducted.
"As an elected official, I think I
am the only person I know of who is supposed to take large amounts of
money from private individuals who very much want me to do a certain
thing and then act as if they haven't given it to me, to ignore the
money. I'm supposed to be a perfect ingrate and that's hard to do,
given human nature." Barney Frank, D-Mass. During a 2006 interview with
Etopia Media
On Tuesday, Los Angeles reached a new, all-time low for voter turnout in a mayoral election. Contrary to the claim in a L.A. Times editorial that the abysmally low voter turnout was not "bottom scraping," the thirteen percent turnout was in fact as bottom of the barrel as it gets. Sure, it could get lower-but it hasn't before.
"Bottom scraping" or not, thirteen percent voter turnout for a mayoral election is hardly cause for civic celebration.
We raised money -- $100 million over the last 17 years -- for candidates and ballot initiatives. Known as "fortune tellers," we "delivered" big bags of "doughnuts" (campaign contributions) to our clients -- sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. And as reformed sinners, we are here to tell you that the current system is not just broken, it is irrevocably broken.
