June, 08 2016, 10:30am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Angela Bradbery, abradbery@citizen.org, (202) 588-7741
Don Owens, dowens@citizen.org, (202) 588-7767
Groups Tell President Obama: It Is Time to Move on Democracy Issues
With Election Looming, Secret Money in Politics and Attacks on Voting Rights Protections Must Be Addressed
WASHINGTON
As Election Day approaches, time is running out for the Obama administration and Congress to enact democracy reforms, a national coalition of organizations said today.
At a press conference in front of the White House, the groups urged all Americans to voice their support for the administration to take action to curb the influence of money in politics and to insist that Congress act now to ensure equal access to the ballot box for all eligible Americans.
Speakers called for the president to issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose political spending. They also urged him to reaffirm his call for Congress to make the legislative changes necessary to repair and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and restore the protections against voting discrimination that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder.
Also today, allies of more than 20 groups will flood the White House with calls urging quick action by the president to issue an executive order requiring disclosure of secret money in politics. The groups are listed at the end of this release.
"Our democracy is in crisis. Big Money is dominating our elections, and voters across the country are systematically being denied the franchise. Americans of all political stripes are united by their outrage and demand for action," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "With the clock ticking down on President Obama's tenure in the White House, it is vital that he issue a clarion call for far-reaching reform, including legislative action and a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's devastating Shelby County and Citizens United decisions. But he must do more than call for action; he must take the remedial action he can, most importantly by issuing an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their political spending."
"Today, we continue to fight for change on many fronts, but an array of restrictive voting laws are keeping regular Americans shut out of the political process with the goal of suppressing the voting rights of people of color, seniors, students and low-income Americans," said Hilary Shelton, director, NAACP Washington bureau and senior vice president for policy and advocacy. "As we face the first presidential election in 50 years without the protections of the Voting Rights Act, Congress must act now and pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Voter Empowerment Act. Together these would restore the protections against voting discrimination that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Shelby County v. Holder decision, make additional, critical updates to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, modernize voter registration, prevent deceptive practices that keep people from the ballot box and ensure equal access to voting for all."
"Wall Street's deregulated, anti-union, trickle-down, one percent economics are being propped up by out-of-control campaign donations to our elected officials," said Chris Shelton, president of Communications Workers of America. "We're calling on President Obama to sign an executive order that requires government contractors that benefit from taxpayer dollars to disclose their political spending. Americans deserve a democracy that works for all Americans, one in which everyone has an equal voice and elected officials are accountable to the people, not the wealthy."
"Business leaders should not be trying to game the system to give themselves unfair advantages, or as Ayn Rand called it, looting," said Bryan McGannon, director of policy at the American Sustainable Business Council. "Instead, business leaders should focus on competition and entrepreneurship. Small business owners understand this. In a national, scientific poll, the American Sustainable Business Council found that 66 percent of small business owners opposed unrestricted campaign spending. They want the system changed. They don't want their entrepreneurial spirit undercut by legacy industries that can't win in a fair fight. They know that for our economy to prosper, we must limit opportunities to purchase policy and corrupt the Congress. This can best be accomplished with spending restraints and radical transparency about who is trying to buy whom."
"President Obama has time and again voiced his commitment to a democracy where everyone can participate and every voice is heard, and now is the time to act on that commitment," said Marge Baker, executive vice president of People For the American Way. "With a stroke of his pen, the president can help shine a light on secret corporate political spending that distorts our democracy. And he can use his bully pulpit to reaffirm his call for the restoration of voting protections in the wake of the Shelby County decision. As the country prepares for an election that's expected to be the most expensive in history, where voters are already facing long lines and other barriers to participation, the time for President Obama to take action in support of a working democracy is now."
"The very corporations that are polluting our air, water and land are also polluting our democracy by spending outrageous sums of money to influence the outcome of elections and policy-making - and American families are often left in the dark," said Debbie Sease, senior lobbying and advocacy director for the Sierra Club. "With a swipe of his pen, President Obama can begin to lift the curtain on secretive corporate election spending and let in some light."
"Pope Francis tells us that a good Catholic meddles in politics and that we have a moral obligation to fight for justice," said Laura Peralta-Schulte, senior government relations advocate for NETWORK. "The way we answer our faithful call to participate is by voting. NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice calls on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act so that all can exercise their fundamental right to vote. We also ask President Obama to act immediately and shine a light on the massive amount of money being poured into the political system, which distorts both our votes and our voices."
"Working with our allies, Common Cause has helped deliver more than 1 million signatures to the president, placed tens of thousands of phone calls to the White House, and seen thousands more Americans take to the streets to protest a democracy that is dangerously unbalanced," said Scott Swenson, vice president for communications at Common Cause. "With the stroke of his pen, President Obama can shift the entire national debate from billionaires and boardrooms to what each American needs to do to engage and fight back. Every opinion poll verifies that lopsided majorities of Americans of every race, creed, color and political persuasion want to limit money's influence and restore balance, ensuring we all have a voice and a vote on policies impacting our families' futures. It's time for the president to match his eloquent pleas for 'a better politics' with action to deliver it."
"Big Oil, the pesticide industry and other dirty companies pour millions into campaign contributions to make sure our elected officials protect their profits over people and the planet," said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. "If President Obama makes Big Polluters' political spending public, we'll be able to hold these corporations accountable for how they influence our politics." "We understand how the influence of big money in politics and voter suppression laws impact not just our work, our political system, and our lives--but the lives of our children, who will inherit our democracy. This is a moment where we make a choice as a country--we either move forward, or we stand still," said Michele Jawando, vice president of the Center for American Progress action fund. "We move forward with reforms to strengthen our democracy, eliminate the improperinfluence of money in politics, and ensure that every eligible American can cast a vote that will be counted, or we stand still as big money continues to dominate our elections and our public policy, and our democracy becomes unrecognizable. Today, we are urging the administration and Congress to move forward to restore our democracy--for our sakes, for the sake of our nation, and for the sake of children's future."
The groups organizing the call-in day are American Family Voices, Avaaz, Campaign for America's Future, Center for Biological Diversity, Change.org, Common Cause, Communications Workers of America, Corporate Accountability International, Courage Campaign, Daily Kos, Democracy For America, Every Voice, Food & Water Watch, Franciscan Action Network, Free Speech for People, Friends of the Earth, NETWORK, People For the American Way, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, StampStampede and U.S. PIRG.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
'We Cannot Be Silent': Tlaib Leads 19 US Lawmakers Demanding Israel Stop Starving Gaza
"This current blockade is starving Palestinian civilians in violation of international law, and the militarization of food will not help."
Jun 30, 2025
As the death toll from Israel's forced starvation of Palestinians continues to rise amid the ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege of the Gaza Strip, Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday led 18 congressional colleagues in a letter demanding that the Trump administration push for an immediate cease-fire, an end to the Israeli blockade, and a resumption of humanitarian aid into the embattled coastal enclave.
"We are outraged at the weaponization of humanitarian aid and escalating use of starvation as a weapon of war by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people in Gaza," Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—and the other lawmakers wrote in their letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "For over three months, Israeli authorities have blocked nearly all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, fueling mass starvation and suffering among over 2 million people. This follows over 600 days of bombardment, destruction, and forced displacement, and nearly two decades of siege."
"According to experts, 100% of the population is now at risk of famine, and nearly half a million civilians, most of them children, are facing 'catastrophic' conditions of 'starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels,'" the legislators noted. "These actions are a direct violation of both U.S. and international humanitarian law, with devastating human consequences."
Gaza officials have reported that hundreds of Palestinians—including at least 66 children—have died in Gaza from malnutrition and lack of medicine since Israel ratcheted up its siege in early March. Earlier this month, the United Nations Children's Fund warned that childhood malnutrition was "rising at an alarming rate," with 5,119 children under the age of 5 treated for the life-threatening condition in May alone. Of those treated children, 636 were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, the most lethal form of the condition.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 others have been injured as Israeli occupation forces carry out near-daily massacres of desperate people seeking food and other humanitarian aid at or near distribution sites run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israel Defense Forces officers and troops have said that they were ordered to shoot and shell aid-seeking Gazans, even when they posed no threat.
"This is not aid," the lawmakers' letter argues. "UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has warned that, under the GHF, 'aid distribution has become a death trap.' We cannot allow this to continue."
"We strongly oppose any efforts to dismantle the existing U.N.-led humanitarian coordination system in Gaza, which is ready to resume operations immediately once the blockade is lifted," the legislators wrote. "Replacing this system with the GHF further restricts lifesaving aid and undermines the work of long-standing, trusted humanitarian organizations. The result of this policy will be continued starvation and famine."
"We cannot be silent. This current blockade is starving Palestinian civilians in violation of international law, and the militarization of food will not help," the lawmakers added. "We demand an immediate end to the blockade, an immediate resumption of unfettered humanitarian aid entry into Gaza, the restoration of U.S. funding to UNRWA, and an immediate and lasting cease-fire. Any other path forward is a path toward greater hunger, famine, and death."
Since launching the retaliatory annihilation of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 56,531 Palestinians and wounded more than 133,600 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which also says over 14,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Upward of 2 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated a call for a cease-fire deal that would secure the release of the remaining 22 living Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas.
In addition to Tlaib, the letter to Rubio was signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic Reps. Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Henry "Hank"Johnson (Ga.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Chellie Pingree (Maine), Mark Pocan (Wisc.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Paul Tonko (N.Y.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden National Security Adviser Among Those Crafting 'Project 2029' Policy Agenda for Democrats
"Jake Sullivan's been a critical decision-maker in every Democratic catastrophe of the last decade," said one observer. "Why is he still in the inner circle?"
Jun 30, 2025
Amid the latest battle over the direction the Democratic Party should move in, a number of strategists and political advisers from across the center-left's ideological spectrum are assembling a committee to determine the policy agenda they hope will be taken up by a Democratic successor to President Donald Trump.
Some of the names on the list of people crafting the agenda—named Project 2029, an echo of the far-right Project 2025 blueprint Trump is currently enacting—left progressives with deepened concerns that party insiders have "learnt nothing" and "forgotten nothing" from the president's electoral victories against centrist Democratic candidates over the past decade, as one economist said.
The project is being assembled by former Democratic speechwriter Andrei Cherny, now co-founder of the policy journal Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and includes Jake Sullivan, a former national security adviser under the Biden administration; Jim Kessler, founder of the centrist think tank Third Way; and Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and longtime adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Progressives on the advisory board for the project include economist Justin Wolfers and former Roosevelt Institute president Felicia Wong, but antitrust expert Hal Singer said any policy agenda aimed at securing a Democratic victory in the 2028 election "needs way more progressives."
As The New York Times noted in its reporting on Project 2029, the panel is being convened amid extensive infighting regarding how the Democratic Party can win back control of the White House and Congress.
After democratic socialist and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani's (D-36) surprise win against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week in New York City's mayoral primary election—following a campaign with a clear-eyed focus on making childcare, rent, public transit, and groceries more affordable—New York City has emerged as a battleground in the fight. Influential Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have so far refused to endorse him and attacked him for his unequivocal support for Palestinian rights.
Progressives have called on party leaders to back Mamdani, pointing to his popularity with young voters, and accept that his clear message about making life more affordable for working families resonated with Democratic constituents.
But speaking to the Times, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake exemplified how many of the party's strategists have insisted that candidates only need to package their messages to voters differently—not change the messages to match the political priorities of Mamdani and other popular progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
"We didn't lack policies," Lake told the Times of recent national elections. "But we lacked a functioning narrative to communicate those policies."
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have drawn crowds of thousands in red districts this year at Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy rallies—another sign, progressives say, that voters are responding to politicians who focus on billionaires' outsized control over the U.S. political system and on economic justice.
Project 2029's inclusion of strategists like Kessler, who declared economic populism "a dead end for Democrats" in 2013, demonstrates "the whole problem [with Democratic leadership] in a nutshell," said Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass—as does Sullivan's seat on the advisory board.
As national security adviser to President Joe Biden, Sullivan played a key role in the administration's defense and funding of Israel's assault on Gaza, which international experts and human rights groups have said is a genocide.
"Jake Sullivan's been a critical decision-maker in every Democratic catastrophe of the last decade: Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Israel/Gaza War, and the 2024 Joe Biden campaign," said Nick Field of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. "Why is he still in the inner circle?"
"Jake Sullivan is shaping domestic policy for the next Democratic administration," he added. "Who is happy with the Biden foreign policy legacy?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rick Scott Pushes Amendment to GOP Budget Bill That Could Kick Millions More Off Medicaid
Scott's proposal for more draconian cuts has renewed scrutiny regarding his past as a hospital executive, where he oversaw the "largest government fraud settlement ever," which included stealing from Medicaid.
Jun 30, 2025
Sen. Rick Scott has introduced an amendment to the Republican budget bill that would slash another $313 million from Medicaid and kick off millions more recipients.
The latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that 17 million people could lose their health insurance by 2034 as the result of the bill as it already exists.
According to a preliminary estimate by the Democrats on the Joint Congressional Economic Committee, that number could balloon up to anywhere from 20 to 29 million if Scott's (R-Fla.) amendment passes.
The amendment will be voted on as part of the Senate's vote-a-rama, which is expected to run deep into Monday night and possibly into Tuesday morning.
"If Sen. Rick Scott's amendment gets put forward, this would be a self-inflicted healthcare crisis," said Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress.
The existing GOP reconciliation package contains onerous new restrictions, including new work requirements and administrative hurdles, that will make it harder for poor recipients to claim Medicaid benefits.
Scott's amendment targets funding for the program by ending the federal government's 90% cost sharing for recipients who join Medicaid after 2030. Those who enroll after that date would have their medical care reimbursed by the federal government at a lower rate of 50%.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the increased rate in 2010 to incentivize states to expand Medicaid, allowing more people to be covered.
Scott has said his program would "grandfather" in those who had already been receiving the 90% reimbursement rate.
However, Medicaid is run through the states, which will have to spend more money to keep covering those who need the program after 2030.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that this provision "would shift an additional $93 billion in federal Medicaid funding to states from 2031 through 2034 on top of the cuts already in the Senate bill."
This will almost certainly result in states having to cut back, by introducing their stricter requirements or paperwork hurdles.
Additionally, nine states have "trigger laws" that are set to end the program immediately if the federal matching rate is reduced: Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
The Joint Congressional Economic Committee estimated Tuesday that around 2.5 million more people will lose their insurance as a result of those cuts.
If all the states with statutory Medicaid expansion ended it as a result of Scott's cuts, as many as 12.5 million could lose their insurance. Combined with the rest of the bill, that's potentially 29 million people losing health insurance coverage, the committee said.
A chart shows how many people are estimated to lose healthcare coverage with each possible version of the GOP bill.(Chart: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats)
There are enough Republicans in the Senate to pass the bill with Scott's amendment. However, they can afford no more than three defections. According to Politico, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have signaled they will vote against the amendment.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) also said he'd "have a hard time" voting yes on the bill if Scott's amendment passed. His state of West Virginia has the second-highest rate of people using federal medical assistance of any state in the country, behind only Mississippi.
Critics have called out Scott for lying to justify this line of cuts. In a recent Fox News appearance, Scott claimed that his new restrictions were necessary to stop Democrats who want to "give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits," even though they are not eligible for the program.
Scott's proposal has also brought renewed scrutiny to his past as a healthcare executive.
"Ironically enough, some of the claims against Scott's old hospital company revolved around exploiting Medicaid, and billing for services that patients didn't need," wrote Andrew Perez in Rolling Stone Monday.
In 2000, Scott's hospital company, HCA, was forced to pay $840 million in fines, penalties, and damages to resolve claims of unlawful billing practices in what was called the "largest government fraud settlement ever." Among the charges were that during Scott's tenure, the company overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by pretending patients were sicker than they actually were.
The company entered an additional settlement in 2003, paying out another $631 million to compensate for the money stolen from these and other government programs.
Scott himself was never criminally charged, but resigned in 1997 as the Department of Justice began to probe his company's activities. Despite the scandal, Scott not only became a U.S. senator, but is the wealthiest man in Congress, with a net worth of more than half a billion dollars.
The irony of this was not lost on Perez, who wrote: "A few decades later, Scott is now trying to extract a huge amount of money from state Medicaid funds to help finance Trump's latest round of tax cuts for the rich."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular