Allentown City Council is being asked to take a symbolic stand against money corrupting the American political system.
City councils in Bethlehem and Easton soon will be asked to do the same.
On Wednesday night, Allentown’s council was encouraged to pass a non-binding resolution “to get big money out of politics.”
“The large amounts of money tend to dilute democracy and the power of the people to present their grievances,” said Allentown resident Alan Shupe.
“Big money has no place in a democracy.”
Shupe told council that exactly five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that campaign contributions can be increased dramatically, “which had a very negative effect upon our democracy, at all levels of government.”
Shupe and Robert Trotner of Bethlehem addressed council on behalf of a grass-roots citizens organization called Represent.Us, which is pushing for legislative reforms, including passage of a federal bill called the American Anti-Corruption Act.
Trotner handed out copies of a proposed resolution to council members as Shupe told them: “We don’t expect you to pass it today, but we want to begin the process.”
Trotner told council: “For 220 years in this country, we had campaign finance regulations that worked fine.”
But he maintained that, since the Supreme Court decision, there has been “a major increase in corruption in our politics, which we haven’t experienced since the beginning of our country.”
He quoted President Obama, who criticized that Supreme Court ruling Wednesday by stating: "With each new campaign season, this dark money floods our airwaves with more and more political ads that pull our politics into the gutter.”
The proposed resolution maintains that court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, essentially removed limits on the amount of money that corporate, public interest, labor union and other political action committees (PACs) can collect and spend on political campaigns.
Trotner said he and Shupe hope to work with City Council in the coming weeks and months “to find whether this resolution or some other form of the resolution can be passed.”
He said: “We’re doing this in 200 cities across the country.” He claimed about 50 chapters of Represent.Us are going to city councils in each of those cities, in what he called a major initiative.
Responded Allentown council president Julio Guridy: “We’ll certainly take this into consideration and we’ll get back to you with a decision.”
Council member Ray O’Connell, who became the new council president shortly after the discussion, asked the men if they had been to any other legislative bodies in Lehigh County.
“We will be in the near future,” said Shupe. “We’re starting here.”
They plan to next take their resolution to city councils in Bethlehem and Easton.
That proposed resolution calls for removing “the influence of money on our national, state and local political system.”
Its specific suggestions include:
• Prohibiting politicians from taking campaign money from industries they regulate.
• Increasing transparency for campaign funding.
• Empowering all voters, through a modest tax rebate voucher, to contribute to candidates they support.
• Prohibiting representatives and their senior staff from all lobbying actions for five years after they leave office.
• Placing limits on the amount so-called SuperPACs can raise and spend.
from 69News:Home http://ift.tt/15ebGp5
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