By Kilian Korth & Aquene Freechild
As we ready ourselves for another drawn out presidential election cycle, big money donors are already opening their wallets. The Koch brothers and their buddies have announced that they’re planning to spend $889 million to support conservative candidates. That’s about what each of the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns spent in the last election.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the top 195 individual donors gave 60 percent of the super PAC money spent. There was $60 million in outside spending in the 2014 Iowa Senate race alone. (OpenSecrets data accessed on Friday, February 27, 2015)
In response, former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, in collaboration with Public Citizen and the Iowa 4 Democracy coalition helped launch the Iowa Resolutions Week Campaign. The coalition is working to pass at least a dozen local resolutions in Iowa in the next few months calling for an amendment to overturn Citizens United.
Similar local efforts have led to the passage of state-level resolutions. Just last week, Iowa's Black Hawk County unanimously passed a resolution calling for an amendment. The momentum is growing.
While the Koch brothers and trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce funnel dark money into elections to diminish the voice of the public, citizens are standing up and demanding fair elections. More than 5 million people have signed petitions calling for an amendment to get money out of politics.
Add your signature to the millions of others who believe that it’s voters – not dollars – who should decide who governs. Iowa is well on its way to joining the 16 other states that have called for an amendment, but your support is absolutely vital.
Our democracy is not something that can be stolen from us by a few big donors and corporations. The people’s voice is not represented by billion-dollar corporations. A democracy is run by the people, for the people. We are the people. We have the power. And we can show the wealthiest corporations that we will take our democracy back.
Add your name to the Iowa 4 Democracy Petition today.
Kilian Korth is a student at American University & Aquene Freechild is the Campaign Co-Director of Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People Campaign.