It is no coincidence that last session saw both record amounts of special-interest money flowing into campaigns, and the most dysfunctional and disliked congress in history. If we want to rise to the challenges of today, we need a political system that listens to and works for voters, not just contributors.
Usually, I focus on one aspect of this problem — reforming the voting system to end gerrymandering and make parties more accountable to voters. But yesterday, Lawrence Lessig's group United Republic (aka represent.us) came out with the American Anti-Corruption Act. This is an integrated approach to ending bribery and corruption in the Citizens United era.
The act would strengthen restrictions on lobbyists; end the "revolving door"; ensure disclosure of super PAC money, and prevent the rampant cheating on super-PAC "coordination"; and put teeth in the FEC's independence and enforcement. But most importantly, it would give each of us taxpayers a $100 tax rebate to donate to politicians — but only if they agreed to limit contributions to $500 max per contributor. This amonts to billions of voter-powered dollars which would put citizen-funded campaigns on an even footing with corporate sellouts.
There is a big campaign to pass this. We have initial support from across the political spectrum, and if they can get and keep momentum, we have a real fighting chance. To be a part of it, watch the video below and then sign up as a citizen co-sponsor. (If you want to acknowledge that I sent you, you can sign up here; otherwise, just go to represent.us and sign up independently.)
Here's their video:
Note: There was a diary about this yesterday, but it's worth highlighting again, because this is an important effort.