In her campaign against "The Man Who Would Be Virginia's Scott Walker," my wife, April Moore, has this morning put out a press release. Her statement, below, can speak for itself. But in introducing it, let me just say that the lawsuit in question -- threatened by the behind-the-scenes corporate powerhouse ALEC against the League of Conservation Voters -- represents one more manifestation of how the Big Money Power is subverting American democracy.
The arena for the abuse of power here is not directly connected with the electoral process. Rather it is an attempt of Big Money to strangle the public discourse on which a healthy democracy depends. It is an abuse of the legal system to silence those people who are doing the important job of being citizens in a democracy by telling the people the truth about what's going on.
This threatened suit is an instance of SLAPP, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
America's founders set up the court system as a means for achieving justice. But in suits like this, that purpose is turned on its head. It takes money to conduct a protracted legal struggle, and so the Big Money Power can defeat those who would stand up against it, who lack such deep pockets, by conducting a war of attrition.
It is a perversion of our fundamental democratic values, just as much as the buying of elections. A suit like this is a manifestation of how the plutocracy is stealing our democracy, just like the Citizens United decision, just like voter suppression, just like the drive of Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media system to drive millions of our countrymen into fear and confusion and misunderstanding.
As bad as all SLAPP suits are, this one -- even the threat of this one -- is particularly egregious. For it is on the subject of climate change that ALEC is seeking to silence its critics-- not by cleaning up its own act, in view of the enormous stakes, but by stomping out the very kind of speech that our founders would have hoped would alert the people to what needs doing. Nowhere is the darkness of this destructive force more evident than in its willingness to sacrifice the most vital needs of our children and grandchildren for its own short-term enrichment.
April's campaign (for the Virginia state senate) against an apparently willing servant of that force -- he's introduced ALEC's bills into the legislature, he's received a $60,000 campaign contribution from the Koch Brothers -- is one potentially dramatic fight in the large battle that we Americans must fight, and must win. (And it is this large battle that is the focus on my forthcoming book What We're Up Against: The Destructive Force at Work in Our World-- and How We Can Defeat It.)
It will be interesting to see how April's opponent responds to this challenge. Will he meet the challenge, and denounce the corporate power that seems to have picked him to be their guy (perhaps in the Virginia Governor's mansion)? Or will he hold fast to that allegiance, and bring into clearer public view his service to Big Money in its degradation of the gift of democracy that our founders bequeathed to us?
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The Text of the Press Release:
“I have said that Mark Obenshain has been serving Big Money – like Dominion Power, and the other big corporations behind the lobbying organization called ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) – rather than the citizens he’s been elected to represent. Mr. Obenshain has called my charges ‘baseless,’ without ever responding to the substance.
“I challenge Mr. Obenshain to demonstrate that he’s not the lackey of ALEC that his performance in the legislature suggests that he is, and to defend the values of our democracy that the evidence thus far suggests he’s prepared to trample.
“I challenge him to denounce ALEC for the un-American suit that ALEC is threatening against the League of Conservation Voters—a group of American citizens that has been calling out ALEC for its efforts to block responsible government action against climate change.
“Such a threat is a scandal. Since when, in America, do our corporate giants use their money and power to attempt to silence criticism by citizens of our country who are telling the truth on a vital issue? Since when is it OK for Big Money to bully Americans into not exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech?
“So I challenge Mark Obenshain to condemn ALEC for this democracy-degrading act of intimidation. I challenge him to put some distance between himself and this Big Money organization whose bills he has previously helped get enacted by Virginia’s General Assembly.”
(Here are links to two articles that provide more information about the lawsuit I’m describing. )