This has vanished from their website, so here it is:
Thank You Cambridge!
Martin G. Evans
Treasurer, Citizens for a Democracy
Amendment
On November 6th. 2012, the
voters of Cambridge overwhelmingly supported the ballot question call
for the overturn of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United
Decision.
That foolish decision has resulted in a
flood of corporate and personal money into loosely regulated PAC's
which spewed an unpleasant stream of attack advertisements into the
swing states; yes, the Boston media benefited because neighboring New
Hampshire was deemed “in play.”
The voters of Cambridge came out in
overwhelming support for the ballot question 85% in favor. Even our
more conservative neighbors in Essex County, Boxford, Rowley, and
Georgetown had majorities in the high 50's. Scott Brown's home town
of Wrenthan voted 76% in favor, out polling Brown himself by 5.8%.
Massachusetts as a whole voted 79% and
similar margins were obtained in Montana, Colorado, and several
western cities. Clearly a constitutional amendment's time has come;
the Supreme Court's decision cannot be allowed to stand.
Passing a constitutional amendment is
not, in John Gardner's felicitous phrase, “for the short-winded.”
It will take time and perseverance in Massachusetts, in New England,
and across the nation. Here in Cambridge as well as these other
jurisdictions, we have given it a kick-start by passing this ballot
question by a large margin.
Now the real work begins:
As you know, constitutional amendments
requires passage by three super-majorities in the US Congress, the
US Senate, and by the State legislatures. These are high hurdles to
pass but we have managed to pass seventeen amendments since the Bill
of Rights was ratified in 1791.
The state legislature and 170
municipalities in the state have called for a Constitutional
Amendment by ballot question or local resolution. We the people have
spoken on this issue. Now it is time for our elected officials to
heed the call for change.
What can you do next?
Make
sure your Congressman and Senators are in support of such an
amendment; for the record, several different amendments focusing on
different aspects of the problem (corporate citizenship, money in
politics) have been proposed in the US House and Senate. If they are
in support give them encouragement. If they are silent on the issue
so far, please give them a push in the right direction.
We can also put pressure on our
Representatives and our Senators to support passage of the Disclose
Act which would provide some transparency as to who was funding the
PAC's and superPAC's. Prior to the Citizens United decision,
disclosure was the policy of the Republican party. The Citizens
United decision explicitly encouraged Congress to pass
legislation to ensure disclosure of the donors' identities.
Republicans have blocked this legislation in the past year; but after
the election, there may be a new window of opportunity.
Finally, write to the Securities and
Exchange Commission supporting Lucian Bebchuk's (Harvard Law School)
proposal that corporate political speech should be decided by
shareholders not by corporate boards. In the light of recent evidence
that big political spenders have lower profitability than other
companies this might result in a curbing of political money-speech.
Again thank you for supporting the
Democracy amendment.
