Citizen Lobbyists Push for Amendment to Limit Campaign Financing

Brought together by the nonprofit American Promise, about 50 citizens met with more than 50 Democratic and Republican members of Congress to lay the groundwork for passage of a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress and the states to limit corporate campaign contributions. In effect, such an amendment would address the Supreme Court's decision in Citizen's United and restore regulatory authority to the country's legislative bodies.

The lobbyists were organized and prepared, tempering their expectations in accordance with the political climate yet persisting in moving forward even as the nation continues to careen toward a democracy-defining election in November. This article looks at what they hoped to accomplish and what motivated them to come to Washington for this long, uphill effort.

Today’s United States is clearly one nation openly divided by two distinct visions of what it should be: an inclusive democracy where all eligible citizens are given an equal vote to determine who decides how the country is governed, or a one-party state controlled by elites who have turned their back on more than 200 years of voting progress. This is not a partisan accusation aimed at gaining an advantage in the contrived red v. blue political debate. It is a rejection that the red-blue competition defines this moment in our politics.

For us to move forward as a nation, we need to set aside the exaggerated differences that stir the red-blue conflict and focus again on the wealth of common ground that unites us.

Years of failing to fix our systemic problems have eroded the public’s faith in our democratic systems and made our democracy vulnerable to attacks from within. Part of the problem is the tendency for the incessant rush of headlines to distort, confuse, and otherwise push from view relevant stories before they can galvanize public sentiment. We think it’s time to change that.

Unlike the media that populates the daily infostream, The American Leader is single-minded in its focus on the deeper currents that have shaped and are re-shaping our world. We connect the dots between history and current events to better understand what needs to be done to address those systemic problems and make lasting change, and we report on the progress being made and the people in business and politics who are striving to move the needle.

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