Forum Post: Some reasonable "demands", but more like suggestions.
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 13, 2011, 2:26 a.m. EST by shadaxgale
(230)
from Oswego, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
"1. Institute term limits. 8 years maximum for any and all nationally elected servants. If two 4 year terms are enough for any one man to hold the highest elected public servant office of President, that should also hold true for other public servants in lesser offices.
Eliminate ALL company and non-profit contributions to political candidates. Only private U.S. citizens should be allowed to donate to any U.S. political candidate, and donations should have an individual donor cap.
Eliminate ALL PAID corporate and non-profit lobbyists. Our elected officials are there to serve us, We The People, not anything or anybody else.
Eliminate the need for candidates to have to buy advertising to campaign. During election times, media should have the choice to participate. If they wish to participate, then they should provide free equal air time to all political candidates. Local media providing for local elections, and national media providing for national elections."
How about eliminating paid election ads entirely and if candidates wish to appear in media, it has to be via debate. Interviews are allowed as long as all candidates are given equal time?
The problem with virtually all of your suggestions is that they would almost certainly be overuled by the Supreme Court because money is considered "speech" and corporations are considered "persons". We need a constitutional amendment to overturn this decision before we can make any meaningful legislative reform.
Removing the personhood factor from them is one of the proposed things on the gianttttt list that surfaced last week, i believe
Sounds good. Thom Hartmann has a good analysis of this subject and I think he's right. Unless we remove the fundamental power of corporate "personhood", any laws we pass will only be temporarily effective.
Regarding #1...
just to clear up some confusion about the Citizen's United decision which sees to be a topic w/ OWS.
I think many here are misinformed as to what it does and does not allow:
"The case did NOT involve the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties, which REMAIN ILLEGAL in races for federal office"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
numbered wrong, but it was copied...my bad!