Sunday, July 25, 2010

shaheen is out of touch

I herd back from shaheen a couple of days ago.

July 22, 2010



Dear Douglas,

Thank you for contacting my office about campaign finance reform.  I appreciate hearing from you about this important issue.

While elections in the United States are among the freest and most democratic in the world, I believe that our campaign financing system needs reform.  The amount of money needed to run a viable campaign is constantly growing and candidates are forced to spend more and more time fundraising. We should work to make the campaign fundraising and reporting process transparent and accessible to the public and consider other ways to bring campaign financing under control. 

That's why I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Fair Elections Now Act.  The bill would fundamentally reform the way elections work in our country by allowing qualified candidates to receive grants and matching funds to run competitive campaigns.  Under the new system, candidates would receive public funding by voluntarily limiting their fundraising to low-dollar donations from individuals.

Also, as you probably know, the Supreme Court recently struck down a long-standing prohibition on corporations using their funds on election activities such as airing television ads aimed at influencing voters immediately before an election.  I was very alarmed by this decision. As Justice Stevens said at the end of his dissent, "[w]hile American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics." That's why I am a cosponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, a bill crafted in response to the Supreme Court's decision. The DISCLOSE Act will help curb the influence of corporations and special interests in elections by requiring the head of any organization sponsoring a political ad, including corporate CEOs, to appear on camera during the ad, as is currently required of candidates for federal office; prohibiting political expenditures by federal government contractors and foreign corporations; and mandating more transparent political spending disclosure by corporations and advocacy groups.

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me and please do not hesitate to contact my office with any future concerns.  



Sincerely,

Jeanne Shaheen
United States Senator

I originally posted (and sent) this, again it proves that she does not know how to read.

No comments:

Post a Comment