As a supporter of the Occupy movement, I was considering ways we can all get involved and actually make a difference.
There is a move afoot to amend the Constitution to ban donations to candidates running for federal office.
This is, of course, in response to the Supreme Court decision giving corporations unlimited influence on elections through unlimited money as speech.
Consider the fact that 94 percent of the time, the candidate with the most money wins. This fact alone should be enough to alarm us.
The actions of our elected representatives are clearly influenced by who is funding them and not the needs or wishes of the voters.
One of the majority votes in the Citizens United case was cast by Clarence Thomas, who just that same year had failed to report that his wife was paid $1.6 million for work with a D.C. think tank whose main project that year was a favorable decision in this very case.
While this is clearly a major breach of ethics, I am tired of waiting for Congress to investigate. Let’s take the pressure of all of this money off their hands.
A candidate for Senate has to raise $10,000 a week just to run for re-election. The system is designed to make our federal representatives accountable to the group with the most money or they will not get that money.
Please get involved and sign the petition on the Get the Money Out website and together with the groundswell of dissatisfaction of the 99 percent of us, we may just get something important done without them.
And be suspicious of any public official who argues against this plan.
Eric Ofsthus
Lake Stevens
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