Congress - Global Exchange

Israel’s collective punishment of the 2.3 million people of Gaza – half of whom are children – who are unable to escape the violence and who are starving as supplies of food and water run out must stop now.

Global Exchange joined millions around the world to urge restraint. You, our members, signed thousands of appeals to President Biden and our U.S. Representatives, pleading with them to use wisdom with their immense power and influence to stay the hand of Israeli vengeance and to keep the road of reconciliation open.

They did not listen but we must insist: All life is sacred and civilians deserve protection. To get to peace we eventually have to end Israeli occupation, reverse their settlement policies and establish security for everyone, but at this critical moment we call for:

Immediate ceasefire!

To bring you a fresh and in depth perspective from the conflict zone, Global Exchange is working closely with our longtime partner, Ernesto Ledesma of Rompeviento.TV who has started reporting from the occupied West Bank. This reporting is costly and risky, but we do it in the spirit of reaching out and building “people-to-people ties” and human solidarity even in the most dangerous and stressful times.

Learn more and take action here.

This April Fool’s day, prank with purpose.

Send your Senator and Representative a ‘Do Not Disturb’ door hanger that keeps corporate lobbyists OUT of their office.

These door hangers are a little funny, but the corrosive influence of money in politics is no laughing matter.

Sign up to send a door hanger today.

Take a stand in the spirit of April Fool’s day. It takes less than a minute to sign up. You can select for us to email your door hanger directly to your Senator and Representative, or we can mail it to you so you can send it directly to your elected official.

Sign up by March 22nd to get your door hanger to elected officials in time for April Fool’s Day.

Why Tell Corporate Lobbyists ‘Do Not Disturb’ Democracy?

Since 2007, nearly $20 billion has been spent on lobbying government.
The vast majority of lobbying spending is at the behest of corporations which can afford to lobby for policies that protect and expend profits and minimize even the most essential regulations, often at the expense of the well-being of constituents, our economy and our environment.
Nearly a third of that $20 billion spent lobbying is from just three sectors: Wall Street, Dirty Energy (Oil & Gas) Industries, and the Defense Sector, which spent $2.7 billion, $2.3 billion, and $821 million lobbying, respectively.
Calculated another way, Dirty Trinity has spent $2,252 per minute, every minute, for the past five years to influence *your* elected officials.
It costs us around $5 to print and mail these door hangers to your elected official.

TAKE ACTION:

1) Sign Up!
2) Spread the word– help get others to sign up and send a Do Not Disturb door hanger to their elected officials.

Facebook: Share this doorhanger image and encourage your friends to sign up!
Twitter: Click here to tweet, “Your Congressman needs this doorhanger. Srsly. twitpic.com/c8p9al Sign up and send one for free: http://bit.ly/XSzIMG“

3) Learn more about Wall Street money in politics and what our Elect Democracy campaign does to stop it.

4) Chip In: Help us raise $1,883 to print and mail ‘Do Not Disturb” door hangers to every single member of Congress!

Well, we certainly kicked off the new year with a bang.

Last week, from coast to coast, broadcasts of stirring inauguration speeches were met with the demands of people calling for a real and vital change: Inaugurate Democracy: Represent US!

Global Exchange contingent at the Money OUT, Voters IN rally targeting Chevron’s money in politics in Richmond, CA, Jan. 19, 2013.

Our journey in bringing the call for change began in Richmond, California on Saturday Jan. 19th. Hundreds gathered outside a Chevron refinery to demand justice, stating that the millions spent by Chevron on local, state, and national elections should in no way dwarf the very real needs and voices of actual voters. Global Exchange brought our Inaugurate Democracy signs and postcard petitions which were signed by hundreds of participants in Richmond that day.

The next day I hopped on a flight to Washington DC to bring our message straight to the decision-makers who need to hear it most: our very own elected officials.

Bringing out Money OUT, Voters IN petitions that were signed at the rally targeting Chevron’s money in politics in Richmond, CA, Jan. 19, 2013 all the way to Washington DC to #InaugurateDemocracy!

We created a banner that said, “$$$ Out” made of our signed petitions, and took a photo in the freezing 13 degree windy weather in front of the Washington Monument. Wow, it was cold indeed. But it was all worth it, because the voices of the hundreds who signed our petitions will be heard by Congress. If you haven’t signed our petition yet, we can still make sure it gets delivered to Congress!

Have you received a response from your petition?? If so let us know: email hillary {at} globalexchange.org. We’ll keep petition-signers updated with any responses as well.

People visiting DC last week say: "#InaugurateDemocracy! Money OUT, Voters IN!"

Taking our message to the White House: #InaugurateDemocracy: Money OUT, Voters IN!

While in DC, I had several meetings with folks from organizations including the Sunlight Foundation about how to best utilize their incredible tools such as www.PoliticalPartyTime.org and Influence Explorer to trace the influence of lobbyists. I am so inspired by the work we are all doing to challenge the undue influence of corporate money in politics!

Together, we are inaugurating democracy in 2013–organizing our extensive people power directly to restore and protect our democracy so that we may create the just and sustainable future that we deserve.

Chevron Rally: Money OUT, Voters IN! 1-19-13

TAKE ACTION:

Sign Global Exchange’s petition: Money Out, Voters In!

Chevron Rally: Money OUT, Voters IN marching contingent in Richmond, CA! 1-19-13

Arianna DeMario, Elect Democracy Campaign Intern Extraordinaire

The following is a guest post by Arianna DeMario. Arianna is currently supporting the Elect Democracy campaign as an intern/volunteer. Before moving to the States, she worked as a project manager at Citizens For Europe e.V., an NGO based in Berlin, Germany, mainly active in the field of European citizenship and migrants’ political rights in the European Union.

A European Perspective on the 2012 U.S. Election

In my past two months here in the States, I have been asked numerous times how it felt -from a European point of view- to witness the 2012 U.S. electoral campaign and presidential elections from here in the U.S. But actually no European could answer this question without referring first to the initial impact of the previous elections in 2008.

By 2008, after 8 years of Bush era, a big slice of the European public opinion had lost their traditional admiration and interest in American politics and in Americans in general. The American dream, from the point of view of the old continent, was long over, and the U.S. had become for many not much more than a synonym of imperialism justified by the war on terror, social inequality, and environmental unconsciousness.

Then Obama happened. The electoral campaign of 2008 was maybe more passionate for most Europeans than Americans, with people supporting the Democrat candidate and engaging in various ways from Scandinavia to Southern Europe, in some cases moving to the States for some months to work with the Democrats. In July 2008, 200.000 people went crazy in Berlin listening to his speech under the Victory Column. In Europe, Obama had won longer before the elections of November 4th, because he had managed to bring back to Europe the American dream. Some months later, Americans did elect him. And the vote was so strong that everybody on the other side of the Atlantic had to recognise the fact that in spite of all that came out of the Bush era, American citizens had the courage to renew themselves and believe that a better country (and world) was possible.

The truth is, despite the support that Obama gained in Europe, I doubt that Europeans would have had the same courage and elected him, if they were to go to polls. In fact, a few months later we elected the most right-wing and regressive European Parliament ever (EP elections in June 2009).

That year, for the first time after a while, the U.S. gave Europe a lesson of democracy.

Then reality bit back. A couple of years later, Obama had proved not to have the magic wand to solve problems accumulated by years of bad governance, and not to be able to live up to such huge worldwide expectations. Most of his 2008 promises hadn’t turned into facts, the U.S. economy was not exactly blowing, and little had been done to reduce the Wall Street power and redistribute wealth from the 1% to the 99% in the American society.

Disillusion was deep on both sides of the Atlantic, and especially after the mid-term elections of 2010 American politics seemed to be meant to go back to the bad loop once again.

As if it wasn’t enough, the story of the Super PACs entered the game with the 2012 elections. Billions of private funding to the electoral campaign allowed by a ruling of the Federal Court…this would be science fiction in Europe, where most countries don’t even integrate lobbying practices in their political system and reject the idea of group of interests being able to influence the policy making. If all the above-mentioned conditions would have happened in the disenchanted, critical and politically unfaithful Europe, you can be sure that it would have been enough for a significant part of the European electorate to turn away from the previously much beloved candidate and fall into the hands of the first talented populist passing by. Those less impressionable would have nonetheless turned away their vote and either have given it to the other main candidate as a punishment or done what Europeans can do better in times of political disillusion: abstain. But once again, in 2012, a big democracy lesson came from the American citizen: For better or for worse, voting still remains one of the strongest democracy tools in the hands of the people (though a healthy democracy needs much more civic engagement, of course). As long as we don’t have valuable alternatives, there is no point in not making use of it. Of course the American vote, in most cases, was not a vote for the best as 4 years ago, but just a vote for the less worse…but still it showed the courage of American citizens to believe that it’s worth to give democracy one more chance.

The results that Tuesday night shot down much of the billions of dollars spent by some Super PACs to indirectly support the Republican campaign and influence the election results. This showed that the system of the big interests and the big money has an Achilles heel- it still can be beaten by participation. It shows that if people don’t turn away from politics, there is always a chance to shape a future that if it’s not going to be much better, at least is not going to be worse. It showed that if Obama can’t bring the change that he promised in 2008 (be it because of a lack of political will, or be it because of a lack of political power, with the House in the hands of the Republicans), people can do it by choosing not to have their vote sold to the highest bidder…

The day after the election Wall Street opened down: It can be defeated after all, if people don’t give up the exercise of democracy in its various forms. Restiamo uniti per difendere la democrazia!

TAKE ACTION:
What is *your* perspective on the U.S. election? Leave a comment below!

—

Arianna De Mario is currently supporting the Elect Democracy campaign as an intern/volunteer. Before moving to the States, she worked as a project manager at Citizens For Europe e.V., an NGO based in Berlin, Germany, mainly active in the field of European citizenship and migrants’ political rights in the European Union. She has also worked at DPA, the German Press Agency, and volunteered in several human rights organizations. Arianna holds a MA degree in European Studies from the University of Bath (UK) and the Humboldt University of Berlin, and a BA in languages from the University of Milan, Italy.

Over $629 million in Super PAC (Political Action Committee) spending didn’t sway U.S. voters as significantly as expected in this past election, but in the coming months will the billions spent in corporate lobbying sway Congress?

Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar industry. While it’s technically true that any constituent can go lobby or try to persuade their legislators, the vast majority of lobbying that is happening in our capitals is funded by -and promotes- corporate interests.

Tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists call the DC area home. Since 2008, Wall Street has spent over $2.2 billion on lobbying, largely in order to weaken and squirm out of financial regulations. Add in the pharmaceutical, HMO, agribusiness, business, oil & energy, and defense/militarism sectors and we’re talking nearly $4 billion since 2011 spent specifically to get corporations unprecedented (and undue) influence over all those folks we just elected into office.

In this year’s election, nearly $6 billion was spent to influence the 120 million votes of the American electorate. Compare that to the $2 billion spent lobbying by the top corporate sectors this year to influence a handful of decision-makers. No matter who gets into office, once the elections are over, corporations spend billions to influence the victor. While the corporate elite gave well-financed electioneering an old college try, now these interests will be lobbying harder than ever to influence the decisions of around 750 hundred key decision-makers (Congress, presidential administrators, and state and federal offices like the EPA, SEC and FDA) to get what they want directly from the people who can give it to them. If you were a greedy businessman, what would you do?

Sheldon Adelson may be lamenting, “I spent $60 million and all I got were these lousy House seats.” But now Adelson can just reroute money into lobbying, pay someone in a suit seven figures to put his feet up on the desk of a Congressperson, and still get a lot of what he wants, or at least less of what he doesn’t.

I don’t get to put my feet up on my Congressperson’s desk. I mean, I could try, but I would probably get in trouble. So why don’t lobbyists? They don’t deserve the proximity of influence and mental bandwidth of our elected leaders that their corporate-funded tactics afford them. Besides, these lobbyists usually aren’t even members of the constituencies that decision-makers were elected to represent!

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech. But the speech of people hired by corporations to do their bidding in Washington needs to be reined in. On the heels of an historical election and shifting political paradigm, we must be prepared in our civic activism to challenge corporate power plays beyond those unleashed by the Citizens United ruling. We must be vigilant in challenging the undue influence of corporate lobbyists. The voters and constituencies who just cleaned out DC expect integrity, and this means that legislators need to say NO to corporate lobbyists spoon-feeding them profit prioritizing policy and analysis… that’s not who they are elected to represent.

Voting truly does matter, but a healthy democracy requires ongoing participation.

If you want to take action to protect democracy now that the election has concluded, consider looking into Global Exchange’s Elect Democracy campaign and follow @ElectDemocracy and @GlobalExchange on Twitter.

See for yourself how much campaign money the last Congress received from Wall Street and their “Wall Street Loyalty Rate” based on how often their votes matched Wall Street’s lobby position. Most importantly, call your Congressperson and remind them that their job is to represent you, not lobbyists, in Congress.

Fact Sources:

SuperPACs spent $629 million: MapLight.org
Election cost $4.2 billion: Center for Responsive Politics: OpenSecrets.org
Lobbying costs: Center for Responsive Politics for a) $2.2 billion Wall Street in 2012, and b) $4 for top sector lobbying (opensecrets.org)

TAKE ACTION:

Make the Call! Call your Congressperson and remind them that their job is to represent you, not lobbyists, in Congress.
Leave a comment with your ideas about how to challenge the undue influence that corporate lobbyists have in DC.

… Tell Your Congressperson to Have Goodwill Toward Their Constituents!

In the results of the election, a lot of truths have been unearthed- the demographics and values of the United States, the power and limits of corporate money to influence elections, and the real significance of votes.

Over $629 million in Super PAC spending didn’t sway U.S. voters as significantly as expected, but in the coming months will the billions spent in corporate lobbying sway Congress?

Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar industry. While it’s technically true that you and I (or any constituent really) can lobby or try to persuade their legislators, most lobbying is funded by -and promotes- corporate interests. Since 2008, Wall Street has spent over $2.2 billion on lobbying, largely in order to weaken and squirm out of financial regulation. Add in the pharmaceutical, HMO, agribusiness, business, oil & energy, and defense/militarism sectors and we’re talking nearly $4 billion spent specifically to get corporations unprecedented (and undue) influence over all those folks we just elected to office.

We need to make sure all the new and re-elected members of Congress know that we elected them to represent us, not Wall Street and its cadre of lobbyists.

Can you take just a few hours in December to make a world of difference on this issue?

You and your representatives will both be back in your hometowns and districts during the month of December. Congress takes a recess, but you can still easily set up a meeting with your Congressperson in their district. Take the time to set up a meeting, put on a nice sweater and go tell your representative that you want them to commit to not being overrun by big bank lobbyists.

Here’s how:

Look up your representative: {http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt}
Call their office and set up a meeting for when you’re both home just before the holiday break.
Do some research- look up how much campaign money your representative received from different companies and look into the DC connections of lobbyists representing those companies.
Write this information down in a notepad, along with other questions you’d like to ask. If you need ideas, here are some of our favorites:

How many lobbyists from Wall Street arrange meetings with you?

How many lobbyists do you plan to meet with during this term?

If lobbyists give lots of gifts and throw lavish parties, does it influence your vote on their issues?

Are some lobbyists in DC perceived as bullies? Is there any way we can help you focus on your job without all these lobbyists trying to influence you all the time?

Have you ever seen a scorecard that shows campaign contributions before? Do you feel comfortable with how much money you received from Wall Street and your ability to put your constituents first? (If they were in office last year, you can show them Global Exchange’s Legislative Scorecard and measure their ‘loyalty rate’ to Wall Street’s lobby position on key bills like Dodd-Frank!)

What would you like to see change in DC in the realm on campaign contributions and lobbying?

When you meet, dress neatly and write down the answers!
Take a picture with your senator/representative and an Elect Democracy sticker if you can.
Email them to Global Exchange since students around the country will be sending in answers. Together, we’ll be able to see who’s willing to make some real commitments to say NO to lobbyists next year!

Boom- you’re done! All in all, it should take less than 3 hours, but it makes a huge difference not only for your Congressperson, but in helping to create a culture where politicians become more wary of the lobbyists and campaign contributions coming from Wall Street and other industries that want to put their profits before a healthy democratic process.

TAKE ACTION: Leave a comment confirming you can meet with your Representative in December!

The following piece by Medea Benjamin, Co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK:Women for Peace, originally appeared on AlterNet.
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The Congressional recess is a time for elected representatives to be home in their districts, reaching out to their constituents. So why are one in five taking a junket to Israel?

In this time of economic austerity, when jobs are being slashed and Americans are fearful about their future, the Congressional recess is the time for our elected representatives to be home in their districts, reaching out to their constituents and servicing the people they are paid to represent. Instead, this August one out of every five representatives will be taking a junket to Israel, compliments of an affiliate of the Israel lobby AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) but still clocked in on the taxpayer’s dime.

Americans who have lost their jobs and seen their life savings evaporate because Congress can’t seem to get it together deserve an explanation of how this crisis will be solved. Following the recent debt debacle, the public is hungry for information about the mysterious 12-person “super committee” that will slash over one trillion dollars from the federal budget. But instead of opening their doors to their constituents, 81 members of Congress will be getting briefings from Israeli government officials, touring historic religious sites, and perhaps “seeking a salty dip in the Dead Sea.” Representative Steny Hoyer, who is leading the Democratic delegation, said he is pleased members of Congress have this opportunity “to gain a deeper understanding of the issues involved in increasing stability in the region.” One has to wonder whether our elected officials are more concerned about the stability of Israel or the well-being of American families.

Not surprisingly, trip expenses are being paid by an affiliate of the all-powerful AIPAC lobby, the American Israel Educational Foundation. AIPAC lobbies hard to ensure that Israel is kept on the U.S. dole, with $3 billion of US taxpayers’ dollars a year going to the Israeli military. Without AIPAC and the financial contributions to Congressional campaigns made by its affiliate organizations, our representatives would be freer to speak out against funneling precious taxdollars to this already wealthy nation. This junket goes to show that those who claim AIPAC has a stranglehold over our Congress are not far off the mark.

Going on an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel is the moral equivalent of using an Anglo-Boer travel company to visit apartheid-era South Africa. Although they claim to be visiting leaders “across the political spectrum”, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, you can bet your bottom dollar that AIPAC will not be giving these 81 Congresspeople a fair and balanced view of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. They won’t observe one of the weekly demonstrations in Bi’lin or Nabi Saleh, where Israeli soldiers routinely tear gas and arrest non-violent protesters. They won’t spend time with grieving Palestinians whose homes have been demolished to make way for more Jewish-only housing. They won’t spend a few hours at a checkpoint to witness how Palestinians are detained, abused and humiliated, or how this “thriving democracy” forbids Palestinians from driving on Jewish-only roads. They won’t go to Gaza, where 1.5 million people are suffering under an unbearable siege, unable to travel freely, conduct business transactions across borders or even rebuild their homes destroyed by the Israeli invasion. And they won’t likely be visiting the burgeoning tent cities in Tel Aviv where hundreds of thousands of Israelis are currently camped out protesting the lack of affordable housing, gas and food.

With the disapproval rate for Congress at a record 82%, now is not the time for our representatives to pander to AIPAC. Now is not the time for “free” junkets to Israel—with an implicit promise of $3 billion of our taxdollars in return. Now is the time to stop the freefall of the American economy. If our representatives want to earn more respect from the American public, they better prove that their allegiance is not to a foreign government or a group that lobbies on behalf of a foreign government, but to their constituents back home.

TAKE ACTION:
Contact your congressperson and ask where they will be this August recess. Call 202-224-3121.