What is the Government by the People Act?

What is the best way to restoring the American government to the people?  Should we focus on overturning the Citizens United v. FCC decision which made political spending a form of protected speech? Yes. Should we focus on overturning the Buckley v. Valeo decision which decided that money is speech? Yes. Should we undo the aspect of Bush v. Gore that decided that citizens are not guaranteed the right to vote moving to institutionalize the right of natural born persons the right to vote and state that corporations are not people? Yes.

So how do we get there? Is the Government by the People Act the right solution? Is it a step in the right direction? Will we believe the work is done if its passage is successful?

Progressive and Liberal organizations are stepping forward to support this legislation by Rep. Jon Sarbanes and supported Nancy Pelosi, but there is not enough clarity in their request for support about “How” this will work. Yes, the hoped for outcome is explained as “a bill that will reverse the corrupting effect of Citizen's United and corporate money in politics!” This is a step in the right direction, but legislation alone will not reverse the three most detrimental Supreme Court decisions relating to the decay of our democratic-republic short of a Constitutional Amendment declaring that “every natural born person is guaranteed the right to vote, Corporations are NOT natural born persons and money is NOT speech.” Until we amend our Constitution to include these guarantees money will continue to have a corrupting influence on our elections. This work is now underway in twenty state legislatures. And it has already passed one chamber in California by a vote of 52 to 21.  We need to stay the course and make our voices heard and require the U.S. Congress to call an Article V Convention.

There is an agreement among many Americans that the Koch brothers, nor any one like them should own our election process simply because they have the money to buy it, and this legislation does seem to implement some safeguards. What it does not seem to do is prevent the use of deep-pocket money.

Does this legislation prevent the use of giant agricultural business money to interfere with labeling of bio-engineered food products? Does this bill prevent a rich man’s money from financing a House of Representatives candidate from behind the curtain of a Political Action Committee? Or does it prevent the resources of a labor union from installing one of their own on the city council of a local city?

The perspective, “We are Progressive, so trust us” is not a good enough reason to support this piece of legislation. So, I urge you to ask, “How does it work?” Hold Sarbanes and Pelosi accountable. Let’s do more than go along for the ride.

The Government by the People Act is supported by a number of PIRG (Public Interest Research Groups) and it is also being pushed by with social media by BoldProgressive.org. I am asking these groups to educate all of us so we can understand the tidal wave of efforts that are now using statements like: “The Koch brother or Sheldon Adelson should not own our political system.”

There are other alternatives to this type of legislation which may be alluded to as sister-legislation. And as voters wishing to protect our democratic-republic we should ask if the Government by the People Act, while not being intended as a piece of diversionary legislation, might it function as one? If we allow our vision to be distracted by this type of legislation and then once again become complacent, because we think the work is done, we will not likely get a Constitutional amendment in place to put some finality to healing the impact of three major US Supreme Court’s decisions.  Look at the good work Getmoneyoutmd.org is doing in Annapolis as one of the twenty State Legislatures working on a permanent solution before deciding the Government by the People Act is the only, or best solution.

Do we really want to put effort into correcting one of these three errors at the risk of never reaching our best conclusion?The 28th Amendment is the best solution.