Hundreds Rally at NH Statehouse for Campaign Finance Reform

The New Hampshire Statehouse Plaza was full of “rebellious” spirit on Jan. 21, as campaign finance reform activists ended their more than 300 mile trek around the state calling on leaders from both political parties to get big money out of the political process.

While, at first, it looked like a low-key aging Woodstock reunion, the event quickly became “multi-generational,” as a number of activists, including teenagers from Portsmouth and Nashua, marched along Main Street in Concord onto the plaza.

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Led by Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, who organized a march in the Granite State last year and has been traveling the country speaking about the need for campaign finance reform in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the marchers came in two waves and plowed through a finish line tape made of counterfeit dollar bills until they filled the front of the Statehouse.

“Tired feet, live free,” the organizers chanted after they arrived; “Cold feet, Granny D,” they continued, an homage to the late New Hampshire activist, Doris Haddock, who walked across American calling for reform.

Ella McGrail, a teenager from Portsmouth, kicked off the event with impassioned speech calling on more young people to get involved, to preserve their own futures and the country’s democracy.

The Rev. Gail Kinney of South Danbury Christian Church stated that getting big and dark political money out of the system was “a moral issue,” and said it went beyond just caring for the poor or making sure working-class families had enough to survive. She added that many more clergy and faith leaders were joining together with a petition denouncing Citizens United.

“We talk about the love of community,” she said. “We will all be heard as equal and legitimate voices in the political process.”

Other speakers ranged from Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, to Lessig, and even a couple of Republicans – former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rubens, who lamented that there were few of his ilk in attendance, and former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Hemingway, who committed to fighting – and organizing others – to end crony capitalism.

Hemingway said that country had worked to spread liberty and justice across the globe, but money had corrupted Washington, D.C., and it was time to fix the problem.

“It is now incumbent upon all of us,” he said, “not just for us, but for the generations to come, to stand, to rise, to be counted, to say, no matter the cost, we will root out this corruption. Don’t take your hats off when you get home … we have a lot to do.”

Rubens – who made ending political corruption one of his main campaign issues last year in his second place finish for the Republican Senate nomination – laid out a flurry of issues that were being corrupted by big money, from “a millstone of debt,” to “a tortured, convoluted tax code,” to ethanol and export-import bank subsidies, and derivatives trading protections covered by the taxpayers.

“It is sick,” Rubens charged angrily. “It’s bipartisan … and you’re paying for it.”

Lessig ended the speeches calling on activists to “birddog” presidential candidates during the First-in-the-Nation primary cycle this year with one simple question: What are you going to do about political corruption? If activists do that, he said, the nation will follow.

After the rally, other events were held at the Capitol Center for the Arts, including a showing of a Granny D documentary, panel discussions, and trainings on how to approach presidential candidates this year.