Campaign Finance Reform

Contacts: Susan Triolo susanltriolo at yahoo.com and Ruth Parnall ruth.parnall at gmail.com

Next Meeting: Consult the calendar in the right-hand sidebar.

The FCCPR Campaign Finance Reform Task Force envisions a county, state, country and world:

  • In which governing properly attends to the needs of all people, communities and the ecosystems upon which all life depends, and
  • That embeds transparency in, and keeps businesses’, individuals’ and associations’ big money out of elections, public policy and governance.

The mission, work and guiding principles of the FCCPR Campaign Finance Reform Task Force support:

  • comprehensive and meaningful public financing of elections to create a level playing field for every qualified candidate, with reasonable limits a on campaign contributions, and
  • an end to PACs, super PACs and similar entities designed to increase and/or hide influence, and
  • full and timely b transparency of all direct and indirect c donors to all political and policy campaigns, including public reporting of registered lobbyists’ efforts to influence public policy and regulations d and
  • an end to corporations being considered people and money equal to free speech. The repeal of Citizens United and completion of corporate charter reform e are only first steps in the eternal vigilance needed to limit the ability of the influential to steal from the many for their own benefit.

**Definitions and Clarifications**

a.  With tiered limits appropriate to the geography, and level of office sought for the relevant voting districts.

b.  “Timely” means disclosure of all donations to date not more than 10 business days before and 10 business days after each election or important policy decision, so citizens know who is paying to influence whom, and over what issues.

c.  “Indirect” includes donors to PACs, SuperPACs and 501(c)(4) and (c)(6)organizations.

d.  We consider the American Anti Corruption Act is a good basis for much of this work.

e.  Licensing and re-licensing of corporations by the Commonwealth (and all other states) should be contingent on applicants passing an independent, non-partisan, citizen-led review every 5 years to ensure their actions balance the needs of our citizens, communities, the environment and the seeking of reasonable profit.

 

Meeting Minutes