"Public funding of elections helps free candidates and elected officials from endless fundraising, allowing them to focus on policy-making and constituent concerns," said longtime public financing advocate and Doris "Granny D" Haddock.
The Citizen Funded Elections Task Force will make an initial report to the Legislature next month and a final report in 2010, in time for legislation to be filed for the 2011 session. The task force is scheduled to meet again Oct. 27. Meetings are open to the public.

Americans for Campaign Reform has an op-ed in today's Boston Globe on the Massachusetts-based defense contractors that have received millions in federal earmarks soon after spending on well-connected lobbyists: WHEN MASSACHUSETTS-based kSARIA Corp...

Political journalists routinely uncover the problems created by the trading of money and influence in our highest levels of government...

You Street listening to The Nicole Sandler Show interview of Thom Hartmann: http://bit.ly/4flabq They discuss the backwards origin of why our legal system protects corporations with the same rights as human beings. This is fundamental to the Citizens United vs. FEC case.
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Sign the petition to ask Speaker Pelosi and Congress to strike at the root of the ethics problem by making public funding of congressional elections a top priority. There are many ways to buy access to members of Congress...

Governor-Elect Christie, Mayoral Candidate Thompson Post Unexpectedly Strong Results with Public Funding In-spite of Major Funding Disadvantage In two closely-watched elections in New Jersey and New York City November 3rd, the high-spending incumbent governor and mayor, respectively, fell far short...

The Fair Elections Now Act has picked up 108 cosponsors in the House of Representatives! Why does this matter? Above all, when a bill picks up a significant number of cosponsors, it signals that it's a serious bill and shows busy staffers that the bill's moving forward...

Saturday Night Live opened last week's show with "President Obama" running through a checklist of everything he hasn't done yet: Nicole Sandler aptly points out that the skit would have been a lot funnier if it weren't so sad how little progress our country has made in the last year...

You Street joining Nicole Sandler's Facebook Group, a joint effort to restore democracy:
A grassroots effort to get real campaign finance reform, and get rid of the special interests deciding what happens in the US by way of campaign contributions. Let's achieve "money disarmament in Con...

Brent Budowsky wrote a stinging parody of members of Congress who cave to industry lobbyists in The Hill this week. His piece captures the very real struggle our leaders face between doing what's good for the country and extending their career another term...

Last Friday afternoon an important decision was released by the federal appeals court of the District of Columbia. The ruling struck down limits on independent political spending by nonprofit groups and political committees...

You Streeters nationwide enjoyed Stephen Colbert's take on the Citizens United vs. FEC case last week (see clip below). And then they took action, inviting Mr. Colbert out to Senator Alan Simpson's Wyoming ranch for a discussion about the solution that public funding provides...

You Street is loving Colbert's take on unlimited corporate spending
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Watch the clip below, then invite Stephen to join Senator Al Simpson, a Chair of Americans for Campaign Reform, on his ranch to discuss how public funding of elections will get our elected officials to represent the American people, not huge corporations.

The following was sent in to us by You Street member Dan Lynch of Colorado. Send us your thoughts at http://youstreet.org/contact. To me, public financing is the single most important issue before the Congress...

We've come a long way since the days where we had to rely on one local newspaper for all our news and political coverage. Every day, we're monitoring thousands of news sources to get the latest on money in politics, public funding of elections, and other important campaign finance topics...









