Lucas,
Corporate cash is infesting the political conventions.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties have set up "host committees" that
accept corporate and special-interest contributions and are likely to keep
the full list of sponsors secret until well after the conventions are over.
Conventions should be about celebrating party members and nominating
candidates, not selling influence to profit-hungry corporations and other
special interests.
Fight the corporate and big money takeover of our elections.
Urge the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention to disclose immediately the sources of their funds and ban all corporate giving to host committees in the next election.
The Republican Party has made no bones about the fact it will take money from
anyone in any amount.
Organizers of the Republican convention (to be held next week in Tampa, Fla.)
prominently display numerous corporate sponsors, including Walmart, Chevron and
Xerox, on their website (1).
Meanwhile, organizers of the Democratic convention (to be held the first week
of September in Charlotte, N.C.) have taken a step in the right direction by
banning direct contributions of corporate cash.
But they took a few steps backward by letting the host committee accept "in-kind" (anything that isn't money) corporate contributions and donations up to $100,000 from wealthy individuals (2). To further complicate things, the Democratic host committee formed a separate nonprofit group for soliciting corporate funds for administrative expenses outside the official convention venue.
Thanks to investigative reporting, we know that Bank of America and Duke Energy have opened their coffers to this separate group (3).
Wells Fargo and Coca-Cola, meanwhile, have chipped in direct corporate cash or in-kind services to both party conventions.
Corporate cronies on both sides of the aisle want this kind of corruption, which is now legal in the form of unlimited corporate financing of campaign ads because of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to become business as usual in our elections.
It's not business as usual.
It's an outrage.
Now it's time to send a message to the RNC and the DNC that the American people won't stand by as their elections are bought and sold.
Join our campaign to urge the Democrats and Republicans to disclose the host committee donors and ban all corporate contributions for future conventions.
Thanks for all you do,
Rick Claypool
Public Citizen's Online Action Team
action@citizen.org
1. Republican
Host Committee website
2. USA
Today story about DNC fundraising
3. Associated
Press story about DNC fundraising