Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Dear Senator Sanders



Dear Senator Sanders,

Please help our country fix Congress by endorsing #DeclareForDemocracy.

Here is what #DeclareForDemocracy is about, and why you should endorse it in your campaign.

A. The hopes for the 2016 elections
Please consider the belief that there is widespread agreement among voters across the political spectrum that fundamental reform of the campaign finance system is needed. See, e.g., NEW MAYDAY.US POLL: Voters of Every Political Stripe Agree on the Need for Fundamental Reform to the Campaign Finance System.

Please consider the developments that have occurred pointing to the 2016 elections as offering a propitious time for the advancement of campaign finance reform.

A significant highlight in 2014 was MAYDAY.US raising $10,000,000 and embarking on a plan to elect a reform minded Congress by 2016. MAYDAY participated in a few 2014 Congressional elections with a view to learning what would work in 2016.

Perhaps the best sign for the campaign finance reform cause came when you announced as a Presidential candidate last May. (Local Sanders groups quickly popped up around the country. I thought synergy was possible and I tried to urge on local Sanders groups this Proposed messaging re: Congress as an element in their campaigning. That did not catch on then, but more later.)

Then there is the Trump colossus, which has upended the American political universe. This phenomenon is rooted in millions of disaffected citizens who believe they have been grossly neglected by the establishment for too many years, and they finally have their chance for being heard through Trump.

The above highlights and other developments have led to hopes and expectations for the 2016 elections.

On February 10th, MAYDAY posted Voters Motivated by Desire to Fix Corrupt Politics, in which they said, "After polling showing the importance of campaign finance reform for Iowa voters, the New Hampshire results overwhelmingly confirm that voters recognize the problems facing our democracy and want to do something about it!"

B.The impediments
Notwithstanding this widespread agreement that reform is needed, Congress has not been responsive. One of our main questions is, how do you get Congress to be responsive?

Trying in the regular electoral way to get Representatives elected to Congress who support reform and will act for reform has a big problem.

Regardless of their agreement on the need for reform, voters have differing views on important issues, such as climate change, immigration, and privacy versus security in fighting terrorism and crime. If a Congressional candidate takes positions on other important issues, many voters may not support the candidate on that basis, and this undermines getting needed unity of voters to elect Representatives who will be responsive to the need for reform.

To get around this, a Congressional candidate might take the position that Congress must be fixed first, voter unity on that must not be undermined, and for that reason the candidate declines to take positions on other issues. In all likelihood, a Congressional candidate who takes that approach will attract little voter support.

This problem with the regular electoral way explains, I think, why MAYDAY accomplished little in 2015 and MAYDAY has recently abandoned its original plan.*

Lawrence Lessig, the founder of MAYDAY, ostensibly concluded in the middle of 2015 that MAYDAY was not going to be successful, and that an additional new form of pressure on Congress was needed. He left MAYDAY and attempted a Presidential run, making fixing democracy first as his main campaign issue. On his campaign website he said:
Lessig is running for president for one simple but incredibly important reason: to fix democracy by establishing truly equal citizenship. And do so first, so we may then take on all the other challenges facing our country.
The good news is that since Congress created this problem, Congress can fix this problem. And the legislation has already been written. Now it’s simply a matter of creating enormous pressure for them to take action.
This single issue approach of Professor Lessig foundered at the Presidential level.

After his Presidential campaign ended, Professor Lessig did not return to MAYDAY to resume efforts at the Congressional electoral level, and he seems to have abandoned at least temporarily trying to pursue this in the regular electoral way. Instead he, along with many in the reform movement, have chosen to go outside the regular electoral way for now, and they are focusing their efforts on an act of "nonviolent civil disobedience on an historic scale" scheduled for April in Washington DC. See Democracy Spring.

MAYDAY has essentially dropped out of trying to affect the 2016 Congressional elections, likely due to a lack of funds, the above problem in its strategy, and a paucity of motivated volunteers.

Given the circumstances and developments which are propitious for advancing the campaign finance reform cause in the 2016 Federal elections, we must not give up on that.

C. We don't have to give up
We don't have to give up on using the 2016 elections to fix Congress, and you are the key for us.

At the Congressional level, there is a solution to MAYDAY's problem discussed above.

This solution is set out at 2016 Congressional candidates' Declarations.

This solution is not to ask Congressional candidates to make campaign finance reform a plank in their campaign platforms (which is not an effective approach for the reason described above).

Rather, the solution is for the voters to demand that Congressional candidates, incumbents and challengers alike, to declare that the current Congress must, before November 8, 2016,  confront whether or not Congress is badly corrupt** and pass reform (or not) for the American people to consider in casting their votes in November.

The overriding objective of this citizen effort is to force Republican and Democratic incumbents in Congress to take a position about whether or not they think Congress is "broken" and needs to be fixed.

Incumbents can take a position that they don't think Congress is "broken" and does not need fixing, and, in November,  their constituents can decide whether the constituents agree or not.

Alternatively, an incumbent in Congress who says that Congress is "broken" can propose what he or she thinks should be done to try to "fix" the broken Congress.

Congressional debate should then ensue.This debate would be subject to an overhanging threat that Congress must debate the subject and agree, or not agree, on something before November 8th, and that something will be the subject of the 2016 elections referendum.

D. You are the key
Citizen efforts are weak things because they need tremendous unity and citizen mobilization to succeed, which is very hard to come by. #DeclareForDemocracy, as a citizen effort by itself, does not have much of a chance.

But you could give #DeclareForDemocracy a great chance by endorsing it.

Endorsing it is only for you to say, yes, you agree that the American people should use the 2016 elections to force Congress to face up to whether it is corrupt or not and take action (or not) before November 8th, and voters can then decide what they think. It would then be up to the citizens to get fired up about that and exert themselves on #DeclareForDemocracy.

While your campaign did not pick up on  Proposed messaging re: Congress in 2015, I think the time is ripe at this juncture in your campaign.

#DeclareForDemocracy has been disseminated to over 100 Sanders oriented Twitter accounts, including links to Generic Sanders Super Tuesday tweeting bank.

The hopes for #DeclareForDemocracy are in your hands, Senator Sanders.

Please may you endorse it. [Edit 3/26. A suggestion for a campaign statement by you is posted at Suggested Sanders campaign statement.]

Thank you.

[Edit 2/29: This letter has also been published in a form addressed to Donald Trump. See Dear Mr. Trump.]


READERS OF THIS LETTER: Send a tweet to Senator Sanders asking him to endorse #DeclareForDemocracy by clicking on the below link:

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* MAYDAY spent most of 2015 focused on an effort to have constituents call their Representatives in Congress and ask them to commit to supporting fundamental reform. A few Congressional Democrats were added to this list of Leaders supporting fundamental reform that MAYDAY maintains on its website. MAYDAY recently eliminated from its website the idea of electing a reform minded Congress by 2016 and now says, "we need to elect a critical mass of state and local champions. By growing support for fundamental reform from the ground up, we’ll force Congress to act - or get out of the way!Help us in our fight to elect reformers at all levels of democracy – so that we might take our democracy back! We’re organizing a national grassroots campaign with local chapters in 18 states already."

**See the footnote that is on 2016 Congressional candidates' Declarations.
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