With Senator Sanders out of the Presidential race, you have decisions to make about how best to advance your agenda.
I am sure you have your own ranking of the issues that Senator Sanders made central to his Presidential campaign, and, with slight variation, your personal ranking of issues probably carries over to Jill Stein's agenda.
In how you devote your efforts in the 2016 election, you need to take into account Jill Stein's chances of being elected, and, if those chances are very small, what you can do that would have the greatest effect for advancing your agenda.
I would like to encourage you in a certain direction.
The corrupting influence of money in politics
One of the central issues in both the Sanders campaign and the Jill Stein campaign is the problem of the corrupting influence of money is politics.
Many people, such as Professor Lawrence Lessig, believe that the money corruption prevents the country from properly addressing just about every other important issue, ranging from the economy, to jobs, to climate change, to healthcare, and to education.
The corrupting influence of money in politics
One of the central issues in both the Sanders campaign and the Jill Stein campaign is the problem of the corrupting influence of money is politics.
Many people, such as Professor Lawrence Lessig, believe that the money corruption prevents the country from properly addressing just about every other important issue, ranging from the economy, to jobs, to climate change, to healthcare, and to education.
Perhaps the most critical thing about the money corruption problem is that the political establishment (on both the Republican and Democratic sides) benefits from the corruption, and the establishment seeks to keep the electorate divided so that it will not join together to force the changes on the establishment that are in the interest of the American people generally.
Surveying the past 25 years, you know how polarized and divided the country is, and there is no sign this is going to lessen in the coming four or eight years.
You may reasonably conclude there is no way unity of the electorate is ever going to be achieved to force Congress to face up to, and act on, its corruption.
Surveying the past 25 years, you know how polarized and divided the country is, and there is no sign this is going to lessen in the coming four or eight years.
You may reasonably conclude there is no way unity of the electorate is ever going to be achieved to force Congress to face up to, and act on, its corruption.
This blog, and the citizen effort it espouses, are exclusively concerned with the money corruption problem and how to overcome the obstacle to achieving needed electorate unity to force the current Congress to act before November 8th and for the 2016 elections to be a national referendum on Congress about this.
The 2016 Presidential and Congressional elections
The 2016 political landscape has been a propitious opportunity for trying to make progress on the corruption problem, fueled particularly by the unforeseen success of the Sanders and Trump "outsider" Presidential campaigns, in which there has been much railing against a fixed, corrupt, and broken political system.
The Republicans have now nominated Donald Trump, and the Democrats Hillary Clinton.
What transpires at the Presidential campaign level regarding the money corruption problem remains to play out.
Putting aside the Supreme Court, and the President's nominating power over Supreme Court justices, Congress has the main lawmaking authority for addressing the money corruption problem, coupled with the people's role in calling constitutional conventions to amend the Constitution.
On the Congressional front, one approach is to seek promises from Congressional candidates of what they will do if they are elected.
Besides the fact that politicians may promise anything to get elected and frequently fail to follow through, there is a further problem with the regular electoral way to get Representatives elected to Congress who support reform and will act for reform.
Regardless of the agreement of voters on the need for reform, voters have differing views on important issues, such as climate change, immigration, abortion 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.
That, and candidates promising anything to get elected, present a conundrum on the Congressional front.
Since last November, I have been trying to advance a solution, which 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 reasons described above).
Rather, the solution is for the voters to demand that all Congressional candidates, incumbents and challengers alike, to declare that the current Congress must, before November 8, 2016, confront whether or not Congress is corrupt and pass reform (or not) for the American people to consider in casting their votes in November.
Demanding the current Congress act should not be very onerous on a candidate. Any candidate who refuses to make such a demand would look very bad in voters' eyes, I believe.
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.
Need for high level leadership
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.
I thought Senator Sanders could give #DeclareForDemocracy a great chance by endorsing it. I endeavored to bring the citizen effort to the attention of Senator Sanders. I went so far as to draft A campaign statement for Sen. Sanders as a suggestion for him. I thought such a statement would help Senator Sanders in his Presidential campaign, in addition to helping the cause against the money corruption problem.
Whether Senator Sanders never became aware of #DeclareForDemocracy, or made a conscious decision not to endorse it, it did not get taken up by the Sanders campaign.
I think Donald Trump might also be appealed to, and this past week I have been tweeting links to Mr. Trump, why do we have to wait?
While Jill Stein has a microscopic audience compared to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein and her supporters might be able to make a meaningful penetration on this issue with the electorate, and, in hopes of hopes, that might even trigger Trump and/or Clinton to endorse #DeclareForDemocracy.
To achieve that result will take a lot of effort by voters of all political affiliations.
As of this time, I have not been able to instigate any effort to my knowledge.
I hope Jill Stein and her supporters will take up on this suggestion.
