Does this make you love Constitutional lawyers more?

Some of you (though I suspect not ALL of you, much less ALL of our fellow Americans) will have strong opinions about what the most effective wording would be for an amendment to limit corporate power in elections and policy. (As you may have noticed, two more Constitutional amendment resolutions were introduced in the House this week, by Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and by Ted Deutch of Florida, the OCCUPIED amendment.)

Since I believe that all of us should be making the case generally that the corporate power problem needs to include a Constitutional fix, I'm not so worried yet about the particulars. I just like the fact that we're getting more and more of "the electeds" on board -- it shows we're getting through. (Let's keep it up!)

Meanwhile, we should all feel very fortunate that there are some really smart public interest thinkers who are happy to share their expert opinions on amendment language with the rest of us. (Of course, that doesn't get the rest of us off the hook. Turns out, they don't all agree -

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And why isn't health care yet a right?

I love that Bernie Sanders is posing the question (in a Facebook poll) "Do you think we should guarantee health care to every American as a right of citizenship."

And since 90%+ of the poll responders say "yes," it would seem that hidden beneath that first question is another: Why in our putatively democratic system isn't health care already a right?

L. Dean Clark, weighing in on the We the People Fb page, seems to be thinking along those lines: "Two of the dumbest ideas the...

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We The People in The Washington Post

In her latest Washington Post column Stanching the flow of corporate dollars into campaigns, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes about why she helped start the We The People campaign:

Taking corporate money and power head-on is the goal of the We the People campaign, which aims to bring progressive media and advocacy groups together to challenge the Citizens United status quo (a campaign I started with Jim Hightower and Jay Harris). The idea behind We the People, and central to the many groups that are participating, is simple: When our nation arrives at a level of corruption we cannot bear, we shouldn’t.

Check-out the whole column for an indepth look at how 2011 is shaping up - both in terms of corporate giving and pro-democracy activism: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stanching-the-flow-of-corporate-dollars-into-campaigns/2011/11/04/gIQAy2cR1M_story.html. 

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Apologies to the democracy fighters of Sitka, Alaska!

A few days ago, when we were encouraging all you agitators to sign up for "house parties" being organized by Public Citizen, People for, Move to Amend, and Free Speech for People, the visual was a map of the US with hundreds of virtual pins in it. The pins represented, of course, the hundreds of events being hosted around the country to plan a people's response to the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

It never even occured to me that I had, with my lower-48ist bias, cropped out the pin representing Sitka, Alaska! (And several other events in Alaska and Hawaii as well.)

To make amends, I am pleased to include a photo from Wednesday night's "friendly occupation" of the Larkspur Cafe in Sitka. Good work, Sitkans! (Sitka has been organizing opposition to Citizens United since fall 2010, and they plan to put a city resolution in support of a Constitutional amendment on the October 2012 ballot.)

And props to all of you around the country who turned out to plan the grassroots groundswell we'll need to overturn Citizens United!

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