CWA Expands Awareness Program on Threat to Democracy Caused by Corporate Dollars in Politics

WASHINGTON, DC – The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is expanding its national program to educate 700,000 members and their families about the threat to our democracy posed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. That ruling allows corporations to contribute unlimited money to political campaigns because the court determined that corporations also have free speech and other rights that individuals are granted by the U.S. Constitution.

CWA’s continued commitment comes as the national AFL-CIO passed a statement endorsing action to overturn the Citizens United ruling at its winter meeting in Orlando, Florida.

CWA has made getting corporate money out of politics one of its top priorities for 2012 and beyond. Coinciding with the recent two year anniversary of the Citizens ruling in January 2012, CWA organized events and actions to protest the Citizens ruling. These included events in Phoenix, AZ, Sacramento, CA, Jacksonville, FL, Miami, FL, and Kansas City, MO featuring placards and signage noting Citizens’ embrace of the ridiculous “corporate personhood” standard; a postcard delivery campaign that resulted in 3,000 postcards from CWA members being sent to Members of Congress asking for a remedy to Citizens; and online actions to encourage CWA members and allies to post Twitter and Facebook status updates.

As the statement entitled “Restoring Our Democracy” states, “there has been growing momentum in support of public policy solutions aimed at curbing excessive corporate influence and restoring greater balance in our political process. From federal and state initiatives to bring about greater transparency and disclosure of spending by corporate interests and wealthy donors, to proposals for a constitutional amendment restoring Congress’ ability to regulate campaign spending, to calls for abolishing corporate "personhood," people from coast to coast have sounded the alarm about the need for reforms to rein in excessive corporate influence in our democracy.”

The AFL-CIO statement calls for action to address the excesses ushered in by the Citizens ruling: “Congress should pass and the Supreme Court should uphold the necessary reforms to protect our democracy from the power of money.”

Recently, polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps and the Public Campaign Action Fund found that Americans across all parties oppose the ruling; among all voters, 62 percent oppose the decision and nearly half (46 percent) strongly oppose it. More than half of all voters say they would support a constitutional amendment to reverse the opinion.”

Equally troubling is the fact that the flood of corporate money in politics permitted under Citizens United is largely done in secret, as Super PACs aren’t required to disclose their donors and corporations find their way around or through a range of other disclosure requirements.

• Read the full AFL-CIO Statement on Citizens United – “Restoring Our Democracy”

http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/EC-Statements/Restoring-Democracy

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Contact: Chuck Porcari or Liz Schilling, CWA Communications 202-434-1168

cporcari@cwa-union.org or eschilling@cwa-union.org