The Independent View: Taking On Big Money's Power Over the Economy

Last night, I attended an event at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, New York to hear Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who spoke on the topic of big money in politics and the economy.

The event was sponsored by Citizen Action NY, Common Cause, Fair Elections for New York, and American Family Voices.

It was co-sponsoring by: 32BJ SEIU, American Sustainable Business Council, Brennan Center for Justice, Citizen Action of New York, ColorOfChange, Common Cause/NY, CREDO, CWA District 1, Democracy for America, Demos, Greenpeace, Make the Road NY, UAW, MoveOn.org, New York Communities for Change, Public Campaign Action Fund, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Sierra Club, USAction, and the Working Families Organization.

The topic of the event: How the big money special interests that dominate our politics are part of our economic problems in this country.

The first speaker was Letitia James, the just elected New York City Public Advocate, who spoke about her election and how she was outspent by big money but still won. She spoke about and introduced the next speaker New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The Attorney General talked about his successful effort to fine the banks for their questionable mortgage practices leading up to the financial crisis. His main talk was about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's efforts to duplicate New York City's Campaign Finance system for the entire state. He also spoke about Senator Elizabeth Warren and how she was the first person to visit him when he became New York's Attorney General. He spoke about how we need to repeal Citizen United decision by the Supreme Court.

The next speaker was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor, publisher, and part-owner of the magazine, The Nation. She spoke about some of Senator Warren's issues on how we can create jobs, get student debt under control, reform Wall Street, and stop huge tax breaks for big corporations by taking on big money in politics and giving people a government that works for US, not just campaign contributors. She then introduced Senator Elizabeth Warren.

After a long audience welcome, Senator Warren spoke about the stagnant economy and rampant inequality across America and how it is directly connected to the growing problem of money-in-politics. Taking away the influence of campaign cash, and directly taking on Wall Street and the other big money players are the only ways we'll be able to create an economy that works for all of us. More and more, the top 1% are seeing skyrocketing profits, while the rest of us are left behind. And instead of creating policies that will help narrow the wealth gap and build prosperity for all, it seems like elected officials are just focused on giving more tax breaks to those who are already well off. We need our elected officials' priorities to be our priorities.

She then outlined her issues while in Congress:

- Campaign Finance Reform
- Free Pre-School
- Student Loan Debt
- Hedge Fund Carry Interest
- Wall Street Regulations
- Minimum Wage and Equal Pay
- The need to fix Social Security and Medicare and take it off the table of issues

The event ended with a Take Action for Fair Elections effort in New York.

The audience was asked to call State Senator Dean Skelos, 518-455-3171, the Republican Leader and ask him to not block the countless progressive bills from ever getting the vote.

To call Senator Jeff Klein, 518-455-3595, the Leader of the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), which has partnered with the Senate Republicans to give them the majority even though the Democrats had the majority. The IDC could use their power to pass public funding of elections.

Finally to sign a petition to ask elected officials to demand that Albany pass Fair Elections legislation.