Get Money Out of Politics

Big corporate money is working to silence the political voice of working people — again.

“Citizens United,” the 2010 US Supreme Court decision that gave corporations the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections, has already unleashed a flood of money into our election process. We’ve seen a huge increase in spending in 2012 races, the majority by secret donors who don’t have to disclose who’s behind the mega-contributions.

In November, Californians will be voting on Prop. 32 — the deceptively-named “Stop Special Interest Money Now Act” — a measure that would weaken workers’ ability to have a voice in the political process.

“It’s not campaign finance. It tricks people into thinking it’ll clean up politics and keep corporate money out, when it does absolutely nothing and only exists to silence the middle class,” said CWA Local 9416 Legislative Chair Rob England. And if big business succeeds in passing limiting workers’ political voice in California, other states are certain to follow.

The measure would make it illegal for workers to voluntarily make political contributions through payroll deduction. It’s an obvious attempt to stop workers from having any political voice. Executives don’t use payroll deduction, they just write big fat checks.

Prop 32 also exempts secret Super PACs and corporate front groups from any restrictions, so they can continue to spend unlimited dollars to influence elections. These groups already have spent more than $95 million in California elections since 2004. Only working people — both private and public sector workers — would lose their right to participate in the political process.

A shadowy organization with close ties to the conservative billionaire Koch brothers just dropped $4 million to pass a ballot measure, and the initiative’s top financial backer is the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a right-wing fundraising powerhouse that boasts it was “instrumental” in pushing the Citizens United.

According to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, business already outspends labor 15 to 1. As San Francisco State University labor studies professor John Logan warns, Prop. 32 would “turn California elections into Citizens United on steroids.”