Colorado Senate candidate and former Colorado Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff just came from a press conference on the supreme court decision of Citizens United v. FEC. Romanoff deplores the further tamping down of citizen's voices compared to the influence corporations already have over our elected officials. It's ironic that just days after he laid out what is wrong with the system in Washington D.C., another branch of the federal government granted even more power to the already very powerful who have a tight reign on the strings of democracy.
To many the outcome of the Massachusetts special election wasn't exactly a surprise. In 2008 people voted for change that's not being delivered. People have the same sentiments here in Colorado about blocked reforms and giveaways to insurance companies. Are we going to continue to let huge corporations control legislation, or let the people have a voice? Is the status quo of a Congress that refuses to lead acceptable to you? Well, here in Colorado, Democrats get a choice for 2010.
Andrew Romanoff:
If you like the way Washington works, you’re going to love this decision.
Special interest groups poured $1 billion into the last election. Today’s ruling just opened the floodgates for billions more. The Supreme Court said that corporations and other interest groups can spend as much as they want on independent expenditures.
It’s as if the justices took a look at America’s political system and concluded that special interests don’t have enough power.
Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority: "This Court now concludes that independent expenditures ... do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."
The court is wrong. Americans are losing faith – and for good reason. As I said on Tuesday, "We’ve put our democracy up for sale. Congress has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the industries it’s supposed to be regulating."
That’s why Congress cuts deals with insurance and drug companies, while the high cost of medical care sends hundreds of thousands of Americans into bankruptcy, and thousands more to an early grave.
That’s why Congress allows polluters to desecrate our environment and disrupt our climate, when we should be protecting our air and water and ending our addiction to fossil fuel.
And that’s why Congress rewards Wall Street bankers with taxpayer-funded bonuses, instead of holding them accountable for jeopardizing our savings and capsizing our economy.
The halls of Congress are flooding with corporate cash, and the Supreme Court just destroyed one of the only levees we had left. If we don’t want our democracy to drown, we should act now:
1. Congress should stand up to its biggest donors – beginning with those in the financial industry – by enacting the reforms the American people want. That includes a strong consumer-protection law and to an end to Wall Street’s double-dealing, "heads I win, tails you bail me out" gamesmanship.
2. Congress should pass meaningful campaign finance reform. I support the Fair Elections Now Act, which would level the playing field in federal races.
3. Every candidate for Congress should refuse to accept contributions from special interest groups – and return the money they’ve already taken. I am still the only candidate in this race to have made that commitment.
Americans have a right to know: Do our leaders still believe in government "of the people, by the people, for the people"? The Supreme Court did nothing today to restore faith in that basic principle, but we can.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to share highlights from Andrew Romanoff's Tuesday speech.
The intro:
Yesterday we honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "The ultimate measure of a man," Dr. King once said, "is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
This is a time of challenge and controversy. We need bold leadership not only in the White House but also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
That’s why I’m running for the U.S. Senate.
Laying it out:
Fortunately, Coloradans have a choice this year. I say "fortunately" because some folks have forgotten what democracy is all about. Too many elections are foregone conclusions, contests in name only, or auctions in which public offices are sold to the highest bidder. The politicians who prevail pose little threat to the status quo; their victories are bought and paid for by an incumbent-protection racket that regards voters as expendable. We have flipped our political system on its head by cutting citizens out of the electoral process before the polls even open.
How do we reclaim our democracy? We restore the power of people. We lead by example. We are building a broad, grassroots campaign, fueled by and focused on the people of Colorado. I’m proud to have enlisted more than 5,000 supporters, covering every county in the state.
The meat of the problem:
The nation’s biggest insurance firms, drug-makers, oil companies, and Wall Street banks are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into my opponents’ campaign coffers. Why? What do these donors expect to get in return for their money? And what have they already gotten?
Those are questions each candidate will have to answer. But here’s what we do know: the same special-interest groups that are bankrolling my opponents are blocking the reform we need in D.C.
It’s not just a single senator; it’s the whole system. We’ve put our democracy up for sale. Congress has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the industries it’s supposed to be regulating. For many industries, subsidizing members of Congress is simply a cost of doing business. Companies shell out a certain amount each month for wages, for benefits, and for elected officials.
The problem is: we get what they pay for.
That’s why we spend twice as much as our competitors on health care and are now poised to give the insurance industry 30 million more customers – without providing Americans the choice of a public option or even discussing a not-for-profit model like so many other industrialized nations use.
And that’s why we not only allow the biggest gamblers in the world, the speculators on Wall Street, to jeopardize our pensions and capsize our economy, we reward them with taxpayer-funded bonuses – when we should be protecting families from foreclosure and fraud.
The difference:
That’s why our campaign does not accept contributions from political action committees. I am the only candidate in this race to make that commitment.
The people of Colorado understand this decision – and they support it. In the last quarter, more Coloradans contributed to our campaign than to any other candidate for any office in our state. More than 2,200 Coloradans stood up to the powerbrokers and the party bosses and the political pundits – they put their hard-earned money where their mouths are.
That matters. When we win this election, we will send a seismic shock to the U.S. Senate – which needs one. The message is this: People come first.
Real leadership:
As the speaker of the House, I stood up to special-interest groups. We fought the insurance industry – and we won. We fought drug companies – and we won. We fought polluters – and we won. We fought predatory lenders and brokers – and we won.
We not only won those fights at the State Capitol; we changed the battlefield. We enforced open-meeting laws. We allowed public testimony on every bill. We televised our debates for the first time in the history of Colorado.
More and more people, in Colorado and across the country, are hungry for real reform.
The special interests have enough politicians on their payroll. We need a senator for the rest of us.
I'm also happy to point out that recent polls show us up by double digits in favorability compared to our primary opponent. The toplines of multiple polls show us essentially tied.
Disclosure: I am the new media director for the Romanoff for Colorado campaign.
The full version of the speech is on our website, andrewromanoff.com (full text of speech).