Supreme Court Allows Unlimited Self Funding in Campaigns
I had to write you all
right away with breaking news about campaign finance law. Today, the Supreme Court of Bush
appointees ruled that the "Millionaire's Amendment" of the 2002 Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act is unconstitutional.
What does this mean
for America's elections? It means there is no protection for the average
American against those who can afford to "buy" an election.
The Millionaire's Amendment was enacted
by Congress to create a level playing field against a candidate who made the
choice to self-fund his or her campaign. In that case, the opponent was
permitted to raise more money from supporters to give them a fair opportunity to
compete.
Our Congressman Jerry McNerney is not a
millionaire. When choosing his career, he passed on a high-dollar job
with an oil company to join the fledgling renewable energy industry. His choice
contributed to saving the equivalent of about 30 million barrels of oil, or
8.3 million tons of carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas - as well as
other harmful pollutants.
He told me a story once about how easy it
was to make this 
choice. He went to Texas to interview
with a company and as soon as he stepped off the plane he could smell
and taste the oil and pollution from the nearby refinery, he
thought, 'I
can't do this, this is not the world I want my kids to grow up
in.'
Jerry made it to Congress through
hard work and broad-based grassroots support from over 16,000 individual
contributors - with the overwhelming majority donating less than
$50.
At the
beginning of June, we launched a challenge to you - $50,000 by June 30th. We
have been awed by your response. In just a few days, more than $30,000 in small
donations has come in to meet that challenge, and we thank
you.
Conservative court rulings like this put regular folks
like Jerry at risk. In my years working on campaigns, I have seen what can
happen to good people who put everything they have at risk to run for office and
serve their country when their wealthy opponent chooses to "exercise" their free
speech by throwing their millions into the campaign. Before I started working
for Jerry, I heard a story about how he put everything on the line -
even taking a second mortgage on his house - so he
could run against corrupt Richard Pombo.
I hope you'll consider
giving a donation to our campaign today. We need $20,000 more to meet our June
challenge - money we're using toward our grassroots field campaign to
talk to voters one on one about the real issues affecting their lives.
We need regular folks, just like you, me, and Jerry, to take America in a new
direction.
Thank you,
Robbyn Umland
