CFR'ers Agenda 2016

DRAFT
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORMERS AGENDA 2016

We believe Congress is broken. We believe this is due to the corrupting influence of money in politics. We believe that fixing this needs to be of first priority for the country in the 2016 elections.

Our goal is to get Congress to own up to this and propose a change to the American people.

We acknowledge that not everyone, and not every member of Congress, shares our above beliefs. We further acknowledge that, among those who believe Congress is broken, there are differing views about what to do.

We therefore want a Congressional debate and a national public debate about whether Congress is broken and, if so, what should be done about it.

For the 2016 elections, we wish to mass all our resources for campaign finance reform in order to publicize this to the American people and to force our Congress to take up and lead a national public debate.

While campaign finance reform has some money to wage the battle, this money is minuscule to the money that does not want change.

What we lack in money power, we must make up with the people power on our side.

We need to have effective strategy and tactics in deploying our people power.

We know the needed change will come about only by being forced from the bottom up.

While it is bottom up, and not top down, we recognize how the most public attention is at the Presidential election level.

At the Presidential level, the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are being fueled by widespread disgust and anger with the political establishment in Washington DC. Both Sanders and Trump are making very publicized charges that "the system is broken." Campaign finance reform needs to utilize what is happening at the Presidential election level.

At the same time, we must not lose track that the forcing of change must come from the grassroots. Much is going on to push at the state and local governmental levels that are closer to the grassroots. Also Representatives in Congress are closer to the grassroots. Presidential election politics should not undermine pressurizing at the Congressional level and lower governmental levels, and political efforts at the higher and lower levels can be structured to complement one other.

So, our agenda for the 2016 elections is to utilize effective strategy and tactics for deploying people power, first, to force Congressional debate and a national public debate about whether Congress is broken or not, and, if so, what should be done about it, and, second, utilizing such debate, as it progresses, to be a basis for further steps regarding the 2016 elections.


[I have done the above draft because I have not come across a satisfactory (in my view) statement of agenda for campaign finance reform for the 2016 elections. I choose "debate" because I think campaign finance reform will have the best chance if it is thrown open for debate, everyone is given an opportunity to weigh in, and failure to weigh in (silence) will be interpreted as approval of Congress being broken and a desire for the American people not to know that. I have done the above in draft form because I want to hear what others think.]