Unwrap the political truth

Dear Friends,

We all use ads one way or another. I browsed the holiday sales ads this weekend. When I'm looking through the newspaper, I know when something is a paid commercial ad.

But when it comes to political ads in slate mailers, there is no truth in advertising.

Political consultants carefully wrap slate mailers in pictures of eagles and official sounding titles so you'd never know who's behind them. How do you tell the difference between the paid mailer called the "Democratic Voters Choice" and the slate mail of endorsements from the Democratic Party? Or that the "Continuing the Republican Revolution" postcard of recommended ballot choices is just a collection of ads and has nothing to do with the Republican Party? Or that the Women's Voter Guide is paid for by different campaigns, not a legitimate women's group?

Free speech is a sacred right in the United States. But there should be a clear distinction between true political speech and commercial mailers.

The Political Reform Act Task Force is considering reforms of the slate mailer industry. Tell them that it's time to require commercial mailers to be truthful about who is sending them and who is really funding them. 
 
Sincerely,

Kathay Feng
and the rest of the team at California Common Cause

P.S. Check out CommonBlog to learn about other issues the task force is discussing. Leave a comment telling us what reforms you think they should implement!

Dear Friends,

Just because they call it a "lame duck session" doesn't mean the Senate has to act so, well, lame.

We've just come through the most expensive midterm election in history, one where special interests and corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars to secretly influence our vote.

The Senate can fix the "secret" part of this problem by passing the DISCLOSE Act, which requires CEOs to stand by their political ads.

Tell your Senators to end the secrecy. Make special interests who want to buy elections tell us who they are.




*Here's the quote from Sen. McConnell from earlier this year:

"We need to have real disclosure. And so what we ought to do is broaden the disclosure to include at least labor unions and tax-exempt business associations and trial lawyers so that you include the major political players in America. Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?" (The Hill, 4/22/2010)

The DISCLOSE Act has already passed in the House, and it has majority support in the Senate -- it fell just one vote short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster earlier this fall.

It just makes sense to give citizens the information they need to distinguish truth from spin in the heat of a political campaign. Even long-time campaign reform opponents like Senator Mitch McConnell have said that they support more disclosure.*

Make them put their (special interest) money where their mouths are!

Tell your Senators to end the secrecy, and pass the DISCLOSE Act now before the end of this year's lame duck session.

Thanks for all you do.

Sincerely,

Bob Edgar
and the rest of the team at Common Cause