And when you lose your home, it's heartbreaking. We've been documenting parts of the home foreclosure crisis here in the past couple weeks--like the 1.2 million home foreclosure filings last year, a 42% rise--and our latest Ask Yourself Why report linked average Americans losing their homes to the $210 million the mortgage lending industry spent to stop Congress from regulating predatory lending.
The link is clear. The mortgage lending industry used its millions to keep profits rolling in at the expense of many aspiring homeowners. And, sadly, we've seen the same strategy from many special interests--spending big money to win political favors at the expense of average Americans.
That's why we need to pass Fair Elections Now, a bill that will create a public financing system for Senate elections and stop the money chase.
And Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) can play a key role in winning this key reform to put voters back in charge of our democracy again.
Feinstein chairs the powerful Rules Committee, and has committed to hold a hearing on the Fair Elections Now Act. What she--and others--need to hear from constituents is how important this reform is, how troubled we are by the influence of big money in politics, and how much support she will have if she'll help lead the fight for Fair Elections.
We need folks in California to make a short phone call to tell Sen. Feinstein: "Passing Fair Elections Now, S. 1285, will mean getting the influence of big money out of politics, and we need your leadership."
She has four state offices:
San Francisco: (415) 393-0707
Los Angeles: (310) 914-7300
San Diego: (619) 231-9712
Fresno: (559) 485-7430
Please give her a call, then drop a comment here to let us know how the call went. We need Fair Elections for Congress!
I just wanted to quickly let everyone know that the New York Times today has an editorial in praise of Sen. Feinstein's work in the Senate to require all electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verifiable paper ballot. The headline sums up the heart of the paper ballot movement - "Making Democracy Credible."
It is good news that Ms. Feinstein has called for the federal investigations -- and that she is pushing a bill to require paper trails nationally. As long as there are no paper records, and voting machine manufacturers continue to insist that the software that runs the machines is a "trade secret," voters cannot be expected to trust that votes are being counted correctly. The leadership in Congress needs to focus on making sure that Ms. Feinstein's paper-trail bill becomes law, along with a companion House measure from Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.
The editorial contains some other turns of phrase that I particularly like, such as:
Common Blog
