Undoing Citizens United: A Comprehensive Plan to Prevent Corporations from Buying Elections
If you think corporations have too much influence in politics, just wait. In January, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that giant corporations can pour money directly into elections. They can spend billions on attack ads and robocalls to support or oppose candidates, all the while avoiding disclosure. Progressives cannot let this stand. The panel will present the full spectrum of remedies to Citizens United—including federal, state and local legislation to restrict corporate spending in elections, public financing of campaigns and a constitutional amendment—and a plan for implementing them.
Marge Baker has worked for nearly 35 years in various public service roles. She is currently Executive Vice President for Policy and Program at People For the American Way, a non-profit advocacy organization working to protect core constitutional values under attack from the far right. Prior to her current position she was the Staff Director for the late Senator Paul Wellstone on the Senate’s Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee. Ms. Baker is a graduate of Yale Law School, has served as a law clerk in the federal judiciary, as a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as head of consumer protection for a state regulatory agency. Ms. Baker is married, and has three children, ages 24, 26, and 29.
LISA GRAVES is the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the publisher of SourceWatch.org, PRwatch.org, and BanksterUSA.org. CMD is a leading advocate against the Citizens United decision and expanded corporate power. Lisa previously served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government, including as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy/Policy Development and as the Chief Nominations Counsel for Senator Patrick Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has worked as the senior legislative strategist at the ACLU, as a partner at a national security think tank, and as an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
Lisa has testified against illegal warrantless wiretapping and efforts to entrench these unconstitutional policies, the intrusive collection of personal financial records and other private information, and efforts to increase government satellite spying on Americans, a plan she helped stop. She led the national civil liberties coalition that helped lay the groundwork for the first filibuster of flawed post-9/11 policies, stalling efforts to make the Patriot Act permanent in 2005. She also staffed successful filibusters of right-wing ideologues nominated to the federal courts. She previously served as the lead counsel for the DOJ Working Group on Judicial Nominations, drafted congressional testimony and speeches for Attorney General Janet Reno, and served as the managing editor and co-author of reports to the President. She earned her J.D. from Cornell Law School and her bachelor’s from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
Lisa has testified before both houses of Congress and appeared on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC, GRITtv, C-SPAN, and other news programs and on numerous radio shows, including NPR, Democracy Now!, Air America, and Pacifica. Her analysis has been quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, the Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, The Nation, Vanity Fair, Congressional Quarterly, Roll Call, National Journal, Legal Times, Newsday, Wired, and Mother Jones, among others, as well as online in The Huffington Post, and other leading blogs.
Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, is an expert in corporate accountability and corporate influence over the political process and the financial markets. He is well-versed in issues relating to globalization and trade, intellectual property, climate and energy, and regulatory policy. Before coming to Public Citizen, he was editor of the Multinational Monitor, a magazine that tracks corporate actions worldwide, and director of the corporate accountability organization Essential Action.
Congressman Alan Grayson was born and grew up in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City. He graduated with high honors from Harvard College. Congressman Grayson worked as an economist after college, but returned to Harvard. In four years, Alan earned a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, and a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Government, and Alan finished all of the course work and passed the general exams for a Ph.D. in Government. His master’s thesis focuses on gerontology. He went on to be a founding member of the Alliance for Aging Research.
In the early 1990s, Alan took leave from the practice of law, and started a business. Alan was the first President of IDT Corp., a telecom/internet company, which is now a Fortune 1000 company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Congressman Grayson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008.
Alan Grayson lives in Orlando with his wife, Lolita, and their five children, Skye, Star, Sage, Stone and Storm.
