SENTIENT TIMES April/May 2002

Challenging Corporate Power

Enacting Campaign Finance Reform

Lloyd Marbet

As we struggle with the daily news regarding the tragic collapse of Enron and the impact it has on its largest asset, Portland General Electric (PGE), it is instructive to read the following statement issued by the leadership team of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF):

“The focus of the Enron Corporation story belongs less on the individuals at the helm of the corporate entities involved and more on past and present public officials. Who else is responsible for creating and empowering corporate legal entities to amass enough power and wealth to virtually exercise governing powers over the people? Since we the people are supposed to be sovereign—the source of all legal and political authority in this country through elections, lawmaking and public policy—why do we permit our public officials to give our authority away to these artificial entities?

The Bush Administration and con-gressional committees define the revelations of wrongdoing as a problem of ‘business.’ WILPF defines them, as should the US public, as a problem of governance. If our elected officials were serious about doing their job on the public’s behalf, they would dig deep into US history to understand how corporate entities were once under the authority of elected state representatives, and how and by whom corporations’ subordinate status was eroded. Only then could these representatives of the people focus on the right issues and ask the right questions. For instance:

If as a country we can demand seizure of the assets of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, why can we not seize Enron Corporation’s assets in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere, and use them to reimburse the employees and others left holding the bag?

How is it that many of Enron Corporation’s violations against workers, shareholders and communities are legal? What role have political contributions and lobbyists played in this and other corporations’ controlling legislators? In regulatory agencies and processes that serve corporations, not citizens?

Most important, how should we institutionalize the people’s authority over the entities created to do our bidding?

This current corporate usurpation of the people’s authority, like many before it, is not a question of business. It is one of democracy.”

One approach to stopping “the corporate usurpation of the people’s authority” is Campaign Finance Reform and in Congress, the House of Representatives has finally passed the Shays-Meehan/McCain-Feingold Bill. This is heralded as a triumph but a recent report entitled “Phantom Fixes” by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (www.ospirg.org) shows that Enron and Arthur Andersen could have contributed as much money to political campaigns (as it did under current law) if the Shays-Meehan and McCain-Feingold proposals had been law for the past 14 years.

What’s more, the Shays-Meehan legis-lation will do absolutely nothing to stop the unlimited amount of campaign contributions being given to candidates in non-federal election campaigns in Oregon. Not only that it will exacerbate it, for under Shays-Mehaan soft money can still be given to state parties, who can then distribute this money to candidates running for state office. Big corporations and wealthy individuals will continue to dominate Oregon’s elections with contributions amounting to millions of dollars.

One answer to this problem is Money Is Not Democracy’s initiative petition to amend Oregon’s Constitution. This measure would:
• Ban contributions by corporations.
• Limit individual contributions - $1000 for each statewide contest, $300 for each State Senate contest, $200 for each State House contest and $100 for any other office.
• Require all spending more than $200 per year to be made by registered political committees from funds received in com-pliance with contribution limits.
• Allow grass-roots nonprofit organi-zations, such as labor unions, environmental groups, to contribute from small-donor funds consisting of, at least 80 percent of which is from individual contributions averaging less than $200 per individual donor.
• Forbid employers or anyone else from coercing or paying anyone to make a political contribution.

We need to gather 4000 signatures a week by July 5. At present we are bringing in about 2000 signatures a week. The task is doable. In our initiative petition campaigns against the operation of the Trojan Nuclear Plant, we were able to significantly raise the number of signatures we gathered, up to 10,000 a week, as we got close to the deadline. This was because people were willing to go out and do what it takes. If enough people care, anything is possible!

Money Is Not Democracy has also raised over $30,000. $20,000 is dedicated to hiring petitioners who are being paid $.50 a signature. In addition we are traveling the state making presentations on the need for Campaign Finance Reform and soliciting the help of volunteers wherever we go. Since Enron’s collapse presents an excellent example of why we need campaign finance reform, we also show how the activation of Oregon’s State Power Authority, under Article XI D of Oregon’s Constitution, would allow the state to acquire PGE under eminent domain, preventing its assets from being divided up and auctioned off to the highest bidder by a federal bankruptcy court in New York.

Money Is Not Democracy is a grass roots effort and we need your help. Please contribute in any way you can. From signature gathering to making financial contributions, we are “Challenging Corporate Power—Enacting Campaign Finance Reform.”

To find out how you can get involved contact Money Is Not Democracy, (503) 637-3549; democracy@voters.net; www.voters.net.

SENTIENT TIMES
PO Box 1330 Ashland, OR 97520
PHONE (541) 512-1084 • FAX (541) 512-1085
dmokma@jeffnet.org