As a follow up to their last viral video, Unbreaking America: Solving the Corruption Crisis starring Academy Award winning actor Jennifer Lawrence, RepresentUs has released a new video staring Michael Douglas, Unbreaking America: Divided We Fall to discuss a recent Harvard Business School report on election corruption and Represent Us’s solution to a polarized, party-run America.
In the video, Douglas summarizes the major findings of the study:
Contradicting public assumption, there is actually no correlation between how well an elected representative serves the people and their chances of getting re-elected.
Major political parties actually threatened to blacklist the political campaigns of candidates that had strayed from party lines
68% Americans want an alternative to the two party system, but third party candidates are viewed as “spoliers.”
In 86% of house races, we know which party will win the election. Therefore, decisions are made in the primaries, where the turnout tends to be more partisan. Thus, the parties move further and further apart.
The result of these findings is that bipartisan and humanitarian issues are being left behind as the candidates are less and less able to reach across party lines to pass policy.
RepresentUs has a solution that is based on enacting change in municipal and state elections as a means of influencing federal elections. Landmark voting reform has been achieved this way, a chief example being women’s suffrage.
The American Anti-Corruption Act will:
Appoint an independent entity to redraw voting districts
Give everyone a $100 tax credit to support a candidate of their choice
Ban lobbyists from supporting political campaigns
Impose reasonable term limits
Employ a system of rank choice voting so that other parties can run without being in direct competition with the Republican and Democratic parties
Develop secure voter registration and vote from home ballots to increase voter turn out and representation
Ending on an uplifting note, Douglas notes that there have already been over 100 victories in cities and states across America.
In A Golden Civilization and The Map of Mindfulness, George Kinder writes a similar conviction, “There can be no deliberative democracy, but only obstructionism and polarization, if our politicians are bought. A politician’s constituency becomes one person, their political contributor who is their boss, and the politician is not hired to make the best decision, but to obey. Political boss donors don’t care a lot about your wisdom, your ethics, your morality, as long as you do their bidding.”
He posits 7 Steps We Would Need to Take Money Out of Politics:
Top level politicians must choose between money in the marketplace and service to all citizens
Until we get money out of politics, politicians should recuse themselves from voting on their own interests or the interests of primary campaign contributors and other sources of money for themselves or their family members. The top 10 donors for any campaign must be transparently and prominently displayed.
The American people (the voters) should demand formation of a commission with the power to take money out of politics
Ban all political advertising
Vet politicians thoroughly, potentially via investigative journalism (specifically, their finances)
For the executive and judiciary branches, corruption (as in campaign finance) should be viewed as treason and punished as such
Impose maximum annual campaign/political contribution amount set for all donors, billionaires included (perhaps 10% of the minimum basic income in society)
RepresentUs is the nation’s leading right-left anti-corruption group, bringing together conservatives, progressives and everyone in between to pass anti-corruption laws in cities and states around the country.