Season 2 Finale: The OCCUPIED Amendment

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When we started our second season back in January, all eyes were on the plans of new Republican House majority. With that in mind, our first episode was on an extremely insider issue: transparency provisions in the House rules package. As the year has progressed, however, disillusioned activists across the political spectrum began to seek larger, systemic reforms to a broken political system. In homage to an evolving political climate, we wrap up the season with perhaps our most “outsider” summary to date: the OCCUPIED constitutional amendment by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL19).

Deutch was inspired to act by the grievances at the heart of the Occupy Wall Street sensation – frustration with a political system corrupted by money and designed to advance the interests of large corporations and the super-rich. The amendment is the most far-reaching attempt to undo the corrosive effects of money in politics by getting at the roots. While we recently covered another proposed amendment by Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD4) that would simply overturn Citizens United, this amendment also negates corporate personhood and essentially gives Congress and state legislatures the authority to enact whatever campaign finance reform measures they deem necessary.

While this proposal has virtually no chance of even receiving a hearing in the Republican-controlled House, it is a clarifying rhetorical measure as the most logical legislative answer to the demands of the Occupiers, stated or otherwise.

More info at http://www.mainstreetinsider.org/90secondsummaries/?p=559