An interesting comment about Citizens United from the American Camp Association Speech (HRC GROUP)
If you haven't watched the video that I posted to group and to GDP, I highly rec it - and catch the Q&A, following her prepared remarks too. She talks about everything from love and kindness, contentiousness in congress, to her admiration for Nelson Mandela.
It's warm, funny, and very informative.
I am paraphrasing here, and may miss a few things - I'm on the "can't sleep" portion of my Fun with Prescription Medicines cycle, and have only had a few hours rest in the past two days. Anyway...
One thing that caught my attention, was her saying that the personal relationships that used to exist in congress between people from different parties, and peers you have disagreed with, weren't as common as they used to be. She spoke about how important it was to build those personal relationships and used an example of needing help from Senator Byrd when trying to get money for NY after 9/11, and that their prior work together had made the process much easier.
She went on to say that many members fly in for the few days they are required to be there, then take off again. She said she feels that has a lot to do with the need to fundraise to combat Citizens United. We know how much pressure that these outside groups put on congress members. They like to threaten to run ads against them back home, or to back others in their bids for reelection, but I never really thought about how much that pressure might change the dynamics of the day to day operations of both houses.
That made me think that their might be greater support for killing Citizens United from BOTH sides of the aisle, than we suspect.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It will be interesting to see if we are right about this!
And, however it comes about, Citizens United has to go!