{"id":884160,"date":"2022-11-15T20:56:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T20:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=356e7190f8b142bd49bb0d41ce62b7d3"},"modified":"2022-11-15T20:56:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T20:56:07","slug":"sanders-democrats-must-curb-billionaires-grip-on-elections-to-save-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/11\/15\/sanders-democrats-must-curb-billionaires-grip-on-elections-to-save-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanders: Democrats Must Curb Billionaires\u2019 Grip on Elections to Save Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the midterm elections wrap up with a better-than-expected showing for Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is saying that the Democratic Party must make curbing the influence of deep-pocketed political donors one of its top priorities in order to save democracy from the far right.<\/span><\/p>\n

The right is posing a credible and concerning <\/span>threat to democracy<\/span><\/a> in the U.S. \u2014 and their attacks on democracy are aided by the fact that billionaires and corporations are exercising ever increasing influence over elections, as enabled by 2010\u2019s <\/span>Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission<\/span><\/i>, Sanders <\/span>said in a new interview<\/span><\/a> with <\/span>Rolling Stone<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got to do everything we can to defend American democracy,\u201d Sanders said, explaining what he thinks the Democratic Party should prioritize for the next two years. <\/span><\/p>\n

Something in this cycle that was \u201cnot talked about, I think, enough is the degree to which billionaire money impacted this election. It\u2019s disgusting,\u201d he said. \u201cAs I mentioned, I was in Pittsburgh with Summer Lee. She had to run against millions of dollars of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] super PAC money coming in the last couple of weeks, and she ended up beating it back. This is a major, major problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

AIPAC, a pro-Israel group that has emerged as a strong force against progressive candidates in recent years, <\/span>indeed spent<\/span><\/a> over $1 million in the general election and $2 million in the primary <\/span>trying to defeat progressive Summer Lee<\/span><\/a> in her campaign for a Pennsylvania U.S. House seat. Lee ultimately triumphed, but AIPAC <\/span>succeeded in defeating<\/span><\/a> other progressive primary and general House candidates along the way, like <\/span>Jamie McLeod-Skinner in Oregon,<\/span><\/a> who <\/span>lost to her Republican opponent<\/span><\/a> by 2.5 points. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo when you\u2019re looking at democracy, it\u2019s not just Trump. It is the <\/span>Citizens United<\/span><\/i> Supreme Court decision, which has got to be dealt with,\u201d Sanders continued.<\/span><\/p>\n

Citizens United<\/span><\/i>, which has been the subject of progressive ire for years, allows entities to pour an unlimited amount of money into elections. <\/span><\/p>\n

This has handed an astounding amount of influence to billionaires and corporations, which <\/span>progressives like Sanders say can<\/span><\/a> essentially buy elections due in part to <\/span>Citizens United<\/span><\/i>. Indeed, <\/span>OpenSecrets found<\/span><\/a> in an analysis of House elections last week that, of the races called as of Thursday, 96 percent were won by the candidate who spent the most in the election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since <\/span>Citizens United<\/span><\/i> was handed down by the Supreme Court 12 years ago, the amount of money being poured into elections by deep-pocketed interests has been rapidly growing, with no signs of stopping. <\/span><\/p>\n

According <\/span>to a recent report<\/span><\/a> by Americans for Tax Fairness, just 465 billionaires had poured an astonishing $881 million into the election by the end of September, putting them well on track to have spent a billion dollars on the election by the time Election Day came around. <\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the flow of dark money \u2014 or political donations where the donors\u2019 names and identities are hidden \u2014 has reached a record high for midterm elections, OpenSecrets has found. As of Election Day, outside groups, which are <\/span>largely funded by dark money<\/span><\/a>, had spent more than $2.1 billion in federal races this cycle, smashing the previous record of $1.6 billion, set in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanders has previously spoken up about this issue. In 2015, Sanders <\/span>introduced a constitutional amendment<\/span><\/a> that would undo the <\/span>Citizens United<\/span><\/i> decision, calling it \u201cone of the most disastrous decisions in\u201d the Supreme Court\u2019s history at the time, and he <\/span>has continually spoken up<\/span><\/a> about the issue over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Latest - Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sanders said the amount of billionaire money that has been poured into the election is \u201cdisgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1459,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37957,3387,1704,7546,10340,10342,4,1369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884161,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884160\/revisions\/884161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}