This has got to be the freakiest presidential election the United States has ever hosted. Americans fed up with “career politicians” have rushed to fill the corner of a man whose only qualifying virute is inexperience, as though, by electing a delusional demagogue to the Presidency we can somehow trump political ineffectiveness and restore the integrity of our democracy. That knee-jerk reaction to governmental gridlock will only hasten the demise of American democracy. The problem with today’s politicians is not that they are all inherently deceitful and greedy but that they are — and must be — fund-raisers, first and foremost. Trying to resolve this issue by electing a reality TV star President won’t work, and the results won’t be pretty. To truly address the ineffectiveness and ineptitude of our elected officials, we need to remove the influence of money from the practice of politics.
The need to “get money out of politics” is a phrase that has been repeated so often by politicians and media pundits that it has lost its significance. It’s become an idiom, and we nod our heads in agreement when we hear it, but its meaning doesn’t really register with the majority of Americans anymore. Voting for a self-funded billionaire real-estate mogul doesn’t address the issue of special interest groups controlling politicians — it simply cuts out the political middle man. The Citizens United ruling of 2010 is the real problem here, and that is what we need to address.
The seminal Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC essentially determined that financial campaign contributions made by corporate donors, even anonymous ones, are protected under the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause and cannot be limited by the government. Immediately following that ruling, a small consortium of men filed into corporate boardrooms across the country and began to create their very own super-PACs, which they would use to invest in political campaigns the way we plebeians might bet on horse races. This small circle of fabulously wealthy individuals (who apparently have nothing better to do than hijack our representative system of democratic governance to further their own business ambitions) is responsible for perverting the United States’ political process. In fact, a mere 195 individuals have contributed more than 60 percent of the money spent in all federal elections since the 2010 ruling. We are no longer operating under the rules of a representative democracy — our society has devolved into one dictated by the whims of an oppressive oligarchy. Fortunately, there is a solution.
Wolf-Pac is an organization or, rather, a movement that was sparked in response to the frustrations of Americans over the injustice of the pay-to-play system of electing government officials that was instituted as a result of the Citizens United decision. The aim of the movement is to eradicate the influence of money from politics and to “restore true, representative democracy in the United States.” Wolf-Pac’s proposed solution is to amend the Constitution so as to prohibit the influence of money on politics forever.
There are only two ways to change the U.S. Constitution: Congress can call for an amendment by a majority vote in both the House and Senate, or the State legislators can call for a national convention. Considering the current state of our federal government, Wolf-Pac recognizes that the most likely way to amend the Constitution will be through an Article V Convention of the States, which requires the agreement of 34 states. Four states — Vermont, California, Illinois and New Jersey — have already agreed to the Convention, and with your help, Utah could be next. Let’s join together and take back our representative democracy from the corporate bandits who are presently playing with it. You can join this worthwhile battle by going to www.wolf-pac.com and signing up to volunteer to petition your local representatives to introduce the Free and Fair Elections Resolution. Raise your voice today, or risk losing it tomorrow.