Post by Outsider on Mar 20, 2016 10:18:19 GMT -5
The system is just this rigged: Dark money, Citizens United and the secret story of how big money stole our democracy
Congressmen beg for bucks. Super PACs run the show. Dark money flows into state legislatures. This is why we're mad
Excerpted from "Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It"
D.C.’s Sweatshops
Not too far from the Capitol Hill townhouses are the call centers that both Democrats and Republicans use to dial for dollars. Endlessly.
This is how Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, described it: “We sit at these desks with stacks of names in front of us and short bios and histories of giving . . . and we make calls to our faithful friends and ask them to give money or host a fundraiser.”
National Public Radio tried to get access to the call centers for a story on fundraising in 2012 but got no further than a description of them from members of Congress.
Former representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat, compared his party’s call center to a sweatshop with thirty-inch-wide cubicles set up for the sole purpose of begging for money. He said the need for constant fundraising helped push him into retirement.
Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, told NPR, “If you walked in there, you would say, ‘Boy, this is about the worst looking, most abusive looking call center situation I’ve seen in my life.’ These people don’t have any workspace, the other person is virtually touching them.”
Members of both parties say the time they have to spend in the cramped call centers is humiliating. Representative John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, likened it to “putting bamboo shoots under my fingernails.” One female member of the House told us that, probably because she’s a woman, when she makes her fundraising phone calls the donors are much more casual with her than she would expect—or hope. She recounted a call she made to a Hollywood mogul’s home. The wife answered the phone. After the congresswoman introduced herself, “The wife launched into a tirade about some new curtains that had just arrived at her house, which were the wrong color of yellow. I had to sit and politely, sympathetically, listen to her so that I could get to the point of asking her for a twenty-five-hundred-dollar contribution to my campaign.”
How much time do our elected representatives spend trying to collect money from wealthy people? Roughly 50 percent. One former congressman, Tom Perriello (D-VA), told reporter Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post that even that may be “low-balling the figure so as not to scare the new members too much.”
www.salon.com/2016/03/20/the_system_is_just_this_rigged_dark_money_citizens_united_and_the_secret_story_of_how_big_money_stole_our_democracy/
Congressmen beg for bucks. Super PACs run the show. Dark money flows into state legislatures. This is why we're mad
Excerpted from "Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It"
D.C.’s Sweatshops
Not too far from the Capitol Hill townhouses are the call centers that both Democrats and Republicans use to dial for dollars. Endlessly.
This is how Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, described it: “We sit at these desks with stacks of names in front of us and short bios and histories of giving . . . and we make calls to our faithful friends and ask them to give money or host a fundraiser.”
National Public Radio tried to get access to the call centers for a story on fundraising in 2012 but got no further than a description of them from members of Congress.
Former representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat, compared his party’s call center to a sweatshop with thirty-inch-wide cubicles set up for the sole purpose of begging for money. He said the need for constant fundraising helped push him into retirement.
Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, told NPR, “If you walked in there, you would say, ‘Boy, this is about the worst looking, most abusive looking call center situation I’ve seen in my life.’ These people don’t have any workspace, the other person is virtually touching them.”
Members of both parties say the time they have to spend in the cramped call centers is humiliating. Representative John Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, likened it to “putting bamboo shoots under my fingernails.” One female member of the House told us that, probably because she’s a woman, when she makes her fundraising phone calls the donors are much more casual with her than she would expect—or hope. She recounted a call she made to a Hollywood mogul’s home. The wife answered the phone. After the congresswoman introduced herself, “The wife launched into a tirade about some new curtains that had just arrived at her house, which were the wrong color of yellow. I had to sit and politely, sympathetically, listen to her so that I could get to the point of asking her for a twenty-five-hundred-dollar contribution to my campaign.”
How much time do our elected representatives spend trying to collect money from wealthy people? Roughly 50 percent. One former congressman, Tom Perriello (D-VA), told reporter Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post that even that may be “low-balling the figure so as not to scare the new members too much.”
www.salon.com/2016/03/20/the_system_is_just_this_rigged_dark_money_citizens_united_and_the_secret_story_of_how_big_money_stole_our_democracy/
