{"id":34436,"date":"2011-12-15T05:54:57","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T12:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=34436"},"modified":"2011-12-15T05:56:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T12:56:20","slug":"we-need-reform-to-save-our-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/12\/we-need-reform-to-save-our-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"We need reform to save our democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_34443\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 120px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Griego-Eric.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Griego, Eric\" width=\"120\" height=\"160\" class=\"size-full\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric Griego<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Money in politics is destroying our democracy. If we truly want a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then\u00a0we need real campaign finance reform.<\/p>\n<p>Our government\u2019s ability to effectively represent the people is under assault by corporations\u2019 ability to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections, thanks to the Supreme Court\u2019s recent\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission\" target=\"_blank\">Citizens United ruling<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Citizens United\u00a0gives unprecedented power to Big Oil, Wall Street, the health insurance industry and other deep-pocketed corporate special interests to put pressure on elected officials to support their positions, even if they\u2019re in direct conflict with the interest of the public. Those who don\u2019t fall in line face an unlimited barrage of expensive ads distorting their records. And too often these special interests win and the people lose.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I support a constitutional amendment to reverse\u00a0Citizens United\u00a0and regulate campaign finance. I don\u2019t believe corporations are persons deserving of constitutional rights equal to real people. They should be subject to regulations limiting their ability to influence the political process.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond\u00a0Citizens United, I believe we also need to stop the \u201crevolving door\u201d between politicians and their staff and K Street lobbying firms representing powerful corporate special interests. If elected to Congress, I will not parlay my public service into a career as a registered lobbyist. I will also prevent my congressional staff from lobbying my office if they leave for employment elsewhere.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Finally, I support public financing of elections to limit the influence of deep-pocketed corporate lobbyists and to promote the competitiveness of grassroots-powered candidates.<\/p>\n<p>My commitment to reform is clear, and I have earned a reputation as a champion of campaign and ethics reform in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>As an Albuquerque city councilor, I passed voluntary public financing of campaigns in city elections and created the city\u2019s Office of Inspector General to examine allegations of fraud. As a state senator, I have fought to limit individual contributions for legislative elections to $250 and for a strong independent ethics commission in the State Legislature.<\/p>\n<p>As congressman, I will continue to lead the fight for campaign and ethics reform in Washington.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/griegoforcongress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Griego<\/a>, a Democrat, is a candidate for the First Congressional District seat in the U.S. House.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If we truly want a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then we need real campaign finance reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":545,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[228,156,223,109,107,116],"class_list":["post-34436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-1st-congressional-district-race","tag-2012-election","tag-campaign-finance","tag-ethics-reform","tag-roundhouse","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/545"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}