C’mon Now – Let’s Work Together

Pledging to “drain the swamp” during a presidential campaign is an effective metaphor which captures the widespread frustration people have with our current political system. Now we’re all mad because our government is broken. Everyone sees that the big-money corruption in our election system is not serving us well. What has happened?

The Supreme Court has given constitutional rights meant only for individuals to artificial entities such as corporations and unions and has ruled that money spent to influence the political process cannot be limited. Thus, our government today serves powerful special interests, foreign and domestic, and not the American people unless of course you are a billionaire.

Our founders had a healthy distrust of big corporations and moneyed interests. We are not going to fix this mess until we get back to that. A movement here in Wisconsin and across the nation is fueled by these frustrations. It’s the movement to GET BIG MONEY OUT AND GET PEOPLE BACK IN.

Wisconsin United To Amend (WIUTA) is a non-partisan, all volunteer group that helps guide local citizens through the referendum process. In this past election, 18 more communities had amendment referenda on their ballots – all over the state and they passed with approvals averaging 85%. Amazing support that brings the total to 96 communities in Wisconsin and over 700 nationwide. Voters obviously want to put an end to the corruption in our election system.

We’re seeing increased activism across the country, with more marches, protests and grassroots organizing. However, most of this energy is spread thinly over a wide spectrum of issues, none of which can be fixed until the underlying problem is solved – the lack of representation caused by the flood of BIG MONEY into campaigns and public policies.

So, we have a nationwide movement demanding an end to the flood of cash into campaigns and our government policy making. What do we do? We stay mad. We call our state representatives and tell them to get on board or get out of office. We get in their faces. We vote them out of office and vote in people that really care about this important movement that is at the core of American values.

Reform movements can take decades. We ended slavery. Women fought for and won the right vote. We recovered during the 19th century period of greed and guile. The time of unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display was once squashed. We can fix this again. We’re making tremendous progress. It’s been less than seven years since the disastrous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court (see: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0124.htm ). Since then, 18 states have called for an amendment to overturn that decision. In 2014, an amendment got 54 votes in the U.S. Senate.

Decades of negative advertising and political propaganda have resulted in a division of the American people. We’re divided, but are we really that much different? We all love our children, we want good education, affordable healthcare, a fair tax system and small efficient government. Let’s work together to get America back on track. Drain the swamp of corruption in Washington? Really, there are 50 swamps. And it’s going to take all of us. It’s time to reclaim our republic. C’mon now – let’s work together. To learn more, please visit the Wisconsin United To Amend website at wiuta.org .