Congressional Sausage Weekly, Part 2-SCOTUS

[dixiegrrrrl]

Under the heading of

Bills introduced as a result of the SOTUS decision:

AND

Bills Introduced by "the good guys"

Comes this info:

Rep. Alan Grayson D-Fla submitted a package of bills,
labeled “Save our Democracy”, "to stave off the threat of "corpocracy" arising from ( the) U.S. Supreme Court decision.
From his website, here are the bills:
( first 2 were in last week's Sausage report)

1) The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (H.R. 4431): Implements a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

2) The Public Company Responsibility Act (H.R. 4435): Prevents companies making political contributions and expenditures from trading their stock on national exchanges.

3) The End Political Kickbacks Act (H.R. 4434): Prevents for-profit corporations that receive money from the government from making political contributions, and limits the amount that employees of those companies can contribute.

4) The Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act (H.R. 4432): Requires publicly-traded companies to disclose in SEC filings money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than promoting their products and services.

5) The Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433):
Applies antitrust law to industry PACs.
this bill would make federal antitrust laws applicable to corporate political action committees, or “PACs.” It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
The FIRST co-sponsor is the chairman of that committee, John Conyers.
(Having the Chairman of the referred committee on board as a co-sponsor is very good.
Bill is expected to make it to the hearing stage.)

Link to Grayson's site, with more info:
http://grayson.house.gov/2010/01/grayson-save-our-democracy.shtml

Sen. Al. Franken D-Mn introduced S. 2959
A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to protect Federal, State, and local elections from the influence of foreign nationals.
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.


There have a number of bills introduced
(strangely, none by Repugs) to address the Corporate funding issue, too numerous to list.
Once any of the bills are set for debate, or passed by one of the chambers, I will note them.
************************************************************

edit to add:
Thanks to annabanana for topic name!
:thumbsup:

[Blackhatjack]

1. Sounds like the Conservatives on the SCOTUS Have Sparked 'Changes We Need'...

Sometimes the waves of corporate overreaching are just large to ignore.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. What counts is what bills pass.

And who obstructs them.
Still, watching the introduced legislation is a good way to see the trends.

[annabanana]

3. It's nice to know that there is action...

Regardless.

If anything catches our eye we now have the NUMBER to refer to when we annoy our congresscritters!

K&R

[Mira]

4. I am so impressed with the valuable work you are doing. Recommended and thanks!!!

[arthritisR_US]

5. oh I so do love Franken and Grayson. I get a real kick out of the names of some

of these Bills and the fact that they pack a punch - bonus! Thanks Dixiegrrrl :-) k & R.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. They ARE bright spots in an otherwise gloomy Congress.

:hi:

[arthritisR_US]

7. they make me laugh, smile and proud...

back at ya girl :hi:

[PufPuf23]

8. Thank you k & r

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. You are most welcome.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

10. Thank you, dixie!

:yourock:

[JoeyT]

11. Thanks for the update dixiegrrrrl

These are good bills, and how they try to put through H.R. 4434 should be interesting. With the right marketing it could turn into political suicide for anyone to oppose it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. I just realized, Grayson has these bills ready to go.

They were introduced while the SCOTUS decision was still damp on the paper.