The elected president and Congress should answer the unelected Supreme Courtby passing what I call the American Elections for Americans Only Act of 2010.
According to the recent Gallup poll following the court decision, 76 percent of voters believe that elected officials should regulate American corporate political spending. I believe my proposal would garner support from more than 90 percent of our voters, who are tired of outsourcing our jobs, our finance and our strength in the world and are outraged at the prospect of outsourcing the buying of our democracy and our nation.
In my proposal, Congress would prohibit the kind of spending prohibited by McCain-Feingold by any public company, private company or corporate entity that receives foreign finance or investment. I do not believe the Supreme Court would find this law unconstitutional, but if it did, there should be a constitutional amendment that would overwhelmingly pass because the American people will demand that American elections be for Americans only.
Let's use the example of major Wall Street firms and banking institutions that would be banned under my proposal from making enormous independent and unregulated campaign donations because they are heavily influenced by foreign finance that often has interests that are against the interests of the United States.
For example, there are sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East that have major stakes in these firms as investors and major relations with these firms as partners and customers. Today the CEO's and corporate boards of major financial institutions have fiduciary duties to serve the interests of what the law calls foreign owners, and because they are dependent on this foreign finance, they are unduly influenced by these interests that often have interests directly opposed to American interests.
Do we want foreign investors who oppose the state of Israel, or covertly support Osama bin Laden, to influence the spending of many millions of dollars to buy American elections?
Do we want the massive investment of Chinese money in America to give the Chinese government a massive power to influence American elections by pushing for millions of dollars of campaign spending to defeat members of Congress who defend American interests?
The list is endless. Should Venezuelan investors with close ties to Huge Chavez have the power to twist the Supreme Court decision to pressure companies they have power over, using millions of dollars to buy American elections and American legislation?
We already know that foreign banks were bailed out by American taxpayers through the AIG bailout, and that foreign banks already use too much influence through American subsidiaries to influence the Congress on their behalf.
The Supreme Court decision will let loose an even greater flood of influence peddling, negative attack ads, distortions of our democracy, the functional equivalent of bribery to buy votes, and blackmail to threaten those who cast votes, and the full panoply of abuses that American voters hold in strong contempt in what is clearly a populist wave of discontent sweeping the nation.
The Supreme Court left the issues of foreign influence and domination that I raise here undecided. Lets decide them. Lets agree that American elections are for Americans only, a proposition that I believe will be supported by an overwhelming majority of the nation including the left, right, center and the true tea party patriots and I predict that any politician who opposes the American Elections for America Act will be defeated at the polls.
