Snowe, O Sen
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28th!
What does former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine, have in common with former State Senator and current President of Our Revolution Nina Turner, a progressive from Ohio? They both support a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so people, not money, govern America.
Dark money attack ads paint the picture of a country divided, but when it comes to getting money out of politics, Americans stand together. And based on findings from the Government of Citizens, Not Money report released today by American Promise, Take Back Our Republic, and Fix It America, there is significant cross-partisan support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to set reasonable limits on campaign spending and secure political equality for all Americans.
Using data from voting records for state and federal officials, poll results, public statements, and ballot initiatives, the report identifies over 200 Republican lawmakers including former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R--ME) and former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R--WY) who support the 28th Amendment.
The report also demonstrates that nearly 80 percent of Americans are united in support for the 28th Amendment.
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am promise:
The 28th Amendment is winning everywhere, not just in New Mexico and New Hampshire. In Wisconsin, Citizen Leaders are pushing their legislature to put a resolution on the ballot after nearly 100 local communities passed resolutions – including one in Speaker Paul Ryan’s hometown, Janesville, WI, where it passed with 84 percent support.
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thom ref
kickass
How Citizens United Altered the Climate Debate
07.25.14
HOW CITIZENS UNITED ALTERED THE CLIMATE DEBATE
As delivered on the Senate floor
Thank you, Madam President, this is my seventy-fifth “Time to Wake Up” speech,something of a minor benchmark, I suppose. I come here urging my colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change. I do this every week that we are in session, hoping that someday spark will hit tinder. But even as the evidence of climate change deepens, the dialogue here in Washington remains one-sided.
Climate change was once a bipartisan concern. In recent years, something changed. I think I know what changed, and I will get to that. But first, let’s reminisce about the bipartisanship.
If we take a look back, in this body we have Republican colleagues who once openly acknowledged the existence of carbon-driven climate change, and, and who called for real legislative action to cut carbon emissions. Imagine that. It wasn’t that long ago.
We have a former Republican presidential nominee,amongst us, who campaigned for the presidency on addressing climate change.
We have Republicans who have spoken favorably about charging a fee on carbon, including an original Republican cosponsor of a bipartisan Senate carbon fee bill.
We have a Republican colleague who cosponsored carbon fee legislation in the House, and another who voted for the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill when he was in the House.
For years,for years there was a steady, healthy heartbeat of Republican support for major U.S. legislation to address carbon pollution. Let me be specific.
In 2003, Senator John McCain was the lead cosponsor of Democrat Joe Lieberman’s Climate Stewardship Act, which would have created a market-based emissions cap and trading program to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants from the biggest U.S. sources.
Here is what Senator McCain said at the time: I’ll quote him, “While we cannot say with 100 percent confidence what will happen in the future, we do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy for the environment. As many of the top scientists through the world have stated, the sooner we start to reduce these emissions, the better off we will be in the future.”
His Climate Stewardship Act actually got a vote. Imagine that!
And when it did not prevail, Senator McCain reintroduced the measure himself in the following Congress. Republican Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island—my predecessor—were among that bill’s cosponsors.
Other Republicans got behind other cap-and-trade proposals: Senator Tom Carper’s “Clean Air Planning Act”, at one time or another, counted Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Senator Lyndsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Susan Collins of Maine among its supporters.
In 2007, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe was a lead cosponsor of then-Senator Kerry’s “Global Warming Reduction Act.” Senators Murkowski and Stevens from Alaska, and Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, then a Republican, were original cosponsors of the Bingaman “Low Carbon Economy Act.” And that same year, Senator Alexander introduced the “Clean Air/Climate Change Act.” Each of these bills sought to reduce carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade mechanism. Said Senator Alexander, and I’ll quote him, “It is also time to acknowledge that climate change is real, human activity is a big part of the problem, and it is up to us to act.”- 2007
That bipartisan heartbeat remained strong in 2009. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, while he served in the House of Representatives, was one of eight Republicans to vote for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade proposal.
In that same year, 2009, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, then representing Arizona in the House, was an original cosponsor of the “Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act,” to reduce payroll taxes for employers and employees in exchange for equal revenue from a carbon tax. On the House Floor, then-Representative Flake argued the virtues of this approach. Here’s what he said:
If we want to be honest about helping the environment, then just impose a carbon tax and make it revenue neutral, give commensurate tax relief on the other side. Myself and another Republican colleague have introduced that legislation to do just that. Let’s have an honest debate about whether or not we want to help the environment by actually having something that is revenue neutral where you tax consumption as opposed to income.
Was a good idea then, and it is still a good idea now. Those words were echoed that year in the Senate by Senator Collins, a lead cosponsor of the “Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act,” Senator Cantwell’s carbon fee bill. “In the United States alone,” said Senator Collins, “emissions of the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have risen more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly climate change is a daunting environmental challenge,she said, but we must develop solutions that do not impose a heavy burden on our economy, particularly during these difficult economic times.”
2009, Think of it—there was once, not too long ago, clear and forceful acknowledgement, from leading Republican voices, of the real danger posed by climate change, and of Congress’s responsibility to act.
[Heartbeat Graph]
So what happened? Why did this heartbeat of Republican climate action suddenly flatline?
Madam President, I believe we lost the ability to address climate change in a bipartisan way because of the evils of the Supreme Court’s Citizens Uniteddecision. Our present failure to address climate change is a symptom of things gone awry in our democracy due to Citizens United.That decision did not enhance speech in our democracy; it has allowed bullying, wealthy special interests to suppress real debate.
I’ve spoken before on the Senate Floor about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision—one of the most disgraceful decisions by any Supreme Court; destined ultimately, I believe, to follow cases like Lochner v. New Yorkonto the ash heap of judicial infamy.
But we’re stuck with it for now.
In a nutshell, the Citizens United decision says this: corporations are people; money is speech; so there can be no limit to corporate money influencing American elections. If that doesn’t seem right, it’s because it’s not.
Phony and improper fact-finding by the five conservative activists on the Supreme Court concluded that corporate spending could not ever corrupt elections, just couldn’t do it.By some magic, it’s pure. That’s a bad enough finding on its face, but they also didn’t get that limitless, untraceable political money doesn’t have to be spent to damage our democracy. Unlimited corporate spending in politics can corrupt, not just through floods of anonymous attack advertisements; it can corrupt, secretly and more dangerously, through the mere threat of that spending, through private threats and promises. The presiding officer was the Attorney General of her state, and she well knows how much mischief can be done in backrooms by threats and promises, that’s what Attorney Generals see when they go out and investigate.
And as we’re evaluating the effect of Citizens United on our climate change debate, let’s remember one thing; a lot of this special interest money has been spent against Republicans. I’ve had Republican friends tell me, “what are you complaining about?” They’re spending more against us, than against you. There have been times when that has been true. When the Koch Brothers’ polluter money can come in and bombard you in a small primary election, that’s pretty scary. And when the paid-for right-wing attack machine can be cranked up against you in your Republican primary, that’s pretty scary, too. And what the polluters can do with political spending, they can threaten or promise to do, in ways that the public will never see or know—but the candidate will know. The candidate will know, for sure.
So, I wrote a “friend of the Court” brief to the Supreme Court with Senator McCain to highlight for the justices some of the failings and pitfalls of their shameful Citizens United decision. “The dominating influence of super PACs,” we wrote, “makes it all the easier for those seeking legislative favors and results to discreetly threaten such expenditures if Members of Congress do not accede to their demands.” I think we were right.
So how does this bear on climate change?
All that bipartisan activity I talked about preceded Citizens United. After that, polluter attacks funded by Citizens United money, and the threat of those polluter attacks,perhaps promises not to make those attacks, if you behave cast a dark shadow over Republicans who might work with Democrats on curbing carbon pollution. Tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dark-money dollars are being spent by polluters and their front organizations, and God only knows what private threats and promises have been made.
The timing is telling. Before Citizens United, there was an active heartbeat of Republican activity on climate change. Since then, the evidence has only become stronger. But after Citizens United uncorked all that big, dark money, and allowed it to cast its bullying shadow of intimidation over our democracy, Republicans—other than those few who parrot the polluter party line that climate change is just a big old hoax— they have all walked back from any major climate legislation.
We have Senators here who represent historic native villages, now washing into the sea and needing relocation because of climate change and sea-level rise. We have Senators who represent great American coastal cities, now overwashed by high tides because of climate change. We have Senators representing states swept by drought and wildfire. We have Senators whose home-state forests—by the hundreds of square miles—are being killed by the marauding pine beetle. We have Senators whose home states’ glaciers are disappearing before their very eyes. We have Senators whose states are having to raise offshore bridges and highways before rising seas. We have Senators whose emblematic home state species are dying off, like the New Hampshire moose, for instance swarmed by ticks, by the tens of thousands that snows no longer kill.
Yet almost none will work on a major climate bill. It’s not safe to, ever since Citizens United allowed the bullying, polluting special interests to bombard our elections, and threaten and promise to bombard our elections, with their attack ads.
Well, despite all the dark money, despite the threats and intimidation, I still believe this can be a courageous time. We simply need conscientious Republicans and Democrats to work together, in good faith, on a common platform of facts and common sense, to protect the American people and the American economy from the looming effects of climate change in our atmosphere, on our lands, in our oceans. We simply need to shed the shackles of corrupting influence and rise to our duty.
In courageous times, Americans have done far more than that. It’s not asking much to ask this generation to stand up to a pack polluters, just because they have big checkbooks. In previous generations, Americans have put at risk their very lives, fortunes and sacred honor—to serve the higher interests of this great republic. We know it can be done, because it’s been done.
We do not have to be the generation that failed at our duty. We are headed down a road to infamy now, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can leave a legacy that will echo down the corridors of history, so that those who follow us will be proud of our efforts. But sitting here, doing nothing, yielding to the special-interest bullies and their Citizens United money, pretending the problem isn’t real, that won’t accomplish that.
As I have said before seventy-four times, and as I say tonight for the seventy-fifth time, it is time for us to wake up.
I yield the floor. I thank the presiding officer.
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mashey 2012
p 156
Z.2007.02.8 Heartland on Monckton Letter
British Lord Demands End to Climate Science Censorship
“Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley and a member of the
Upper House of the British legislature, 763 has sent a letter to Sens. Olympia
Snowe (R-ME) and John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) excoriating them for
attempting to strong-arm ExxonMobil into cutting off support for public interest
groups that question global warming alarmism.…
Monckton, a former science and technology advisor764 to British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, .. Monckton’s open letter, edited for length, appears below.
…”
“You commend Britain’s Royal Society765
, once a learned body and now a mere
Left-leaning political pressure-group, …
Finally, you may wonder why it is that a member of the Upper House of the
United Kingdom legislature,…”
Heartland edited the original766 document, deleting the following section
quite relevant to the topics discussed in this report:
“In the circumstances, your comparison of Exxon’s funding of sceptical
scientists and groups with the former antics of the tobacco industry is
unjustifiable and unworthy of any credible elected representatives. Either
withdraw that monstrous comparison forthwith, or resign so as not to pollute the
office you hold.”
Monckton has been discredited numerous times,767 but Heartland promotes
him as a “global warming expert” to their readership.
This was apparently insufficient as seen in next article.
763en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Br
enchley Monckton has never been a member of the House of Lords.
764 There is no evidence of this claim, and much otherwise.
765 The RS is the oldest science society in the world. Monckton is a nonscientist.
766 www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf p.6
767 scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/12/monckton_debunks_monckton.php
www.skepticalscience.com/monckton-tries-to-censor-john-abraham.html
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jul/14/monckton-johnabraham
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p 156
Z.2007.02-10 David Ridenour
Senators’ Inquisition Attempts to Stifle Science, Debate
“Nicolas Copernicus was condemned for suggesting that the sun, rather than the
Earth, was the center of our universe. …
Today,U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and John Rockefeller IVare engaging in
persecution of their own, attempting tosilence dissenting voices. Just what do
they fear? … IRS-3E
Truth, Science Will Prevail
Scientific method isn’t about winning popularity contests. It’s also not about
being with the majority opinion. It isn’t supposed be determined by politics. It is
about attempting to limit bias or prejudice in the results.
Unfortunately, by attempting to cut off some of the funding for those who
contribute to the diversity of both the scientific and public policy debate, Sens.
Snowe and Rockefeller are attempting to bias the results.
They will fail, however, because funding from energy companies is not what is
fueling the vigorous climate change debate.
What is fueling the debate is a genuine, sincere difference of opinion.”
Ridenour’s degree is in political science and he is now President of
NCPPR, after a 25-year tenure as Vice president.
768
Unsurprisingly NCPPR has gotten ExxonMobil funding. 769
In fact, almost
all of the foundation funding identifiable then came from ExxonMobil.
Likewise, (Fig. F.4), NCPPR was able to obtain tobacco funding, so one
wonders how many children got addicted from NCPPR’s assistance. That
might be a question to ask of Mr. Ridenour for his impassioned defense of
science. Has NCPPR ever done much real science? Any?
768 www.nationalcenter.org/bios/ridenourd.html
www.eri-nonprofitsalaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=521226614
This is another family business, run by Amy and David Ridenour.
769 MAS2010 p.71,
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https://www.npr.org/2013/05/13/182640887/after-leaving-senate-snowe-is-still-fighting-for-common-ground
why she left the Senate
"It was a hard, cold reality that descended upon me in a very short period of time, actually, because I had been fully immersed in running for re-election for the better part of two years, and traveling the country and of course my state. So I was essentially in a good place organizationally and financially to win re-election, but I became concerned about the tenor in the Senate and what would transpire over the next six years, and came to the regrettable conclusion that it might not change.
"So then I began thinking about my role and how I could best contribute. Was it better to work on the outside to reaffirm the voices of those people who are so frustrated and want things to change and want their government to work? And I thought that that's where I could best contribute at this stage of my life."
On one of her book's recommendations: a five-day workweek for Congress
"Isn't that amazing? To work a five-day workweek? Because what happens is that, you know, on Mondays — at least in the Senate — Monday night we'd have what you'd call a bed-check vote. Just to get, you know, the machinery of the Senate up and running so that we can start the committee process on Tuesday morning ...
"By Thursday, you know, jet fumes, the smell of jet fumes. ... Everybody's heading home, wanting to know when they can adjourn on Thursday so they can leave. [This] very short version of a workweek makes it very difficult to deal with complex issues. And basically they're not even getting the routine matters of business accomplished. We can't pass a budget, which is preposterous."
On whether she's worried that the gridlock in the Senate can't be fixed
"I don't worry about that. I never think about what I can't do. No, absolutely not. It has to change, for the country. People deserve ... better representation. They deserve institutions that are going to solve problems. That means the president and the Congress have to work hand in glove and override their political differences or their political ambitions for the sake of the country. There's never a point now where they put the politics behind them. I mean, they're already talking about the 2016 presidential campaign! We just had an election. Can we now concentrate on the future of this country?"
Read an excerpt of *Fighting for Common Ground*
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OLYMPIA SNOWE: You know, I had been fighting to try to bring up issues that I thought were important to address, and basically the Senate had been shut down.
That’s Olympia Snowe, from Maine.
SNOWE: Yes, I served in the state legislature in both the State House and the State Senate prior to my 34 years in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate where I served 16 in the U.S. House of Representatives and 18 years in the U.S. Senate.
Over that time, the tenor of Congress changed a great deal.
SNOWE: In fact, the last Congress I served in, in 2012 — it was the least productive Congress in modern history.
Snowe was a moderate Republican, a coalition-builder, happy to work across the aisle. In fact, her support for some Democratic positions — on reproductive rights, on ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, her votes for Democratic judicial nominees – this all came to anger her Republican colleagues, especially the new breed of hardliners. Over time, Snowe saw her brand of centrism essentially disappear.
SNOWE: And in fact, three political scientists conducted a study and said that we are experiencing the worst polarization since the end of Reconstruction, 1879. If you think about it, that is pretty serious. In an analysis up through 2013 that showed in 1982, there were 58 senators that came between the most conservative Democrats and the most liberal Republicans. Today — at least up to 2013, and I doubt that that has changed — for the fourth time in a row, fifth time ever, zero senators come into that category. In the House of Representatives in 1982, there were 344 members of the House of Representatives that came between the most conservative Democrats and the most liberal Republicans. Today, there are only four in that category. So it tells you there is no Democrat who is more conservative than a Republican; there is no Republican more liberal than a Democrat.
This polarization became spectacularly manifest during the debt crises of 2011 and 2013, when Congress threatened to shut down the Federal government, and actually did so in 2013.
SNOWE: I mean, I was stunned that we would be at a point in the United States Congress that we were prepared to take the country to the financial and political brink to make a political point.
Snowe had been planning to run for re-election to the Senate. Everything was in place. She was just 65 years old. She had the money and the organization. In her previous election she’d won nearly 75 percent of the vote. But, she decided that she didn’t fit in this Congress any more.
SNOWE: So they abandoned legislating and policymaking and just devolved into a series of gotcha votes, “my way or the highway,” and the all-or-nothing proposition that was really the road to nowhere. And I decided that I would take my fight on the outside because I realized that the change was not going to occur from within.
Snowe joined the Bipartisan Policy Center, which addresses, as she calls it, “congressional dysfunction and political paralysis.” She wrote a book called Fighting for Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress. Many of her solutions have to do with re-creating a bipartisan Congress: less filibustering and grandstanding, more regular meetings between majority and minority leadership, more regular meetings between Congress and the President. Because that’s how it was in Snowe’s early years in Washington.
But over time, moderates were purged from both parties, and partisan battles became more intense, more destructive. So what’s to be done about that? And, since it’s election season, we might as well ask a bigger question: what’s to be done about all the other rotten things in American politics? Today on Freakonomics Radio,we ask politicians and scholars, donkeys and elephants and everyone in between: what’s the one political or electoral practice that deserves to die?
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QUITTING?
Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe
Almost more than any other senator, Mainer Olympia Snowe is known to work and vote across party lines. Regularly labeled a RINO (Republican in Name Only) by more conservative Republicans, Snowe enjoys an incredibly strong base of local support (she won her last election by nearly 40 percentage points) and doesn't have much to worry about when the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck call for her electoral scalp.
Snowe received a 91 percent score from the League of Conservation Votes and in 2006 called on ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about the science of climate change. In 2007, she co-sponsed the Global Warming Reduction Act of 2007 with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a bill that would establish a cap-and-trade program to fund the transition to clean energy technology.
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In 51-47 Vote, Senate Republicans Protect Big Oil Subsidies As Gasoline Profits Soar |By a nearly party-line vote of 51-47, the U.S. Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to eliminate $24 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the five richest oil companies. The Republicans filibustered legislation by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) which would have cut the subsidies to pay for investment in wind power and energy efficiency. Democrats who joined the Republicans included Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Jim Webb (D-VA). Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) broke ranks and voted to cut the tax breaks.
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The newsiness of this comes from the recent mini-exodus of members like Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who shows up in this piece herself, complaining that "the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned." It's a strange complaint, given the fact that Snowe got to do what she wanted to do all the time, which was to use her enormous influence as a swing voter to water down legislation without regard for logic or policy outcome, because of "centrism."
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nyer
as world burns
As for Olympia Snowe, the moderate Republican from Maine, who was known for stringing Democrats along for months with vague promises of joining their legislative efforts, she seemed to have a new demand every time Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman sat down with her. She also made it clear that granting her wishes—everything from exempting home heating oil from greenhouse-gas regulations and permanently protecting Georgia’s Bank, a Maine fishery, from drilling—would not guarantee her support. She had used similar tactics to win concessions in Obama’s health-care bill, which she eventually voted against. “She would always say that she was interested in working on it,” a person involved in the negotiations said, “but she would never say she was with us.”
Another prospect was Susan Collins, the other Republican from Maine. She was the co-sponsor of a separate climate bill, with Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington. Their bill, known as “cap-and-dividend”—the government would cap carbon emissions and use revenue from polluters to compensate taxpayers for energy-rate hikes—gained some environmental support. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman believed that the bill was unworkable and was stealing valuable attention from their effort. They spent months trying to figure out how to kill it and win over Collins. Eventually, Graham and Lieberman’s offices devised a ruse: they would adopt a crucial part of the Cantwell-Collins bill on market regulation in the official bill. Then they would quietly swap it out as the legislation made its way to the Senate floor. Collins, however, never budged.