Ask Your Elected Officials: Do You Represent Big Money or We the People?

Through grassroots action and organizing, American Promise volunteers across the nation are making the American Promise Amendment to end unlimited political spending a voting issue in the upcoming election. A majority of Americans, regardless of political ideology, already support the amendment. The fundamental question we should ask candidates now is “Which side are you on: big money’s or ours?”

Recently, Azor Cole, American Promise’s State Manager, joined We Get Results with Mary Singer Albertson, a program on BodyMindSpirit Radio, to talk about the work American Promise is doing to reform our nation’s campaign finance system and highlight the stakes we face. 

“We work hard to make this a voting issue,” Azor said in the interview. “We ask candidates, ‘Which side of this issue are you on? Do you think money is the same thing as free speech? Do you think that First Amendment rights should be for corporations and unions? Or do you side with the majority of Americans across party lines that the Supreme Court got it wrong?’”

With the 2020 election looming, our work is more important than ever. Hundreds of candidates running for office in 2020 have signed the American Promise Candidate Pledge, answering that fundamental question by committing to represent the people—not ultra-wealthy donors, corporations, unions or special interests.

“At American Promise, we see the need for this constitutional amendment based on a number of Supreme Court decisions, which have made it much harder for ordinary Americans to participate in our political process by really putting someone’s political influence in direct correlation with the amount of money they have to spend in our politics, which isn’t how a healthy democratic republic is supposed to operate,” he said.

Listen to the full interview here.