Campaign spending provisions of the For the People Act are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, quite a few opponents have conceded that their own polling shows that the vast majority of Americans believe that billionaires should not buy elections.
Right-leaning politicians worry that the proposed election reforms have wide support not just from liberals but also from conservative voters. A private conference call obtained by The New Yorker revealed politicians from several conservative groups expressing alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provisions. Namely the provision calling for more public disclosure of secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said Republicans would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and kill the bill in Congress. Thus, the rhetoric used on the floor that H.R.1 was “written in hell by the devil”.
Should H.R.1 become law, the Koch brothers’ network and other fat cats accustomed to buying elections would indeed feel Hell’s fire. Encourage your elected representative to vote in favor of the For the People Act.
Joan Curtis
Athens