[The Soup Nazi]

From Demand Progress:

Pop quiz: Who said the following?

"The going price for public office has continued to escalate in recent years, further emphasizing the need for truly effective campaign finance reform... Past events have shown how close we are to a 'bought' nation."¹

Did you guess Bernie Sanders? Elizabeth Warren?

In fact, it was Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a column he wrote before he ran for Senate. Mitch McConnell knew then that unlimited money in politics corrupts our government. He knows it now, and he's working hard to continue it. It’s time to call out his hypocrisy and push our lawmakers to pass real campaign-finance reform.

Demand Progress has launched a counteroffensive to spread the word about H.R.1, the Democrats' ethics and election-reform bill. Click here to donate and send a loud and clear message to politicians: Pass this bill, or pay the political price.

When Sen. McConnell penned his op-ed in 1973, he was chair of the Republican Party in his county in Kentucky. In the column, he called money in politics a "cancer," and said exorbitant spending on elections shows that "the lack of an overall limit on spending is an open invitation for special interests."²

But then he ran for Senate and did a total about-face, not only taking advantage of the system, but also using his position to kill any attempt at campaign-finance reform. He once wrote that he never would have won his Senate seat if there had been limits on what he could raise and spend.

Sen. McConnell knows that if dark money and corporate Super PACs were outlawed, he'd be forced to win over the people of Kentucky on his merits, and he's just not willing to take that chance.³

Unfortunately for Mitch McConnell and his Republican cronies, 77% of Americans believe there should be limits on campaign donations, and 65% want to see Congress write new laws to reduce the role of money in politics.⁴

H.R.1 does just that. Here are just a few ways the sweeping election-reform bill changes how we finance campaigns:⁵

• Support for a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United
• Require Super PACs and dark-money organizations to make their donors public
• Provide a 6 to 1 public-finance match of small donations for candidates for Congress and the White House

Of course, H.R.1 would stop Sen. McConnell from taking unlimited funds from dark-money donors, so he's attacking the election-reform package, launching a smear campaign in the Washington Post, and speaking out against the bill every chance he gets.6

We need to fight back. Demand Progress is driving emails to Congress and running a counteroffensive public campaign to push Congress to pass H.R.1.

Will you donate to help pass H.R.1, the ethics and election-reform package we need to finally stop Mitch McConnell and clean up Washington?

Thanks for standing with us.

Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress

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Sources:
1. Vox, "Mitch McConnell’s dark secret: he used to support campaign finance reform," February 15, 2019
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Pew Research Center, "Most Americans want to limit campaign spending, say big donors have greater political influence," May 8, 2018
5. Vox, "House Democrats officially unveil their first bill in the majority: a sweeping anti-corruption proposal," January 4, 2019
6. The Washington Post, "Mitch McConnell: Behold the Democrat Politician Protection Act," January 17, 2019

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