In The News
In a letter sent to leaders in both House and Senate late Thursday, 115 House Democrats said that “such a change to the current rules governing political party spending would greatly increase the power of a select group of wealthy donors who are capable of contributing large sums to the political parties.”
Urging the leaders to reject McConnell’s idea, the letter -- circulated by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and John Sarbanes (D-Md.) -- said that including the measure in the year-end bill “would only further surrender the party apparatus to the influence of millionaires and billionaires.”
Reps. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) are circulating a letter among Democrats calling on congressional leaders to oppose the inclusion of a provision that would allow political parties to spend unlimited money on coordinated expenditures with candidates. The letter, which will be sent to McConnell, along with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), has 113 signatures so far.
Sarbanes says his bill would give people the feeling their voice matters and help to restore faith in government. “People can see themselves in it,” he told the editorial board.
That’s an important goal for any political reform. Congressional Republicans should allow a full discussion of this proposal.
Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) suggested that Congress give small-dollar donors “some real power” in elections through matching donations.
“We’ve proposed legislation, the Government By the People Act, that’s one of many efforts that would give small donors out there, everyday citizens, some real power again in their democracy – matching funds would come in behind small donations –and allow candidates to run a viable competitive campaign by turning in the direction of everyday citizens instead of feeling like they have to go to the sort of deep-pocketed sources of funding,” he said at a “Make It In America: What’s Next?” forum on Capitol Hill.
Maryland Rep. John Sarbanes is hosting a workshop to provide senior citizens with information about Social Security and Medicare.
The workshop is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at the Pikesville Public Library in Pikesville.
It will offer seniors a chance to meet one on one with the congressman’s caseworkers to discuss individual benefit issues.
By making citizen-owned elections a viable alternative to our current big-money system, we can help congressional candidates spend more time with their constituents and less time with the insider crowd.
"It is not just slow and steady sea level rise associated with climate change, it is the severe and increasingly violent weather events becoming more and more present in our daily lives," said U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Baltimore Cointy, who joined the environmental organization, Annapolis Alderman Joe Budge and others for the dock-side event at Susan Campbell Park.
The map, which was compiled using Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, comes as the Maryland legislature and Congress consider the next moves to deal with predicted sea level rise and weather changes.
"This is a wake up call to people all across the country, and to lawmakers … that they have to take this seriously," Sarbanes said.
Democrats in both chambers are pressing Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to reform the campaign finance system in the name of transparency.
The Democrats, who had no luck moving their Disclose Act under previous Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), are hoping his newly tapped replacement will be more receptive to their argument that anonymous donors are undermining democracy.
"Since taking the gavel for the first time, you’ve made numerous statements about ushering in a new era of transparency and changing the process in the House to make it more 'deliberative and participatory,’ " the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Ryan Tuesday. "[U]nless we open up the process to the American people, these goals will remain rhetoric and nothing more."
The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Tom Udall (N.M.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Democratic Reps. Steve Israel (N.Y.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and John Sarbanes (Md.).
Meanwhile, the calls for campaign finance reform at the federal level are growing louder. Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) has introduced a reform billthat would provide a 6-to-1 match for campaign contributions up to $150. Based on a similar matching system in New York City, Sarbanes’s bill, the Government by the People Act, has garnered the support of 155 Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has endorsed a similar plan, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has made campaign finance reform central to his presidential run, calling for publicly funded elections and a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. And just last week, a bipartisan group of more than 100 former members of Congress and governors launched an initiative, the ReFormers Caucus, to push for stronger campaign finance and transparency rules.
Jones is bonding with another son of a former congressman, Rep. John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat, in a crusade for legislation that seeks to blunt the power of big money in politics. Sarbanes visited San Francisco last month to discuss his idea, the Government by the People Act, H.R. 20...
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dan-morain/article42995139.html#storylink=cpy