Name: Urge Your State Legislator to Support the "We the People Act"
Start: 2023-07-04T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2023-07-17T21:00:00-04:00
Location: State House, Boston, MA

Note: The following is not an actual meeting. It is a call for our members to contact their state legislators to urge them to cosponsor the We the People Act.
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*"... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”*
*– President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, PA, November 19, 1863*

Government of, by and for the people has devolved into government of, by and for billionaires and large corporations. This is a predictable consequence of anti-democratic Supreme Court decisions such as *Citizens United v. FEC* (2010), *McCutcheon v. FEC* (2014), and *Cruz v. FEC* (2022) that have opened the floodgates to the corrupting influence of big money in politics. Freedom of speech has changed into freedom of the checkbook, drowning out the voices of all but the wealthiest Americans.
Polls show that most Americans of both major parties [agree that we need a Constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics](https://publicintegrity.org/politics/study-most-americans-want-to-kill-citizens-united-with-constitutional-amendment/). So do 78% of 1.1 million Massachusetts voters who voted on district-by district ballot questions in the wake of the *Citizens United* decision. Massachusetts and 21 other states have passed non-binding resolutions calling on Congress to propose such an amendment.
Over 13 years have passed since *Citizens United*. With members of Congress beholden to their major donors, the task of proposing an amendment to overturn it now falls to state legislators. Four states (VT, IL, CA and RI) have taken the next step by passing resolutions calling for an amendment-proposing convention limited to proposing an amendment to overturn *Citizens United*, thus turning up the pressure on Congress to pre-emptively do so itself. Massachusetts, the birthplace of American democracy, should join them.

Please ask your state representative and your state senator to co-sponsor the We the People Act ([H.3502](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H3502) and the identical senate bill [S.2319](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/S2319)).

Paul Lauenstein
Sharon, MA

PS - For those who fear the Article V amendment-proposing convention process, consider that:

1) an amendment-proposing convention cannot change the Constitution. It can only propose amendments.

2) any amendment proposal, whether by Congress or convention, cannot take effect without ratification by 3/4 of the states.

3) each major party controls more than enough states to veto a partisan amendment proposal.

4) an amendment proposal with enough bipartisan support to be ratified by 3/4 of the states would probably be a step in the direction of "a more perfect union."

5) the amendment-proposing convention process is inherently democratic. Shall we refuse to engage in democracy because we are fearful of the results? As Winston Churchill famously put it, "Democracy is the worst form of government...except all the others."

6) the will of the people is far better carried out through peaceful, orderly and lawful means as prescribed in the Constitution than through violent insurrection.

Michael Bleiweiss

We the People Massachusetts Meetup

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Urge Your State Legislator to Support the "We the People Act"

State House, Boston, MA

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We the People Massachusetts Meetup

Urge Your State Legislator to Support the "We the People Act"

We the People Massachusetts Meetup

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