How can we lessen the political power of money and the wealthy? PeopleCount has a new answer, plus empowers the old ones which are to pass campaign finance reform and anti-corruption legislation.

Campaign Finance Reform

The theory is that campaign finance reform will lessen the supply of money into politics. And if the supply is limited, wealthy donors will have less power.

But it hasn’t worked. America has passed campaign finance legislation several times. Courts have weakened the laws and donors found ways around it. Since then, donors have corrupted politics more than ever.

Anti-Corruption Legislation

The other strategy is to pass anti-corruption legislation. Partly, this aims to lessen or stop lobbyists from bribing both members of Congress and challengers with their campaign donations. Partly, this aims to stop other forms of bribery- currently about 50% of members of Congress and their senior staff members retire to serve as lobbyists or on the boards of companies their committees oversaw. (Current restrictions only apply to the first year after serving.)

Note that one party wants to pass this kind of legislation, but hasn’t been able to. Plus, they’re not that committed because their campaigns need the money.

PeopleCount Has A New Approach

The failed effort to stop the supply of money into politics is similar to the failed War on Drugs, which tries to limit the supply of drugs. America has spent over $1 trillion on this war, and over a million people have died since 1999 from drug overdoses, with millions more lives ruined by addiction, drug cartel and gang wars, and incarceration.

PeopleCount’s approach is to start by lessening the demand instead of the supply. It’ll allow Congressional campaigns to be much more effective. They’ll reach many more people with better (2-way) communication for about 1/20th of the cost.

Today, every day, every member of Congress spends 2-4 hours fundraising. With PeopleCount, they won’t even need to fund-raise while Congress is in session. They’ll be able to ignore lobbyists.

Plus, anti-corruption legislation is supported by over 90% of Americans, yet Congress does nothing. This is the kind of issue that voters, using PeopleCount, will cause Congress to address quickly.

How To Lessen The Political Power of Money

PeopleCount will less the political power of money. PeopleCount will put huge pressure on all of Congress to pass this kind of well-liked legislation as well as free Congress from the dependence on money to they can pass it.