Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Come Stand Up For Clean Elections In NY Today!

At high noon on the steps of City Hall you can be part of the action and see the efforts made by Citizen Action as Councilman Tony Avella joins us to propose a truly clean elections system here in New York, both as a state and here in the city. There has been a lot of hard work involved in getting just to this point, but with the help of many New Yorkers that have not heard the call, we can help enact real reform right here, right now.

From The Daily Gotham:

Join Council Member Tony Avella and me on Tuesday, March 25, at noon, on the steps of City Hall. Council Member Avella will be announcing the "Clean Money, Clean Elections" (CMCE) bill that he is sponsoring in the City Council. The more support we can get, in the form of people coming out, the more initial impact we'll make.

CMCE will virtually eliminate private fundraising for candidates. It will truly level the playing field for candidates who don't have access to big money. It will reduce the lower of lobbyists who use big campaign donations and bundling to gain access to our elected officials. In short, CMCE will make our elected officials responsible to constituents, not special interests.

This will be an enormous uphill battle. Entrenched special interests, and the politicians in their pockets, will fight tooth and nail to maintain the current system. They'll call it "the best in the country," without a shred of evidence to back that claim up. They'll put legislative hurdles in our path.

That post would be from Dan Jacoby, one of the key citizen backers of this legislation. It is immensely important to him to see real reform in New York, as it is to myself. I hope we will get a huge turnout today, so come one, come all and see citizen action in progress!