“Where do I find it to sign-it?”; you may ask?  There is no office - we are all citizen volunteers - so wherever you see the Petition being carried - usually on a 11"x17” cardboard panel.

The gatherers try to be at places and times where WA voters will be walking by, and with a minute to spare.  The deadline is the last week of June.

My reading of the initiative document is that it simply puts the voters on record that the Washington State Congressional Delegation should back the Constitutional Amendment. It has nothing to do with the process of State legislators starting the Amendment rolling. It asks our legislators to affirm it if and when it comes down from Congress. And, of course, it won’t.

Why? Because elected representatives and the two major parties they represent don’t want to get big money out of politics. It serves them, the Corporations and the top one-tenth of 1% very well. Congress already knows that 80% of the public and even the majority of Republicans favor such an amendment. Tough! The top .1% don’t. That’s all, folks!

Well, my friend, many people have expressed hesitancy about this proposal (and hundreds of other proposals on a multitude of topics) - that’s politics.

The basic truth is that if we do not try, we will never succeed. This initiative (WA I-1329) is one of the proper ways to make change. Other ways are the traditional speaking directly to legislators - lobbying -, and supporting the election of people who declare support for this way of funding campaigns.

So this current action—Sign and then vote Yes on I-1329—, is a simple and easy process. Dear Voter, please do that, and encourage your friends to do the same.

Absolutely! I support I-1329 and have gathered signatures for it. It takes little effort to sign the petition and voting for it once on the ballot is a no-brainer. After signing it and until November rolls around, all of us should be pressuring Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell and our Congressperson to take a stand. Rick Larsen supports a Constitutional Amendment. Maria Cantwell has in the past been a sponsor of public financing legislation. There is a good chance that the Senate will vote on it soon. Public opinion shows that if we push it could be suicidal for Reps of either Party to resist—unless both the Republican and Democrat (two sides of the same Corporate-controlled coin) decide jointly to resist Conclusions below (backed by the numbers) are from the latest (post-McCutcheon) Greenberg poll of swing Districts:

• Voters in both Democratic and Republican-held seats strongly embrace efforts to
reduce money in politics and its influence: two thirds of voters in these districts support
a plan to overhaul campaign spending by getting rid of big donations and allowing only
small donations matched by public funds. Voters of all parties and across all districts
support this plan with real intensity—even when it is indicated that donations would be
matched by taxpayer funds.
• Government by the People Act wins broad and strong support. Voters in both Democratic
and Republican-held seats, including strong majorities of Democrats, independents,
and Republicans support this bill and do so with real intensity. There is particularly
intense support for the bill among the Rising American Electorate of young people, unmarried
women, and minorities.
• Even after the strongest attacks, this survey finds no increase in opposition to the
proposal. After hearing information both for and against the bill, strong majorities in
both Democratic and Republican districts continue to support the bill, with no increase in
opposition. This survey identifies the best messages to support the bill, which advocate
for putting government back in the hands of ordinary Americans and strengthening the
economy by making Congress work for all Americans again.
• In these vulnerable Congressional districts—districts that could decide the balance
in Congress next November and where the most money is apt to be spent—
candidates from both parties could capitalize on the current anger and frustration
by making reform central to their platforms.

Here is the suggested fix to Campaign Finance suggested by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in his recently published book, ‘Six Amendments’. A good read, in part prompted by his opposition to the chain of USSC decisions leading up to “Citizens United’:

“Neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the Congress or any state from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.”

Thank you, Marian! I agree with you about what we can do to effect change. And our Congressperson is Suzanne del Bene. And she needs our support.

Once again I ask:  I-1329.

And time is now running out!

Dear Registered Voters,

I predicted that we would have an easy run, to gather the support for this Amendment!

So many of my network support this. And as you read this, I’ll bet that many of YOUR network also want to end the mega-corporate Big$$ in campaigns.

But we haven’t actually seen the support of many of you, with your signature. 

Please sign - 1329 (catch the rhyme! )

Washington State Citizens’ Initiative I-1329. With enough signatures, we will vote on the issue in Nov 2014.
This Initiative is an action of the group WAmend - see the website http://wamend.org .