Issue Position: On Campaign Finance

Issue Position

For too long in this country, the powerful have maintained their privilege at the expense of the powerless. They have employed fear and division -- based on differences in race or ethnicity, geography and faith -- to keep us apart, and angry and afraid of one another.

Unrestrained, money and influence have warped this country's priorities and its very democracy. It has invited cynicism, distrust and disengagement from Americans who see a government in thrall to those who can pay for access and outcomes.

A vigorous democracy -- both economic and political -- is the only check on the inertia of power, on the corruption and capture of our institutions, and the only means to elevate the voices and lives of our fellow citizens.

But when the safeguards of our democracy are manipulated by those in power -- when members of congress choose their own voters, when the supreme court says that corporations are people and money is speech, when special interests and PACs can purchase elections and legislation, when voting rights are withdrawn -- then we risk becoming a democracy in name only, where the idea that this country holds that we are all born equal to equal opportunity is justifiably seen as a lie by those who experience gross differences in justice, in education, in health, in economic advancement.

These challenges and the threats to our democracy cannot be met by half measures or with only half the country. It's gonna take all we've got and it's gonna take all of us.

The differences between us -- where we live, who we love, to whom we pray, how long our families have been in this country, the color of our skin, the party to which we belong -- those differences cannot be allowed to define us or divide us now. Before we are anything else, let us be Americans first and together do the work of this country.

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