Category Archives: Correspondence

Letters that I send and receive from Senators, Congressmen, and other politicians and political activists.

To Senator McAffrey – Wolf-PAC and Citizens United

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By Jay Hansen

I’ve written about Wolf-PAC on this website several times before. Wolf-PAC is a national organization supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and get big money out of politics. Recently, they launched a Google Group called WolfPAC Research. It is a group dedicated entirely to researching information about state legislatures such as legislative calendars, elected officials likely to support the movement, and generally basic, essential information to help the group further its goal. After posting some information about Oklahoma’s legislative calendar I was asked to contact some state lawmakers. For now, I’ve decided to start with just e-mail, but hopefully I can find time to speak with Senators and members of the House eventually. I started with Senator McAffrey, a well-known progressive in the state of Oklahoma, and hope that he is receptive to the idea.

I chose to just do e-mail for now because my own schedule is very chaotic and starting with a nice ice-breaker e-mail that both outlines what we’re doing and even has a little fun doing it (hence my post-script) would be better than playing telephone tag. We’ll just have to see, but right now here’s my little contribution to the movement.

Letter

Dear Senator McAffrey,

My name is Jay Hansen. I’m a life-long and fifth-generation Oklahoman. Both sides of my family came here in the land run and have made it their home ever since, even through the Depression and Dust Bowl. I’m writing you today because there is an issue in America that desperately needs people’s attention, especially those in state governments. America is suffering from a plague of corruption in government by way of special interest money and big donors. As humans, we are incentivized to “work for” the person that signs our paychecks, and now we live in a society where politicians (particularly at the federal level) get tremendous gifts in the way of campaign donations and job offers from massive corporations, banks, and special interest groups. This has created an incentive structure for politicians to not “work for” their actual voting constituents, but rather their donors because of the near-limitless amounts of money and favors they are doing for them. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, if politicians don’t put their voter’s interests first we aren’t living in a real democracy, so as a fair and free democracy, we must act to place strict regulations on campaign finance and end the influence of big money in our elections.

I am a member of an organization called Wolf-PAC. We are a national group working with state legislators across the country to support state-based legislation to call for a constitutional convention of the states in order to pass an amendment to the US constitution ending corporate personhood and overturning the Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. the FEC. Already California, Minnesota, Montana, Vermont, Hawaii, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Texas among other states and smaller municipalities have at least introduced legislation if not passed it through their state Congresses calling for an amendment to get money out of politics. This is not an issue of left or right, liberal or conservative, or red or blue. This is genuinely something to which we can all agree; when a politician represents anyone other than his or her voters, democracy and justice is not being served and it must be rectified. That is why huge majorities of Americans – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – all opposed the Citizens United court ruling, and similarly why our federal Congress’ approval rating is so dismally low. People have figured out that their representatives don’t actually represent them, which is why putting an end to money in politics is entirely in the hands of the states.

I’m writing you to ask if you would be willing to introduce such legislation at the state level here in Oklahoma. I know there will be fierce opposition in such a heavily stacked Congress, but even just introducing the measure could at least start the conversation, and shine a light on those state officials that continue to defend the corruption in our system that now so many average citizens see. There are many reasons as to why such legislation is desperately needed but I chose to first contact you via e-mail for the sake of brevity. I would like to speak with you over the phone about this issue if at all possible, especially if you have further questions, concerns, or just an interest to learn more. I specifically chose to contact you Senator McAffrey because I have heard much about you through the Brennan Society and know you have a track record as a strong progressive willing to stand up for the little guy. There is no greater David and Goliath story of modern America than that of the American citizen versus corporate and special interest in the battle for our Republic, so I hope you can help us.

Thank you for reading my letter, and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Jay Hansen

E-mail: owner@inthereddest.com
Phone (cell): (Not posting this on the website!)
Wolf-PAC Website: http://www.wolf-pac.com/
My personal website: http://www.inthereddest.com

PS – If you didn’t notice, Texas is now listed in the states moving in this direction. This means we’re being beaten by Texas on this issue, Senator McAffrey. I, for one, don’t think I can tolerate that.

Artificial People *Shouldn’t* Be Real People

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By Jay Hansen

Apparently Senator Jolley reads my website because he sent me a response to my latest piece despite me not sending it to him. In all honesty, I’m flattered.

See my initial letter to Senator Jolley here

And Senator Jolley’s initial response here

His latest response:

Hi Jay -

Rather than give me credit for thinking up the term “artificial person” or think that I just invented that, you should consult the legal history of the last 200+ years.  In my business law class, By the way, here are the historical reasons why our legal system uses the term “artificial persons”

http://thelawdictionary.org/artificial-persons/

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/artificial+person

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/artificial_person

Hope this further helps explain the dilemma your email suggest. You are wanting to alter rights of an “artificial person” – a term which has been around since well before the 18th century.

Clark

End Message

Allow me to start by saying I wasn’t so much intending to attribute the creation of the phrase “artificial people” to you so much as point out the ironic, even Orwellian, nature of the argument that “artificial people are real people” when phrased that particular way. I’ve changed the title of this piece accordingly. I’m well aware of the fact that law regarding such artificial people goes back a very long time, and that there has been significant judicial precedent at least since the late 19th century from the case Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad. The entire argument, the very discussion that is to be had on the issue of campaign finance, is whether we should continue this precedent and if corporations (among other artificial people) should in fact still count as “people” and if they are entitled to the same rights thereof.

At the time of their enactments centuries ago, laws and court rulings may have made more sense given the power and scope of artificial people at the time. Much like our founding fathers could have never predicted such powerful surveillance and communication technology as we have now when writing the constitution and creating our rights to privacy and civil liberties, initial supporters of laws from so long ago in regards to artificial people had no idea of understanding just how exponentially more powerful and wealthy corporations and special interest groups of the 21st century ultimately became. Frankly, I believe arguments defending such artificial people didn’t even make sense back then, let alone now, but so much is history and not really worth litigating now. What’s law is law, what’s policy is policy, what’s happened has happened. The question I’m now asking is if the time has come to think of the entire idea of artificial people differently, especially given our ever-changing, ever-advancing, ever-shrinking world.

To my understanding, most law in regards to artificial people’s involvement in politics has involved interpretation of standing law such as the first amendment. At the very least, the current laws of the land have been determined in this way with the Citizens United court case. Given that, most of the law regarding artificial people is based in judicial precedent. Precedent alone is no reason to continue a certain policy. How long did we have the precedent of separate but equal? Did its duration make it any more right? How many years has it been since the Roe v. Wade decision? Would you accept the simple fact that it is the current legal precedent of the Supreme Court in a debate over abortion as reason in and of itself to keep it legal? The last I heard the state of Oklahoma is continuing to challenge the Affordable Care Act in court despite the fact that the Supreme Court has already ruled it constitutional, thereby establishing a precedent. Do you accept the law simply because there is precedent behind it, or do you support state efforts to combat health care reform in court?

These decisions may not be as old as many in regards to the rights of artificial people, but my point is the same; precedent on its own is not reason to continue a policy. More than that, your points about there already being established law about artificial people does nothing to actually defeat the arguments I made in my previous piece. Artificial people have access to near-limitless resources the likes of which real people simply don’t. Artificial people do not generate their own worth and income. Artificial people are not always held to the same consequences of violating the law, and therefore do not always have the same obligation or responsibility to obey it, as real US citizens does. Artificial people, from both inside and outside of the United States, use their monumental power and influence to manipulate elections in which they would otherwise have no input. All of these things combined create an incentive structure for politicians to represent them more than the actual, real people they are elected to serve because of their colossal power and money.

Which brings me to something I have to point out; you never actually answered my primary point from my initial letter. Do you understand that human beings, in their nature, can be corrupted with money? Do you believe that politicians are somehow superhuman and incorruptible by the influence of money?  If you don’t, and you believe politicians are just people capable of being corrupted by money as any other, then you are supporting and perpetuating a system of political corruption, because the incentive structure established primarily by artificial people in this country is almost undeniable.

In your first letter, you posed me two hypotheticals wherein one a small business owner wants to donate a few hundred dollars to a friend’s political campaign, and a second where a national special interest group purchases time on a media outlet to broadcast a smear movie about a particular candidate. Your main point in this letter seemed to be that we cannot have one of these hypotheticals without the other also being legal and protected, and that the former of these two must be legally protected. Does this mean you believe the latter of these two hypotheticals is still ethical and permissible in a democratic society? Does this mean you endorse artificial people manipulating the voting populace however they want, for whatever reason they want?

You claim that transparency alone is enough to prevent corruption, but that is clearly not true. Do truth in labeling and mandatory nutritional information laws on food prevent people from eating unhealthily? Do warning packages on cigarettes deter people from smoking? You could say that with knowledge people have the freedom to choose such lifestyles despite the fact that they know it’s bad for them, but here’s the problem when applied to politics; we operate on a two-party system. Here in Oklahoma especially, the two-party system is vigorously defended. Both candidates these days receive bribes, be it in the form of direct donations or indirect donations such as political ads and manipulative propaganda, meaning that no matter which candidate a voter picks he or she will still be incentiveized to represent their donors (again, direct or indirect) more than their voting base. To apply this to my food labeling analogy, imagine there were only two companies from which to purchase food, and both companies packed their food full of sodium, sugars, and were generally extremely unhealthy, “empty calorie” foods. Would you make the case that truth in labeling laws would be enough to fix the problem?

Don’t get me wrong; I agree that transparency is very important, but it in and of itself is not a fix to the deep-seeded corruption in government today. Saying that it is brushes off the issue as insignificant when clearly America suffers from an epidemic of corruption by special interest and big money. The only way to fix this problem is to overrule the Supreme Court with a constitutional amendment specifying that corporations, among other artificial people, are not the same as real people. I’m not saying that artificial people have no rights; of course they’re entitled to rights and protections under the law. It’s just ridiculous to continue to argue that they deserve the same rights as real people, as was the core of my argument in my last piece. Once that is done, then we can actually begin to have a real conversation about limitations and restrictions on campaign finance again in this nation.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for reading my website.

Reply from Senator Jolley – Citizens United and Campaign Finance Law

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By Jay Hansen

This is Senator Jolley’s response to my letter about Citizens United and Campaign Finance Law.

Summary: Jolley believes that corporations, businesses, special interest groups, and other “artificial people” are people and therefore entitled to all the same rights and responsibilities as people. He believes the solution to corruption is transparency by supporting laws that mandate public disclosure of donations to political campaigns and letting the people decide for themselves if they would still support a candidate when considering their donors.

Commentary: Corporations are obviously not people. They are not subject to the same consequences for breaking the law as a person would be, they have access to nearly limitless resources or at least significantly more than a single person could, many operate outside of the US but spend money influencing US elections and many more operate outside of a particular state yet spend money influencing elections in other states, and corporations are not a unanimous entity; they do not collect their income from a single person but rather the hard work of many, therefore, the money going to campaigns from such artificial people may be generated by people who oppose the money’s use in such a way. All of this is just to name a small hand full of reasons why corporations and “artificial people” are not people, and that’s just off the top of my head. Jolley’s entire letter was predicated on this assumption, which seems to fall under the logical fallacy of begging the question, because one of the primary conundrums of campaign finance law is if artificial people even count as people in the first place the same as an individual US citizen would. On top of that, as I’ve seen from nearly every conservative politician in America, he is incapable of distinguishing the difference between a giant corporation worth billions and a small, locally owned business when it comes to creating law that affects “businesses.” Finally, he assumes that just because people know who donated to a politician they will be disincentiveized from voting for them. The primary problem with this assumption is that candidates on both sides of the aisle take thousands of dollars in donations. In a two-party system that means people must choose between a candidate that is receiving large sums of money from donors, and another candidate that is receiving large sums of money from separate (or the same) donors, which leaves my point about politicians being incentivized to represent their donors more than their voting base completely unaddressed by Jolley. Even still there’s the fact that such large amounts of money are extremely manipulative and have proven to have high influence among people even if the information generated by such money is completely false or extremely misleading, completely overpowering any good even the best transparency laws could ever do, and that’s assuming the current transparency laws even effectively accomplish their intended goal.

On the bright side, Senator Jolley responded very promptly to my message, and it seemed genuine; it wasn’t some pre-written response so many politicians send out en masse to any letters of similar topics.

Full Text:

Hello Jay,

The biggest problem with this is that it changes the status of free speech for artificial persons.  Corporations, Associatons, etc.. are considered artificial persons under the U.S. Constitution. Accordingly, they are entitled to the same rights as natural persons are: freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, right to trial by jury, right to counsel, etc…

The issue is whether we would want a constitutional amendment to abridge a portion of their freedom of speech, that is their freedom to speak on political issues by donating money to a campaign or speaking freely as to how the believe an issue should be decided.  So let me give you this hypothetical and see how you feel it should be resolved:

A) Small business wants to donate money to one of their partners/owners to help him seek political office.  They give him $500.00 to help his campaign.

B) Multi-billionaire writes a check to Television Network to run a one hour program bashing someone who is running for office in attempts to help his opponent. The opponent has no knowledge or desire for the ad to run.

Under your reasoning, the first would be outlawed as something wrong because it was a “corporation” while the second would still be allowed because it is an individual simply exercising his free speech rights.  I actually find more offense in the second scenario than the first.

My faith in the electorate is that if they have full knowledge of who has supported and provided financial support to a candidate, they will be willing to weigh who the best candidate is on their own merits.  Rather than place limits on free speech, I currently believe the preferred manner of addressing campaign finances is transparency and rapid public disclosure.

After my first election, I filed a bill that infuriated one of my major donors. They accused me of coming out like a California Democrat instead of a conservative Oklahoma Republican. My response was to sit down and visit with them and explain why I was doing what I was, then I proceeded to pass the bill they opposed with near unanimous support in both the Senate and House and the Governor signed it into law.

I represent my constituents, not my donors.  Another thing for you to also consider is that most of us receive support from people who wind up on opposing sides of an issue. So when we get money from both sides, we do what we do in all other matters: do what we think is right, not what somebody gave us money to do.

We are obviously going to disagree on this issue, but I appreciate you communicating with me.

With best regards,

Clark Jolley

To Jolley and Cooksey – Citizens United and Campaign Finance Laws

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By Jay Hansen

This is a letter I’ve just written to Senator Jolley and Congresswoman Cooksey of the Oklahoma state legislatures. Click here to find your representatives in the state government!

Letter

Dear [Congresswoman Cooksey / Senator Jolley],

My name is Jay Hansen. I am a 25 year old UCO graduate and have lived in Edmond my whole life. It’s been several weeks since the election and I’ve had some time to digest the results, along with political ideology and ethics. We live in a nation of deeply divisive politics, but there’s one issue where I feel there is an astounding amount of common ground, even just among Oklahoman voters of opposing political ideology, and not just Americans overall. I’m writing you today in hopes that our state legislature may be able to address this issue, especially when considering how little attention is given to one so unifying.

I’ll start with the most agreeable facts and work my way towards specificity. I am an employee for a local small business. I like to think of myself as a good, hard worker, and this is primarily because I do as my employer asks of me. When broken down to a human nature level, this is because he is the one that signs my paychecks; therefore, I have high interest in doing what he wants. So much is human nature. I think we can all agree to that.

It’s this same fact of human nature, however, that is the root cause of corruption in government, particularly federal government, today. Whoever “signs our checks” is the one we have the highest interest in pleasing and serving. To extend my analogy further, politicians and lawmakers are just employees like anyone else. In an ideal world, it would be the taxpayers that “sign” their paychecks, but this is sadly not always the case. All too often lawmakers receive tremendously more money and bonuses from large donors than they ever could in their standard salary and benefits as representatives of the people. Through loopholes and other legal work-arounds many have even found ways to sneak campaign money into personal accounts across the country, further enforcing the relationship between politician and donor as employee and employer. This has shifted the interest from lawmakers actually representing the people of their respective district (or state, nation, etc.) to representing those that give them the most money. It’s an age-old problem in politics that has gotten infinitely worse in the past four years, and although it is more damaging and noticeable at the federal level, the solution to this problem is in the hands of the states.

Before I continue, allow me to say I don’t mean to insult you or question your ethics directly, nor do I even intend to make some assuming, blanket statement of “all politicians are corrupt.” But nonetheless, I’m sure that you are capable of seeing how such an incentive system established as it is creates indisputable conflicts of interest and could easily, one could say inevitably, lead to corruption of lawmakers as individuals. That much I feel is painfully clear, and also that we can all agree to it.

The problem is because of a Supreme Court decision it is not possible for even the federal legislature, let alone the states, to legislate any sort of campaign finance laws as they have been ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that money equals free speech, meaning that laws that restrict money in politics is a restriction of free speech, and also setting a dangerous precedent that some people have more of a right to free speech than others. As a Republican, I’m sure you understand the dangers of a federal government that’s gotten too large and restrictive, particularly for state’s rights. There is no better example of a federal government that’s grown too large than when the Supreme Court issues a ruling that is in direct opposition to vast majorities of the American population such as the now infamous Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. The only way to overturn a ruling of the Supreme Court, of course, is to amend the constitution so it may no longer be interpreted in such a way.

Right now there are eleven states that have passed legislation or resolutions affirming that we must get money out of politics and vouched their support for overturning Citizens United through any and all legal means possible, primarily a constitutional amendment. States as new-age and liberal as California, as traditional and conservative as Montana, and even states as mixed as Colorado are among such states. All Americans and all Oklahomans should be able to agree that political bribery, be it sanctioned by law or not, should not be tolerated in a true democracy; this includes conservatives such as yourself. The power to legislate campaign finance laws must be returned to the states, or at the very least the federal legislature, as right now it has been stolen by the Supreme Court.

This is not an issue of freedom [Congresswoman Cooksey / Senator Jolley], but rather fairness. I do disagree with a great deal of your positions on the issues, but I feel we can agree on this. Politicians should represent their people, not their donors. People should be able to vote for the candidate they rationally have concluded is honestly the most qualified for the position without their decisions being influenced or drawn into question with floods of propaganda the likes of which this nation has never seen. The only way this can happen is if we return fairness to our elections by allowing the government to legislate and regulate campaign finance, which can only be done by overturning Citizens United.

We have a rare chance to let Oklahoma become an integral part of history. People are tired of corruption, so I’ve no doubt that a constitutional amendment will happen eventually that allows us to regulate the money in politics once again. Given the corruption that reeks from the federal government, however, they would never do such a thing, so once again it is up to the states to save this nation. The only path through which this is possible is a call for a constitutional convention of the states. Oklahoma could be one such state that stands up for American values, Oklahoman values, conservative values, and make history by participating in a constitutional convention of states to amend the constitution in way both sorely needed and demanded by the American people. As I said earlier, already eleven of the thirty-eight states needed have vouched their support. Oklahoma could be one, and take a stand against a big, corrupt government.

If you for some reason disagree, I’m curious to know exactly where and why. Do you disagree that it is human nature to please those that provide the most to us? Or do you believe that politicians are superhuman, immune to corruption and their own nature? Or do you believe that such an incentive structure from donor to politician is somehow a good thing for democracy?

Thank you for reading my long letter. I will also send a similar letter to my representative in the state [House / Senate].

Merry Christmas

Sincerely,
Jay Hansen