On Tuesday, August 10, dozens of citizens assembled in front of Congressmen Henry Waxman’s Los Angeles office as part of a national coordination by MoveOn to protest corporate influence in Washington. Demonstrators with colorful signs urged 
Rep. Waxman to take charge of the fight on a number of fronts in the wake of Citizens United, from campaign finance reform to collecting corporate taxes to ending lax oversight of industry. As Target has felt the ire across the country from its decision to donate in Minnesota to an ultra-conservative candidate for governor, the debate has grown over the consequences corporations will face under public scrutiny. This protest suggested that people are very aware and energized on this issue of corporatized democracy.
Candidates and political parties already face challenges in maintaining a voice in democracy through the costs to get their message out, and voters have increasing difficulty determining just who is sending them all these mailers, and if the propositions are termed in the affirmative or the negative. Corporations exert increasing influence through advertising and donations, for and against candidates and issues. Now that the Supreme Court has rephrased the existence of corporations into personhood, we should continue to demand new legislation that curtails their unchecked spending without accountability.
Among potential remedies pursuant to this reasoning could be laws explicit that corporations must pay all of their corporate taxes before making any political expenditures. Currently, about 2% of corporate taxes are collected. Even the oil industry gets billions of tax breaks, while making billions in record profits, and inflicting billions of dollars of damaging. If they have money to spend on elections that affect how much they make, they shouldn’t they have to pay taxes that run those elections, and the government they are expecting things from?
Here are photos from the protest, which drew a diverse group of people compelled to speak out against corporate influence in Washington.
My current project, PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes, documents the fight to keep our elections from being bought.