Prof. Lessig says

Professor Lessig spoke today, and he said the most important thing he has learned from emails he has read from supporters is: "That we can’t wait for the next election. We must continue this work now."

His email elaborates:

So over the next year, that’s what we’re going to do. Our team is already spec-ing out a platform that will make it possible for our most important resource — you — to help us recruit members of Congress to support reform. That’s not a platform to ask for money. And it won’t demand much of the voters’ time. But it will enable us to recruit voters in targeted districts to make a simple ask of their incumbent representatives: Will you co-sponsor fundamental reform? And then to create the campaign to get them to yes.

My Alabama 6th Congressional district is a tough district to target, and Representative-elect Palmer is impossible to pry a word out of about reform. See Can Rep.-elect Palmer say anything?

I will keep hammering.

Let's work on voters across state lines. Tell me what you are doing in your Congressional district. I think we can be more effective if we talk to one another and work together.

Melding with IndependentVoting.org

[There is a growing independent voter movement. Currently, its chief organ is IndependentVoting.org. I think it provides an opportunity for melding. Please consider the below emails.]


From: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 9:16 AM
Subject: Fwd: AL 6th Congressional district-- Independent status
To: Gwen Mandell <gmandell@cuip.org>
Cc: Lee Woodsmall <wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>, Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>, "Rick Staggenborg,MD" <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>, Jim Rubens <jimrubens@gmail.com>
Dear Gwen,
I am following up on the email I sent you on November 10th.
I would like to throw out some thoughts for IndependentVoting.org in 2015.
As your website shows, Independents are much aggrieved by their exclusion from the electoral process.
The website says Independents are 40% of the electorate.
That is a lot of exclusion, and a basis for a lot of grievance.
How much of that aggrievement is IndependentVoting capturing?
I think the sense of exclusion from the electoral process, and the sense of non-responsiveness of the political system to the voters, has become massive in the United States.
I think this is manifested in a proliferation of organizations, which are trying to take a stand about this.
IndependentVoting is rightfully angry about the extent to which the Republican and Democratic parties exercise their power to retard Independents in having a say.
These other organizations similarly have great complaint about how the American people are being ill-served by a broken system.
A number of the organizations have identified the role of money in politics as the main source of the problem.
I think IndependentVoting should similarly consider the role of money in politics as a source of the power of the Republican and Democratic parties to retard Independents in having a say.
The independent voter movement has a history, which Jacqueline Salit recounts in Independents Rising going back to Ross Perot in 1992. The other organizations I am referring to are of a more recent vintage and may need to appreciate that change takes longer to accomplish than they are targeting.
I think these other organizations are reflecting a powerful surge in voter sentiment that the political system is broken and needs fixing, some way, somehow.
If there is this powerful surge in voter sentiment, I think IndependentVoting would want to be in on it.
My idea in the AL 6th Congressional district is to travel as an Independent, who is waving the MAYDAY.US banner.
I would like to find others in the independent voting movement who have similar perceptions as mine, and who are looking for a melding of the aggrievement that Independents have from being excluded, with a powerful surging of voter sentiment that the political system is broken and needs fixing, and with the role of money as prime culprit, which urgently needs addressing by the American people.
I propose to IndependentVoting that it consider putting discussion on its website about the things I am saying here.
For your information, the persons copied on this email are my contact at MAYDAY.US, a contact I have at Represent.Us, an acquaintance of mine in Oregon who works on behalf of the Amend movement, and Jim Rubens, one of MAYDAY's 2014 candidates.
I am posting various email communications on The MAYDAY Supporters Blog in order to promote mutual awareness among organizations, and I will post this email on the blog.
Thank you for your attention to this email, Gwen, and I hope it provides some worthwhile food for thought for IndependentVoting.
Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 4:43 PM
Subject: AL 6th Congressional district-- Independent status
To: "Gwen Mandell, Independen." <gmandell@independentvoting.org>
Dear Gwen,
In my campaign in the AL 6th Congressional district this year, I pounded for eight months on whether there is something fundamentally wrong with Congress.
I could not get any candidate or anyone in the Alabama legislative delegation in Washington or any in the local media or any local political commentator to discuss whether there is something fundamentally wrong with Congress, or not.
With null discussion about that, there could not be and there was not any discussion, if something was fundamentally wrong, what could be done about it.
This is fulsomely documented in my campaign website.Be An Alabama Rootstriker* with Rob Shattuck, and ready access to relevant links can be found at From the AL 6th Cong'l district: I am not crushed.
I think I now consider myself officially an Independent, and, if I try again in 2016, I am pretty sure it would be as an Independent.
Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck

2014 MAYDAY candidate Jim Rubens

Jim Rubens was supported by MAYDAY in the Republican primary election in New Hampshire for the United States Senate (running against, among others, Scott Brown). I am endeavoring to reach out to Jim for what he might contribute in MAYDAY's effort for the 2016 elections. Below is an email interchange I have had with Jim.

From: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: Let's talk
To: Jim Rubens <jim@jimrubens.com>
Cc: "Rick Staggenborg,MD" <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>, Lee Woodsmall<wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>, Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>
Thanks very much for emailing, Jim. I will call you in due course.
Let me, if I may, lay out briefly where I am coming from.
I am a novice and an amateur at this. You have significant political experience.
Lessig started off MAYDAY by calling it a "moonshot."
There is a good chance it is and will remain "pie in the sky" and will never happen.
Nonetheless, I don't see Lessig giving up, and I consider myself all in with MAYDAY. See From the AL 6th Cong'l district: I am not crushed.
I don't know what plan the MAYDAY leadership team will devise for MAYDAY and the 2016 elections.
I am trying hard to stir grassroots publicizing of MAYDAY, and I am even trying to find would be Congressional candidates elsewhere in the country. See Finding would be Congressional candidates for 2016.
Frankly, I don't know whether my efforts are futile flailing (and possibly even counterproductive), and I should call a halt to them as a waste of time.
Until I get a better read from other MAYDAY activists about what I am doing, I will continue my efforts.
Any comments you have about how MAYDAY supporters can best contribute to help advance MAYDAY's goal would be very appreciated by myself.
Recently, I reached out to Represent.Us, and also to an acquaintance in Oregon who does work on the "amend" front. I am copying this email to those contacts, as well as to Lee Woodsmall, who is my contact at MAYDAY. I don't know whether "loop" building helps anything, but that is what I am trying to do.
Further to creating shared awareness, I am recording my efforts and communications in The MAYDAY Supporters Blog. Your name already appears in the blog, and I will add this email to the blog. If you prefer mention of you in the blog be changed or eliminated, let me know, and I will endeavor to accommodate your wishes.
I hope this doesn't come off too amateurish in your eyes (or, worse, ineffective). I am endeavoring the best I can in the circumstances.
I am sure we will converse by telephone in due course.
Sincerely,
Rob

From: Jim Rubens <jim@jimrubens.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: Let's talk
To: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Cc: Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>, "Rick Staggenborg,MD" <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>, Lee Woodsmall <wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>
Rob
Anyone dedicated to the noble cause of ending corruption is a patriot... no apologies needed.
MayDay PAC 2014 was an acknowledged experiment from which we learn. No experiment, no learning and no progress.
In my run in the GOP primary for US Senate, I made political money corruption and careerism major issues which resonated intensely with voters across the spectrum. I lost to Scott Brown for two reasons. First I was outspent about 10 to 1 and second the anti establishment vote was split approximately in half between two anti establishment candidates me being one. Had I run head to head I likely would have won and MayDay's doubters no doubt would have been silent.
Call when you can.
Regards,
Jim Rubens
(603) 359-3300

From: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 8:07 AM
Subject: Re: Let's talk
To: Jim Rubens <jim@jimrubens.com>
Cc: Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>, "Rick Staggenborg,MD" <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>, Lee Woodsmall <wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>
Thanks for the quick reply, Jim.
I know the 2016 election cycle has only just begun, and MAYDAY's plan, strategy and tactics will evolve.
Right now, if you judge by the MAYDAY.US Facebook Page and the MAYDAY Facebook Group Page, you will see that they are largely confining themselves to discussion among themselves, and they are not promoting that MAYDAY supporters go out and find ways to publicize MAYDAY to the public and they are not promoting trying to find Congressional candidates or would be candidates for 2016.
I have been urging promotion of supporters interfacing with the public and trying to find candidates or would be candidates, but this has been declined thus far. I thus took it upon myself to try to do the promoting by means of The MAYDAY Supporters Blog and tweeting directly to MAYDAY supporters.
Hopefully these discrepancies will get ironed out in due course.
If you wish to weigh in on these matters, please do so.
Until we talk, thanks for your interest in this thus far.
Sincerely,
Rob

.

Finding would be Congressional candidates for 2016

Pending the MAYDAY leadership team making further pronouncement about its plan of action for 2016 (incorporating what has been learned from the 2014 elections), I am continuing to try to establish myself as a 2016 Congressional candidate in the AL 6th Congressional district.

In doing that, I have an interest in finding and communicating with other would be Congressional candidates for 2016, who have an interest (and the time and commitment) to take up the corruption issue themselves in a public way. See What about candidates?.

I think that not only MAYDAY supporters, but also other organizations and their supporters, can be involved in this. I have sent the below email to my acquaintance in Oregon, who is active on the "amend the Constitution" front.

I can only hope that MAYDAY supporters will pitch in.

Thank you.

From: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 5:05 PM
Subject: 2016 Congressional candidates
To: "Rick Staggenborg,MD" <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>
Cc: Lee Woodsmall <wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>, Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>
Dear Rick,
I am endeavoring to establish myself as a 2016 Congressional candidate in the AL 6th Congressional district.
I do not know where the MAYDAY leadership team is in the process of formulating its plan of action for 2016.
Regardless of what that plan turns out to be, I think it can only be beneficial for activists to continue try to publicize as much as possible the corruption issue and also to find and urge would be Congressional candidates who have an interest (and the time and commitment) to take up the issue themselves in a public way. See What about candidates?.
In trying to establish my own candidacy, I am interested in communicating with other would be Congressional candidates or would be candidates for 2016.
If you can give me an leads or referrals of Congressional candidates or potential candidates in Oregon or elsewhere, I would be desirous of following up on the same.
In trying to keep pushing on this wherever it might bear fruit, I am copying Lee and Matt on this email, andI will post this email on The MAYDAY Supporters Blog. If you send me a reply, I will also post your reply unless you instruct me otherwise.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Rob

Trying for MoveToAmend

I believe organizations such as MoveToAmend, Represent.Us, and MAYDAY.US, which have a common objective, should be collaborative and mutually supportive in promoting that common objective, even as the organizations have differing approaches for how to try to bring about needed change.

In my previous entry, I reported how I have joined in with Represent.Us in their small business owner initiative. See Team up with Represent.Us re: small business.

I have an acquaintance in Oregon who has been very active in advocating for a constitutional amendment to provide that corporations are not persons and money is not speech.

I have had the below email interchange with this acquaintance:

From: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 10:48 AM
Subject: Fwd: FYI Matt: Team up with Represent.Us re: small business
To: Rick Staggenborg <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>
Cc: Lee Woodsmall <wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>, Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>
Dear Rick,
You and I have discussed several times the past couple of years the matter of trying to get organizations such as MoveToAmend, Represent.Us, and MAYDAY.US, to be more collaborative and mutually supportive in promoting their common goal, even as the organizations have differing approaches for how to try to bring about needed change.
In the past week, I initiated specific action to join with Represent.Us in promoting its initiative to get endorsements from small business owners of the American Anti-Corruption Act.
I consider myself traveling under the MAYDAY banner (because of its focus on getting reform minded Congressional candidates elected).
For information about how I (as MAYDAY oriented) have joined with Represent.Us on its small business initiative, please see the entry Team up with Represent.Us re: small business, which I have posted in The MAYDAY Supporters Blog.
I hope that you, in your role in the Amend movement, will endeavor in 2015 to search for ways to be collaborative with MAYDAY.US and Represent.Us (and other organizations) in promoting your and their common goals, even as there may be differing approaches.
In my mind, the most important thing is publicizing to the public the existence of the fundamental problem in the country's governance, which the country must address in some way if Congress is to be able to do its job properly in dealing with the country's big problems.
Lee Woodsmall and Matt Vaughan, whom I am copying on this email, are my contacts at MAYDAY.US and Represent.Us, respectively.
Please keep me apprised of any steps you take along the lines urged by this email, particularly in case I can do anything to lend support to them.
Sincerely,
Rob

From: Rick Staggenborg <staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 1:35 PM
Subject: RE: FYI Matt: Team up with Represent.Us re: small business
To: Rob Shattuck <rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Cc: Lee Woodsmall <wlwoodsmall@gmail.com>, Matt Vaughan <matt@unitedrepublic.org>
I appreciate your keeping me in the loop, Rob. I have seen encouraging signs of collaboration and new opportunities for cooperation between groups working in different ways to address corruption by special interest money in elections and other aspects of government. I continue to encourage these groups to systematically collaborate to support each others efforts.One hopeful sign was that RepresentUs teamed with one of the groups pushing for an amendment (Public Citizen?) to call for pledges for BOTH the AACA and an amendment. The idea was to pose the question to presidential candidates in 2016 and publicize their responses, making this a campaign issue. That is the same idea behind Move to Amend's Pledge to Amend strategy that is an adaptation of the one that I proposed in 2012.
My only disappointments regarding this effort are that:
1) I only saw one notice. However, I presume that this will be publicized more extensively during the campaign season that has already unofficially begun.
2) More importantly, the strategy was not used (as far as I am aware) during the midterms. I see congressional elections as more central to the strategy if the point is to elect a Congress that will pass the AACA and/or an amendment. In fairness, Move to Amend started very late and put in an inadequate effort to promote their campaign. It seems that the idea of using reform as a campaign issue has been surprisingly slow to penetrate the consciousness of leaders in the movement, but it is happening.
The other very hopeful sign is seeing MayDay put money behind reform candidates. I can only assume that will include both AACA supporters and amendment supporters (and especially candidates who support both).
Keep up the good work, my friend. I will keep working in my own way to promote a unified anti-corruption movement. I encourage Lee and Matt to contact me if they are willing to talk to people working on this independent of the leadership of the many groups who do not seem to be able to talk directly to each other.
Thanks,

Rick Staggenborg, MD
Board President, Take Back America for the People
Founder, Soldiers For Peace International
http://www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org/2011/01/asymmetrical-warfare.html
Coos Bay, OR 541-217-8044 

I post this information to encourage organizations and their members to be proactive for collaborations and mutual support in publicizing and promoting their common objective.

Team up with Represent.Us re: small business

The Represent.Us organization is conducting an initiative to obtain endorsements by small business owners of  the provisions of the American Anti-Corruption Act. This initiative is set out at Represent.Us small business endorsement.

At the link, Represent.Us says:

The corruption in our political system is causing our elected officials to focus their time and effort to their campaign donors instead of serving their constituents. Represent.Us is building a grassroots movement to end this corruption.
We’re asking small businesses to sign on as endorsers of the campaign. 88% of small-business owners have an unfavorable view of the role money plays in politics, and now they're taking action by publicly endorsing our anti-corruption campaign.
We’re asking small-business owners to endorse the Represent.Us Campaign. Help us collect endorsements by reaching out to small-business owners in your community.

In my Congressional campaign in the AL 6th Congressional district, I tried to call the attention of the business community generally to its concerns about the country's economic recovery being threatened by "fierce political divide" and about Congress being a "primary culprit." See my campaign blog entry  BhamBizJournal: "Congressional Inaction Could Derail Recovery".

As part of that, I sent communications to the Birmingham Business Alliance, the Business Council of Alabama and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  These communications particularly submitted  two ideas or concepts which I believed were worthy of consideration by the chambers in order to improve Congressional performance and the governance of the country by Washington DC.

This past week I joined helping Represent.Us with its small business initiative, with my own campaign. I sent to the Birmingham Business Alliance the email posted at Small business owners and money in politics. I will likely send similar emails in due course to more chambers of commerce locally. Depending on the reactions I get from chambers of commerce, I will then consider contacting small business owners directly.

I think MAYDAY supporters should consider this "line of charge" I am employing in the direction of the business community in my area, and whether the Represent.Us initiative offers a means to begin a similar "line of charge" in the direction of the business community in their area to aid their efforts to advance MAYDAY's goal in their locations.

Continued at Team up with Represent.Us cont'd.

How is MAYDAY doing?

Who thinks MAYDAY supporters can do anything to advance MAYDAY's goals?

What can they do?

Looking at the websites and Twitter, I am unable to see that they are doing much other than a lot of talking back and forth and liking on Facebook.

Maybe MAYDAY supporters can do little or nothing to advance MAYDAY's goals, and the exhortations I am trying to make are pointless.

If so, please tell me, and maybe I will agree that I am wasting my time and stop what I am doing.

Let me review a little data for your consideration.

By sending out hundreds or thousands of tweets, I have been able to generate 820 pages views of Just answer the question, Gary Palmer.

By sending out a couple hundred tweets to @MAYDAYUS followers in the past two weeks, I was able to generate 235 pages views of  From the AL 6th Cong'l district: I am not crushed,  and 80 page views of  Roy Cho candidacy: Root problem vs. multiple issues.

The foregoing page views generated maybe 40 retweets, favorites, and Twitter following from those MAYDAY supporters who received the tweets

Was it worth it to send individual tweets to @MAYDAYUS followers?

The past couple of days I decided it's not worth it to send individual tweets to MAYDAY followers, and instead I would send one tweet to @MAYDAYUS using hashtags #maydayus and #maydaypac.

Sunday I tweeted to @MAYDAYUS  a link to Where's our massive public mobilization?, and yesterday I tweeted a link to What about candidates?. Those have each received 10 page views.

Plain and simple, if massive public mobilization is needed for MAYDAY, the interest among MAYDAY supporters for doing things to achieve that seems massively lacking to me.