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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Our View: Bottle deposit increase may help boost returns ... Gray wolf spotted by trail cam in Siskiyou County ... Medford drive-by shooting suspect linked to Portland shooting ... Our View: Bottle deposit increase may help boost returns ... Gray wolf spotted by trail cam in Siskiyou County ... Medford drive-by shooting suspect linked to Portland shooting ... GUEST OPINION Guest Opinion: How to end the influence of money in elections Comment By Phil Guidotti MailTribune.com By Phil Guidotti Posted Mar. 29, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Phil Guidotti Posted Mar. 29, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News Recent price of running for Oregon State Senate: $600,000. Congress: $34 million. President of the United States: $1.1 billion. Fundraising total from the latest congressional midterm election cycle: $3.67 billion Do you feel like these positions are accessible to you? Should wealth and/or fundraising prowess be a requirement to run for state and federal office? The overwhelming influence of money in our election process has completely overtaken the influence of the ideas and will of the people. Thanks to a string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the past few decades, donors now have the ability to spend as much money as they want to ensure their preferred candidate wins an election. Wealthy individuals and organizations now have influence that far exceeds the original intent of the founding fathers. The one-citizen, one-vote principle is essentially dead. How do we solve such a problem? Do we call our congress members and ask them to undermine the process that put them in power? Congress, in addition to having historically low approval ratings, has incentives to keep things the way they are. After all, in the current system they have big wages, pensions and benefits to go with a 93 percent chance of keeping their seat after the next election cycle. At this time, Congress will not act. Now that the Supreme Court has endorsed the current broken system, only a constitutional amendment can overrule them and get the avalanche of money out of our elections. So how do we amend the Constitution without Congress? Thanks to our founding fathers back in 1787, we have Article V of the U.S. Constitution, which lays out two methods of proposing amendments. Predicting that one day Congress itself might be the problem, they allowed for another way to propose an amendment without Congress. If two-thirds of the states call for a national convention to propose a new amendment, then all 50 states would send delegates to a convention to determine the specific language of said amendment. After such a convention, three-fourths of the states would need to vote to ratify the amendment, as is required for all amendments. Can we refer to any historical precedent for such a convention? Turns out more than half of our 27 amendments started with calls for a convention of the states. This method historically has served as the lever to force Congress to act on tough issues. Most notably, in 1913 our country was on the verge of reaching the threshold to call a convention to require direct election of U.S. senators. Once Congress realized this was going to happen, members changed their stance and proposed the amendment themselves. Given this route is the most common to leverage an amendment proposal, a national movement is now underway to eliminate the influence of money in our country’s elections by calling for a convention of the states. Vermont, California, Illinois and New Jersey have already passed legislation to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission and related court rulings. These bills were crafted with the help of Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig. They specify all money interests (PACs, unions, corporations, private donors, etc.) will be included, regardless of whether they tend to favor Republicans or Democrats. In the Oregon House of Representatives, we are nearing a committee vote on House Joint Memorial 2, our state’s equivalent to the bills passed in the aforementioned states. Medford and its surrounding areas have immense power over how this vote goes as two local legislators sit on the Rules Committee. Republican Mike McLane, House minority leader, represents a district that includes the northeastern edge of Medford, part of Eagle Point, Shady Cove, and Butte Falls. Carl Wilson, deputy minority leader, represents Grants Pass and Cave Junction. These two men listen to their constituents, and with enough calls to their offices, will vote in favor of this bill. Their votes in committee will determine the momentum of the bill through the House and Senate. So here is your chance to eliminate the influence of money in our elections, at all levels of government. Call Mike McLane at 503-986-1400 and Carl Wilson at 503-986-1403 today. Urge them to support HJM 2 at its committee hearing at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 1. Then call other state legislators from our area yet to support this bill and its sister bill in the Senate, SJM 3 (Reps. Sal Esquivel, Duane Stark, Gail Whitsett and Dallas Heard; Sens. Herman Baertschiger, Doug Whitsett and Jeff Kruse). Time is of the essence. If we make these calls together, our collective voice will be impossible to ignore. With your participation, our elections will become battles of ideas, integrity, and intelligence, rather than fundraising contests. Phil Guidotti of Central Point is a volunteer with Wolf PAC, a national organization working to overturn the Citizens United court ruling.   By Phil Guidotti MailTribune.com By Phil Guidotti Posted Mar. 29, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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