Groups Collect Petitions To Undo Supreme Court's Political Ad Decision

Credo and Change Congress hope to combat influence of corporate money

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/27/2010 3:11:46 PM

On the eve of the president's State of the Union speech Wednesday (Jan. 27), at least two separate groups launched online petitions to try to reverse last week's Supreme Court decision freeing up more corporate and union money for political TV and radio spots. The president has said coming up with a legislative response to the court is a top priority.

Two online petition solicitations were making the rounds Wednesday, one from Credo and the other from Change Congress.

Credo is the credit card and mobile phone company that raises money for progressive causes. It also has a separate Credo Action site that hosts various online petitions, including calling for strong action to counter the court. (Credo Action is credited with pumping in 98,000 of the 120,000 network neutrality comments the FCC received).

The Credo petition is directed to the president and Congress telling them to enact "strong laws" to save the country from the "pernicious influence of corporate money."

Change Congress co-founder Lawrence Lessig's petition is for the strongest kind of law change there is, a constitutional amendment.

"Passing an amendment won't, of course, be easy," he wrote. "In the coming weeks, we'll tell you much more about how the amendment process works and what this amendment will say, and we'll give everyone a chance to get involved and make their voice heard. But right now, we simply need you to join in the call -- say loudly and clearly that we need a democracy we can believe in, and we're willing to act to make it happen."

Change Congress was launched by Stanford Law professor Lessig and Democratic campaign strategist Joe Trippi (Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Howard Dean, John Edwards) with the goal of weaning the political system off of special interest big bucks, which they argue work against "real change," and onto small bucks and public financing.