COMING SOON TO THE CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY:

The Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections Act

Did you know that 98% of the S & P 500 US corporations qualify as "foreign influenced"!

When the bill is introduced in December we'll ask you to contact your CA Assembly Member and CA Senator, telling each of them to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections Act.

Tell them:

1. US Election Code prohibits direct and indirect contributions of foreign money into US elections. (52 U.S. Code § 30121)
2. Citizens United v FEC (2010) created a loophole for foreign money to slide in anyway.  Now it's an avalanche.
3. 40% of all shares held in US corporations are owned by foreign investors!  40%!  (It was 5% in 1982.) That's outrageous.
4. The California Legislature must bring California into compliance with US Code and get the foreign money out of our elections.
5. Close the loophole!  Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections.

• Click Here to find your CA AssemblyMember and CA Senator

Last year's version of the bill, AB 1819, was endorsed by The League of Women Voters of California. Watch their statement in support of AB 1819 in the clip below. In this April 2022 hearing AB 1819 was passed out of the Assembly Elections Committee.

(See the full list of AB 1819 endorsers here.)

This year's coalition promises to be even bigger.

Click here to sign on to the Coalition Letter

US Code clearly prohibits foreign money in US elections.  Citizens United v FEC opened our elections to foreign money and influence through foreign investors who now hold over 40% of all shares in US corporations.  The result has been precisely what our founders feared.

Watch the Virtual Town Hall with:

• California Assembly Member Alex Lee (author of AB 1819)
• Congressman Jamie Raskin (author of HR 6283)
• Free Speech For People's President John Bonifaz
• Former Seattle City Council President Lorena Gonzalez
• San Jose City Council Member David Cohen (San Jose Motion Author)
• MOVI's Michele Sutter

We'll need you to make sure the CA Legislature will protect American democracy from foreign influence.

The AB 1819 supporting materials are linked below. They will be updated when the new bill number has been assigned.

• The petition

• The MOVI fact sheet

• The author's fact sheet

• Read the Free Speech For People memo on AB 1819

• Read US Election Law

• See a sample organizational support letter

• Written Testimony from Federal Election Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub

• Written Testimony from Laurence H. Tribe (Harvard Law School)

• Written Testimony from John C. Coates IV (Harvard Law School)

Want to know more about the campaign to get foreign money out of California Elections?  Click here to request a speaker from MOVI at your organization's next online meeting.

NOW IN CONGRESS: HR 6283, Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act (Rep. Jamie Raskin)

HR 6283 would prohibit foreign influenced corporations from participating in US Elections.

• Read Rep. Raskin's letter to the Security and Exchange Commission on why foreign influenced corporations should not participate in US elections.

ALSO JOIN MOVI’s Campaign to Make California Prop 59 Compliant

With the passage of Prop 59 California voters instructed our elected officials “to use all of their constitutional authority” to deliver to the people of California an amendment to the US Constitution which would remove Big Money from our elections.

Every member of California’s Congressional Delegation received this instruction.  There are 55 members of the California Congressional Delegation, 53 in the House of Representatives and 2 in the US Senate. 

Every one of them has received an instruction from the voters of California with Prop 59.   Compliance with that instruction requires each of them to sign on as a co-author of the Constitutional Amendment to “Overturn Citizens United.”   

Passage of a constitutional amendment will require 292 votes in the US Congress.  California’s 53 votes is nearly 20% of that total.  

Together we can make this happen. 

Is your California Member of Congress Prop 59 compliant?

A constitutional amendment to restore the power in our democracy to the people of America is the only permanent and comprehensive solution to corporate dominance over US policies both foreign and domestic and the ever increasing, SCOTUS enabled amounts of money that will continue to be thrown at increasingly corruptible candidates.

We need an amendment! We often hear that achieving a Constitutional Amendment is hard.  We don’t disagree.  It’s supposed to be hard. 

What we don't hear about is the progress that’s being made every day by Americans demanding an amendment to overturn Citizens United. 

22 states have passed legislation instructing the US Congress to pass an amendment to overturn Citizens United.  Virginia became the 22nd in January, 2021.  When the Wyoming legislature introduced a 2017 bill to overturn Citizens United that left only 7 states in the entire country with no formal measures undertaken to overturn Citizens United.  

Money Out Voters In, MOVI is an organization of democracy advocates dedicated to ending corporate rule and promoting civic engagement.

MOVI General Meetings are suspended due to COVID-19