Ralph talks to artist Marilee Shapiro Asher about how she maintains a productive life at age 106. And activist Ray Metcalfe explains his plan on how to defang the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision with his campaign The Bribery Stops Here.
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Marilee Shapiro Asher has been sculpting since 1936. Living in Washington DC, she had juried shows at the Corcoran, The Smithsonian, the Baltimore Museums, and had her first one-person show at the Watkins Gallery at American University. At the ripe young age of 88, she needed to turn her attention to a medium that was a little less physically demanding. That’s when she started doing digital art. She learned to scan her drawings or etchings onto the computer where she could manipulate them and create new pieces of art. He autobiography is entitled Dancing in the Wonder of 102 Years.
“Very often I start from something material, something I see that looks very interesting, and I want to play with it. I do believe that art is the very highest form of play.” Artist Marilee Shapiro Asher (Age 106)
Ray Metcalfe is a two-term Alaska state legislator, Alaska’s 2016 Democratic Party Nominee for U.S. Senate, and whistle-blower whose actions resulted in the indictment of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. Mr. Metcalfe also spent two years as a volunteer consultant for the FBI as they investigated, prosecuted, and convicted six Alaska Legislators and four lobbyists for bribery. He has founded a non-profit called The Bribery Stops Here.
“The little guy wins here. If this becomes law in very many states, it will change the face of politics in America.” Ray Metcalfe, founder of The Bribery Stops Here.
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6 Comments
LEGAL & ENFORCEABLE;
Any REPRESENTATIVE that receives
money or favors from a corporation,
CANNOT VOTE on anything connected
to their Corporate $ponsor$.
Bless R Monk Ralph. You carries Your Ministry even tho Your Heart must Be Breaking after just Losing Your Precious Granddaughter/GrandNeice 😢👩🏻🦰😓
Thank you for continuing to Teach us
ETHICS in Law. Asking Allways,
“Where is the Moral.+.LegaL Authority.”
Concerning Ray Metcalfe’s law making it a crime for a legislator to sponsor or vote on legislation where there is a conflict of interest related to government spending/taxation in relation to campaign contributors.
If a candidate promised legislation in their campaign that would provide public (government) financing for candidates and citizens donated to the campaign because they wanted that legislation, if elected would the legislator have to recuse themselves from sponsoring or voting on this legislation?
Don, looking at the proposal from http://bribestop.us/, I think section (d) addresses your concern:
“(d) Prohibited conflicts and official acts by public officials shall be narrowly construed. It is not applicable to contributions effecting votes on public policy unless that public policy also has a narrowly focused and substantial monetary impact on a select few. It is applicable to transactions with narrowly focused monetary consequences. Actions affecting legislation and/or regulations which similarly impact a broad spectrum of the population, and have relatively minor fiscal impacts incidental only to implementation, are exempt. Members of deliberative bodies may absolve themselves of potential conflict by entering their conflict into the record and refraining from voting.”
Let’s take Medicare for All as an example. Bernie Sanders is a notable proponent, and National Nurses United has donated to his campaign presumably in a push for Medicare for All momentum. You are asking if Bernie would have to recuse himself in a vote on Medicare for All? Section (d) indicates that you would have to demonstrate that Medicare for All is a public policy providing substantial monetary impact on a select few. I’d like to see the casuistry involved in making the opposite argument. You can see how this proposal incentivizes policy that benefits large portions of the population, which is what we want.
Thanks.
But what determines what a select few and broad spectrum of society is?
The public financing for candidates would only provide benefits to candidates and citizens that want government financing of elections and could create a disadvantage and/or prohibition for those candidates and citizens that want citizens to finance candidates.
Don, I’m not sure I follow your example.
Never mind, I understand. I think the answer is that you could use a study like Gilens and Page (2014) (https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf) demonstrating that policies seem to reflect the interests of those occupying the upper echelons of wealth in society, and you could couple this evidence with other studies demonstrating the power of campaign donations towards shaping policy. These two pieces of information would suggest that ‘public financing’ policy would provide broad benefits for large parts of society. Referring to the section (d) above, they wouldn’t have to recuse themselves if they received campaign contributions from public financing advocates. The medicare example is another example (the one provided in my previous comment).