On Feb. 27, a new student-run organization, Uprising Now, held their first event at DU. A lively crowd of students and members of the DU community filled the Forum of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, curious of the new group looking to generate activism for campaign finance reform in the U.S. After a meal provided by Illegal Pete’s, Dr. Svet Derderyan, professor of political science at DU and the University of Colorado Boulder, gave a lecture to the audience about the state of democracy in the U.S. and the influence of large business and interest groups on American politics.
After his lecture, DU student and founding member Sid Farber introduced the group as a non-politically and non-DU affiliated group dedicated to “taking big money out of politics.” As an organization seeking to challenge the laws of campaign finance in the U.S., Uprising Now reached out to the DU community not only for support and membership in their endeavors, but to the city of Denver and the nation as well.
So what do the current laws of campaign finance in the U.S. look like? In its current state, since the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United vs. FEC, there exists no limitations on the amount of money corporations and interest groups can spend on partisan and issue-based advertising. The case declared that there would be no limits on these “soft money” contributions due to a violation of the corporation’s freedom of speech rights.
Speaking on this court case, Farber stated “100 percent that’s definitely something we completely disagree with.” Continuing with the group’s mission, Farber noted, “Basically [it’s] the idea that we don’t want money to count as free speech; we want votes to count as our speech. And we believe in limited campaign contributions from individuals, with a fairly low limit on how much you can spend. Ideally, we want publicly funded elections.”
With the group in its infancy, they are looking for support from the DU and Denver community.
Whether individuals wish to join the team’s nine core members, help with future events and forums or simply rally to vote in favor of the group’s ideals, “there is no priority at any level” of involvement, stated Farber. The group hopes to garner enough support and pledges in order to take their mission to the national stage on other college campuses and eventually lobby the government for reform.
In the future months, Uprising Now is looking to hold another forum with a guest speaker to speak more on their goals to change campaign finance, as well as organize a potential march with other activist groups in Denver. Look for tabling on campus before events for more information. To get involved, check out uprisingnow.org, @ _uprisingnow_ on Twitter or the Uprising Now Facebook page.
