Resources

Resources

All the resources you need to learn about the fight to get money out of politics, and build a democracy of, by, and for, we the people.

UPCOMING CLASSES

MARCH ON HARRISBURG 101

RECORDED COURSE, 2023

This presentation focuses on:

  • The nature of corruption.

  • The mechanics of systemic corruption in Pennsylvania.

  • The structural hyperpartisanship that keeps voters divided and conquered.

  • How our lack of democracy causes massive suffering in our lives.

  • The promise of democracy and what our Commonwealth could become.

  • MarchOnHarrisburg 101.

  • How to join the democracy movement and get to work.

This course will help you become:

  • Competent in conducting lobbying meetings as part of a broader organized, anti-corruption statewide movement.

  • Clear about how our political system operates and how our State Legislators are incentivized to think and behave against the public interest.

  • Capable of convincing a State Legislator that it is in their best interest to support the public interest.

  • Confident enough to ‘hold your own’ in a meeting with a powerful politician.

  • Committed to putting in the hard work to get the job done of building a better world for ourselves and our loved ones.

COMMUNITY-POWERED LOBBYING

RECORDED COURSE, 2024

OTHER TRAININGS

We upload all our recorded classes and trainings to Youtube!

CAMPAIGN RESOURCES

  • The Problem: Lobbyists give over $1.5 million annually in meals, travel, lodging, and gifts to public officials and their families, but only about 3% is reported.

    The Solution: Pass a gift ban to eliminate unlimited gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers.

    [Read more on:  Super Bowl tickets, luxury resorts, and loopholes in reporting.  Going out West to the Rodeo, Trips to Europe. General campaign information.] 

  • The problem: Pennsylvania has no limits on campaign donations, allowing big donors to influence party leaders who reward loyal legislators or punish those who stand up for their constituents.

    The solution: End this “Wild West” system by establishing limits on how much money people can give to politicians.

    Read more on: Unlimited campaign spending in Harrisburg. Publicly-funded elections.

  • The Situation: Billionaires, corporations—including those with foreign ownership—can spend unlimited, anonymous money to sway our elections through misleading and negative ads, all without accountability.
    Read more on: Dark Money Mystery Dark Money spenders. How we got a dark money bill through the PA House.

  • The Problem: Pennsylvania's winner-takes-all voting system allows candidates to win elections without securing a majority of votes, often leading to the "spoiler effect" and increased political polarization.

    The Solution: Enact Ranked Choice Voting to provide real choice, elect majority-supported leaders, and eliminate the spoiler effect.

    [Read more on: What is RCV. Benefits of RCV.]

  • Our 23-point policy platform is divided into two parts: Money Out policies which aim to break the grip of big money and corruption in politics, and People In policies, which empower everyday Pennsylvanians to participate fully in our democracy.

BOOK RECOMENDATIONS

    • Keystone Corruption: A Pennsylvania Insider's View of a State Gone Wrong - Brad Bumstead

    • Pennsylvania Politics Today and Yesterday: The Tolerable Accommodation - Paul Beers

    • Daring Democracy - Adam Eichen and Frances Moore Lappé

    • Dark Money by Jane Mayer

    • The Great Labor Uprising of 1877: Phillip S. Forner

    • America in the King Years: Taylor Branch Trilogy

    • A People’s History: Howard Zinn

    • All About Love by Bell Hooks

    • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

    • It’s Not Enough to be Angry, Willie Baptist

    • The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow

    • How We Win, George Lakey

    • Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Maree Brown

    • The Prophets by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

    • Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggeman

    • Changing the World from the Inside Out by Rabbi David Jaffe

    • We Cry Justice

    • You Only Get What You're Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty. By Liz Theoharis, Noam Sandweiss-Back

    • The Penguin Gandhi Reader, Edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

OTHER RESOURCE PLATFORMS

  • LittleSis’s State Power Mapping classes are a great resource to learn more about how to research your legislator and understand their connections to billionaires and corporations.

    Recorded Trainings

  • The mission of the University of the Poor is to unite and develop leaders committed to the unity of the poor and dispossessed across color lines and other lines of division so as to build a broad-based and powerful movement to end poverty.

  • The Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice is a national organization committed to building a movement to end poverty, led by the poor.

MEDIA OUTLETS

  • Spotlight PA

  • Pennsylvania Capitol Star

  • Democracy Now

  • The Lever News

  • Sludge

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