Howdy once again from Texas, where of course, everything is bigger, especially our political scandals.
Mark and I want to thank all the folks here at the Huffington Blog who've been so supportive in getting the word out about our film, The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress.
From the announcement of the film's release in March, through DeLay's cynical use of it for legal-fee fundraising, to now allowing us to come back during a very important week for us, the Huffington Post has been in the thick of the action.
This last week of June is indeed very important to the The Big Buy story. And citizens, that means it's gonna be important for you to whether you know it or not.
First, and maybe even by the time you read this blog entry, the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on whether the mid-decade congressional reapportionment forced through the Texas Legislature by DeLay will be rubber stamped or changed in any way. Supposedly, this challenge to what everyone calls "the DeLay Map" was picked out by pivotal Justice Kennedy as a test case to rein in the most blatant gerrymandering abuses of the last decade. It will be interesting to see if even a Bush court can stomach DeLay's computer-precision violations of the Voting Rights Act -- violations cited by a Bush Administration Justice Department staff, and then suppressed by John Ashcroft.
A Supreme Court victory for DeLay would mean ultimate vindication for his ambitious scheme, a bold power grab to reshape Congress in his image. He could confidently face years of prison time, (and no doubt profitable martyrdom), if that was the price he had to pay for encoding his master plan into the law of the land.
On the other hand, a rebuke to go back and redraw DeLay's Texas congressional lines, either on a wholesale level -- less likely -- or a couple of the most egregiously manufactured districts -- more likely -- would be like rubbing salt in Delay's self-imposed wounds. He'd be facing mounting legal bills and the possibility of doing time with a chunk, or all of his plan, negated by the most conservative court in decades.
The court is scheduled to rule on the case before this session ends at the beginning of July. The wires are starting to hum with anticipation for an important legal precedent either way.
Which brings us to the other huge event of the week for us: Clean Money Day. It's today. C$D is all about promoting ways to get big money out of our elections so that the agendas of citizens stand a chance in this country, and schemes like DeLay's are no longer possible.
A nationwide coalition of groups is using The Big Buy as a centerpiece for discussions about the need for public financing of our elections through house parties tonight. This is made possible by our distributor, Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films outfit, and details about C$D and local screenings near you can be found at bravenewtheaters.org or cleanmoneyday.org.
Why is our film such a good starting point for this kind of discussion?
Tom Delay was able to use a relatively small amount of corporate cash -- $4-6 million total -- to overwhelm the Texas Legislature and ensure that his redistricting scheme would succeed. For that investment, the corporate contributors got five Tom DeLay clones in Congress who could be relied upon to oppose every sort of regulation not approved by Delay and his client list. In turn, those five votes were the margin of difference in approving a subsidized-filled Energy Bill, a generous Central American Free Trade Agreement and recent Budget resolutions cutting food and housing assistance programs. And this is just one example of kind of spoils that corporate money has won.
No matter what your cause or political philosophy, the largest variable to your success is how much your agenda corresponds to that of a small pool of CEOs with enough dough to buy elected officials. If you have a different idea than Exxon-Mobil of how to transition to greener energy sources, or a disagreement with Pfizer over how best to provide low-cost prescription drugs, then your biggest obstacle is the influence that their "ready money" has on the legislative process.
We all know this intellectually, but always put off doing anything about it because we're already stretched too thin with our other good works. But I'm telling you as someone who has spent the last three years tracking just a small part of the problem, unless citizens do something fundamental and everlasting to the way we fund elections in this country, and soon, our other work to change the world will never have a chance.
Please join us tonight for a screening of The Big Buy. It's been called "agitprop border-state film-noir," and "more feisty and fun than a drunken BBQ in Beaumont." It's definitely a film to see with a group of people. And then after you see it with that group of people, look around the room and start talking about ways to keep the crimes against the people it portrays from becoming the norm.
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