However skilled Obama is as a politician -- and despite the presence of many principled progressives and liberals in Congress -- we cannot expect Congress to enact more than modest reforms until we tame the corporate plutocrats' power.

Let's get on with building a bipartisan uprising of voters to insist that candidates in November pledge to back the DISCLOSE Act and Fair Elections legislation. We can't afford to wait for the Supreme Court. We can't afford to wait for a constitutional amendment.

WASHINGTON -- In the age of super PACs and K Street fundraisers, the hunt for grassroots donors, those giving small sums, has become less and less imp...

Perhaps we need more Greg Smith-type truth-telling from those who have lived in the belly of the beast on Wall Street and in Washington. That'd be a good start. But while one person leaving with a kiss-and-tell story salves his or her conscience, it doesn't alter structural imbalances.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go on the Up with Chris Hayes Show on MSNBC to talk about the issue of money in politics and what we can do about ...

It's crazy that the Constitution has to be amended to clarify what for the majority of Americans is a clear and true statement: corporations are not people. But that's where we find ourselves today.

Who are these people that we've sent to Washington to represent us? Do they live in this country? Do they see the same news reports, pass the same shuttered businesses, hear the same desperate stories from their friends and family? One has to wonder.

It will take a whole different crop of leaders and real public servants, who can work unencumbered by special interest influence, to truly cure what ails our nation.

OWS has galvanized public opinion and has challenged Wall Street. It should now seize the moment to push through public funding of federal elections.

Many of us wondered when it would happen, what it would take to ignite a national outcry against those that are destroying the American Dream for millions for their own selfish gain.

The "we are virtuous, you are evil" message is admittedly, a great way to get people fired up. But does it get us where we need to go?

Perhaps President Abraham Lincoln's famous words of hope for a "... government of the people, by the people, for the people..." will yet ring true again -- with a little help from Russ Feingold and his growing movement.

Fourteen million Americans were unemployed in May. All the while, corporations rake in record profits. This disconnect between public need and public policy is causing widespread suffering. Why isn't our government serving us, and what can we do?

For the DNC to become relevant again, it needs to truly embrace that spirit of "change" from 2008 and support some real Progressives for Congress in 2012.

Members of Congress report spending as much as a third of their time raising money for their reelection. This is time that they should be devoting to representing their constituents and running our country.

MONEY has always been the most corrupting influence in our politics, a fact that is now on full display in Republican-controlled state houses across the midwest that are voting against public employees' right to collective bargaining.

Republicans, it's time for you to once again be the party of the little guy -- let us be the big, bad liberals who want to grow government out of control.

One of the most striking examples of money in politics this year was the extent to which some lawmakers blatantly stated their fealty to big corporate interests, from apologizing to BP to offering to "serve the banks."

The holiday season for me begins when I mail in my donation to The Bowery Mission in NYC. Founded in 1879, it has served the hungry, the homeless and...

Lost in last week's analysis of Campaign 2010 was sobering news about the first casualty of Campaign 2012: the small donor. Just two years ago, then-...

Money makes politicians beholden to outside interests, distracts them from their jobs, and shuts good people out.

The solution to our broken campaign financing system doesn't lie in disclosing where the outside money is coming from -- though that'd be good to pass as legislation -- it lies in getting candidates off the fundraising treadmill,

Secret wealthy individuals and corporations, both foreign and domestic, are financing attack ads against Democrats from one end of the country to the ...

To neutralize Citizens United, we must have a Constitutional Amendment to retake our democracy. It won't be an easy fight, but it is a fight worth having, as our democracy depends on it.