The past couple weeks, as the national health care debate has raged on, people have been coming to Change-Congress.org in droves to join our fight for fundamental campaign finance reform.
Moments ago, we saw another example of why.
The Senate Finance Committee just voted for a health reform bill -- without the public health insurance option that polls show Americans overwhelmingly favor.
As you know, killing the public option has been a top priority of the health and insurance industries that have showered Congress with campaign donations.
The debate now moves to the full Senate floor, and 30 Democratic senators recently wrote a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid demanding that a public option be added at that stage of the fight.
Our friends at MAPLight.org dug into who signed -- and who didn't sign -- this letter. Here's what they found:
The 30 Senators who signed the letter in support of the public option received an average of $15,937 in campaign contributions from the health insurance industry between January 2003 and June 2009, 54% less than the $34,400 received by the 30 Senate Democrats (or Independents that caucus with Democrats) who did not sign the letter.
We need to make clear to our friends, family, and associates that if we want progress on the big issues of our time, electing Democrats or Republicans isn't the solution. We need to fundamentally change the system in which they operate. MapLight's research is just the latest example.
Can you forward this message to people you know who care about big issues like health care, global warming, and others -- ask them to join our movement for fundamental campaign finance reform today. They can click here to join us.
We'll keep you up to date on our progress. Thanks for helping to Change Congress.
Lawrence Lessig
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