The St Petersburg Fl League just  won its campaign to abolish Super PACs and limit foreign corporate spending in local elections. St Petersburg is teh first city in the nation to ban Super PACs. Julie Kessel, President of the League of St. Petersburg Florida Area, [in photo] joined The Union Edge radio program yesterday to discuss the victory.  Listen to her segment here. Read the LWVSPA’s advice to their members during the campaign– good tips about how to pass such limits in our town. 

Could We Ban Super PACs Here?  At the bottom of the LWVSPA page are further links to more detailed information. LWVSPA had help from two organizations, American Promise and Free Speech for People, which includes constitutional lawyers dedicated to getting rid of the unlimited money in politics that the Supreme Court unleashed with its Citizens United decision [when it decided that organizations had free speech rights just like real people.]  That organization provided pro bono help drafting the ordinance–and the City Council resolution that preceded it.  LWVSPA formed a broad coalition of 30 or more organizations and waged a multi-faceted grassroots campaign.  Now LWVSPA is encouraging all Florida Leagues to pass similar ordinances in their own cities.

Roundup of Recent League Campaigns around the Nation

Campaign to reverse gerrymandered districts In Pennsylvania, the state’s Supreme Court gerrymandering case has been ordered forward, with oral arguments beginning December 11.

Campaign to give former felons the vote The Florida League continues its fight to restore the right to vote to more than 1.6 million disenfranchised voters. The League has been working with other voting rights groups to circulate a petition to get these rights restored for felons who have completed serving their debt to society.

Campaign for Automatic Voter Registration Calling it “the next local step in the modernization of the electoral process”, the League of Massachusetts is urging lawmakers to adopt automatic voter registration in the state.

Join the Campaign for Automatic Voter Registration The National League is also urging members to write to their senators and representatives to urge approval of the national  Automatic Voter Registration Act.

Act to write your electeds today by clicking here.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representative Robert Brady (D-PA) introduced the Automatic Voter Registration Act of 2017 on June 14, 2017. The League  is proud to support legislation that enhances  access for eligible voters in our elections and works to modernize our electoral system. This bill will improve the  accuracy of voter records, cut down on costs, modernize outdated registration systems while supporting implementation in states across the country.

The League is a leader in voter registration efforts across the country. Expanding voter registration has been a principal goal of the League since its founding in the wake of the passage in 1920 of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.   We are proud to see Congress embracing new technology that expands access to the ballot while still taking the necessary safeguards to secure personal information.

And last, but not least….Take a look at LWVUS’s newly designed website at lwv.org–do you think the look is effective? If you haven’t done so yet, you can respond to the calls to action and sign up to get their calls to action by email in future.