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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

"Citizens United" Anniversary Prompts Events in CO, Nation

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Wednesday, January 21, 2015   

DENVER - Protest events are planned around the nation today to mark the fifth anniversary of the Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling removed limits on the amount of money an independent organization can spend on political campaigns.

The result, said Stephen Spaulding, policy counsel for the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, is that millionaires and billionaires have greater influence over elections at every level of government. In 2014, he said, spending from undisclosed sources topped $170 million. Add that to the more than $300 million spent during the 2012 presidential election.

"And we're well over $500 million," he said, "in money that is untraceable, that has been dumped into our elections, that otherwise likely would not have been spent - but for Citizens United."

Spaulding said a new report from Common Cause shows donations from secret sources to activist organizations have influenced issues that range from minimum wage and gun control to climate change and having an open Internet.

Jessica Johnnes, a campaign organizer for the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, said big money in politics affects communities across the board. She said she is concerned that the voices of average people in Colorado are being drowned out.

"We think that the size of your wallet shouldn't determine the volume of your voice in a democracy," she said.

Johnnes is working with a diverse coalition of Colorado labor, community and environmental groups to create a "Faces of Democracy Wall" online. They're encouraging people to upload their own photos and make their own statements about what they think about "big money" in politics. The site is facesofdemocracy.tumblr.com.

The Common Cause report is online at commoncause.org.


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