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Use the Toolbox for a variety of unique resources for organizers.
For a deeper understanding of the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in Citizens United v. FEC, read The People's Business. The People's Business explains how corporations achieved their current privileged position (including how they came to be treated as persons with constitutional rights) and offers a comprehensive approach for controlling them and restoring democracy.
Special events: Citizen Works and Public Citizen are co-hosting a 2010 Summer Series on Public Interest Advocacy in D.C. on select Wednesdays from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Speakers include President of Friends of the Earth, Erich Pica (July 7) ; President of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman (July 21); and Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service of GW Law School, Alan B. Morrison (July 28). All public interest advocates -- especially summer interns in DC -- are welcome at Public Citizen: 1600 20th St. N.W. (DuPont Circle/Red Line Metro).
President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010 on Wednesday, July 21st. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to be set up within a year. Ask President Obama to appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead the Bureau!
Citizen Works has built a team of law students and lawyer volunteers around the country currently looking at the fine print and harmful consumer provisions in standard form contracts across several industries. We are in the process of building a new website to share this information in 2010 at faircontracts.org. Join our team.
The world is experiencing the worst financial crisis in a generation, if not since the Great Depression. Excessive greed and the irresponsibility of some players in the financial sector, and their enablers in law and government, have played a large role. Reckless profit-seeking by Wall Street, coupled with lax governmental regulatory oversight, has forced destructive consequences on the rest of the country.
Citizens have again fallen prey to corporate excess. In the wake of the mega-bailouts, taxpayers are right to demand effective consumer protection to prevent flagrant recurrences and to recoup corporate welfare bailouts. Congress and the President must create strong new financial regulatory controls to help prevent future disasters and protect taxpayers. The new consumer financial protection bureau is just one step in the right direction.
Citizen Works also supports two initiatives aimed at protecting consumers from abuse by the financial sector. Now, more than ever, the need for regulations and safeguards meant to protect taxpayers and shareholders is apparent.
Since early 2009, we have pressed members of Congress to reintroduce and pass a version of the Consumer and Shareholder Protection Act, a bill introduced by former Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), and intended to establish a nonprofit, democratically-controlled, nationwide membership association (a Financial Consumers Association) that would serve and represent the public interest on consumer issues, specifically those relating to the financial sector. Senator Schumer has now introduced an amendment (#3772) to S. 3217, the Restoring America to Financial Stability Act of 2010, that would achieve this goal.
A Financial Consumer Association would be a federally chartered, nationwide, citizen-run, membership association of financial consumers. It would serve as an institutionalized, independent watchdog for the financial industry. In addition to keeping an eye on the financial industry, the FCA’s full-time staff would monitor legislative and regulatory activities and lobby for pro-consumer reforms. It would also represent financial consumers before regulatory agencies, Congress, state legislatures and the courts and thereby serve as an important countervailing force to the power and influence of the financial industry.
We urge the implementation of a Securities-Speculation Tax, a small tax on all financial transactions that would restrain financial gambling and redirect investment towards productive enterprise.
Effort to create an independent Financial Consumers Association doesn't get a vote in the Senate. May 2010 See wallstreetwatch.org,nader.org.
Forced Arbitration: Unfair and Everywhere, Public Citizen, September 14, 2009 www.citizen.org, co-authored and researched by Citizen Works Contract Reform Team Member Zachary Gima.
Sold Out: How Washington and Wall Street Betrayed America, Essential Information, Consumer Education Foundation, www.wallstreetwatch.org, March 2009
GAO report on Tax Liabilities of U.S. and Foreign Controlled Corporations
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