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Washington, DC: Today, a petition on the White House website urging President Obama to “use the State of the Union to call for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics” exceeded the 25,000 signatures necessary to guarantee an official White House response.  The petition, launched by the groups Free Speech For People, Avaaz, People For the American Way, and Demos on January 8 took less than two weeks to cross the threshold.

The petition can be found here: http://wh.gov/P9j7

One road to democracy is through periodic, competitive elections with secret ballots, protected by the rule of law.

Standing on the mall Monday among the great and diverse crowd who came to celebrate the second inauguration of the President, I reacted strongly to two aspects of the day.  The first was to the feeling produced by the crowd, to the moment itself.  The second was something else, something perfectly clear: a new American “demos” has arrived.

Imagine a company that is among the most profitable in the world, with a long track record of making money hand over fist for years on end. Except there is only one problem: As big as the profits are, they are no longer getting bigger quarter after quarter. The company has reached a plateau, at least for the moment, where it is still making an unbelievable amount of money; just not more money all the time. 

Cecilia Tkaczyk’s victory is the latest sign that New Yorkers want a different campaign system and they want it now. Tkaczyk challenged a millionaire Assemblyman in a GOP-gerrymandered district and yet, despite a cash disadvantage and little name recognition, she managed to win by 19 votes. And, she managed to win based on her support for publicly financed elections.

“My client only wants to look at employed candidates,”  said one recruiter. “The company. . . will not interview any professional not presently working,” said another. “Candidate MUST be currently employed . . .  "employed or only recently unemployed. .

Annapolis, MD – A coalition of government reform groups praised efforts by Governor Martin O’Malley and Delegate Kiril Reznik that would help Marylanders vote and make sure every vote is counted. The groups also encouraged the Governor to further strengthen his voting package and fix the range of problems Marylanders encountered last year at the polls. Those would include an increase and fair distribution of early voting sites and funding for a new voting system.  

NEW YORK - Today, Demos and O’Melveny and Myers LLP filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of respondents in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (No.