OCOALITION FOR POLITICAL REFORM
NEW POLITICS & NEW ISSUES: CALIFORNIA'S INDEPENDENT VIEW FORUM
NOVEMBER 17, 2002 - SPEECH BY JIM MANGIA

Our democracy is in crisis. On issue after issue, local, state and federal legislative bodies support legislation that is often in opposition to the will of the voters and the needs of the public. Whether it's the phony California energy crisis which resulted in billions of dollars being stolen from average consumers or the Savings and Loan scandal, or Enron, or the way campaigns are financed - the American voter has less and less of an impact on how public policy gets decided. All you have to do (as Ross Perot said almost 10 years ago) is "follow-the-money" to find out in whose benefit every decision gets made. Special interest money dominates our political process as politicians sell their souls to the highest bidder. Why is it that in a County like Los Angeles with the highest rates of asthma among children, with diabetes rates among African American and Latino residents approaching 40%, with the highest infant mortality rates and the lowest percentage of healthy birth weight in the country -- is the County Board of Supervisors making hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare budget cuts while the County budget sits in a surplus? How is it that residents who don't want a sports arena in their neighborhoods, or who fight for adequate and affordable housing, or want to impact on decisions regarding zoning or quality of life in their communities - are usually ignored and disregarded in decision after decision over and over again? It's because the special interests have taken over our government. With the two major political parties firmly in control of our government - and actually making the laws which determine who gets on the ballot, what legislative districts look like and who can run in them - our democracy has become perverted, rigid and unresponsive. While the founding fathers envisioned a dynamic system of checks and balances where citizen legislators were elected, served and then went back to their communities to get real jobs like everyone else - our system has become bogged down by career politicians whose primary concern is raising enough money for their next re-election campaign and in so doing, pleasing the big moneyed special interests who fund those campaigns. Innovative solutions to problems are never on the political agenda. Its about one special interest winning out over another, while the rest of us become more and more disillusioned with politics and less than ½ actually vote in the elections which determine who will lead and represent us. Meanwhile Democratic and Republican party politicians work to divide the American people to ensure electoral pluralities -- playing the ideology card to keep us divided - where do you stand on abortion; are you for gay rights; do you support gun rights? Are you a liberal or a conservative? The fact is that the vast majority of Americans, all with varying ideologies and opinions on a whole host of issues, want something more than divisive, hot button politics. We want change, we want solutions and we want to find common ground. What can average American's do to change this situation? Today's forum is the beginning of ongoing dialogues that the Coalition for Political Reform will be sponsoring to answer that very question. CPR is a membership organization that believes we must take back control of our democracy. We are committed to the resuscitation of American democracy through political action and advocacy to build a more inclusive and dynamic political culture. We seek to promote increased voter participation, real political competition, government accountability and political reform. We came together on a mission - to disable the special interests that control our government! Some of us are liberal, some moderate and some conservative. We are all colors, ethnic groups and varying lifestyles. And we are all committed to reforming the way politics is done in California so that the people control, not the special interests. We are engaged in building an organization that can represent the millions of independent voters in California who are shut out of our political process. CPR is an organization of new alliance, new ideas and new forms of protest. We invite you to join us! We hope you enjoy our dialogue today. After brief presentations from our panelists we invite you to speak up, share your opinions and contribute to this important debate.