Before the Citizens United and McCutcheon Supreme Court rulings that allowed for seemingly endless corporate money to dominate our political machine , trial lawyers were the second largest donor group to the Democratic Party , right behind labor unions . Once those rulings hit , those top spots became occupied by Wall Street bankers , hedge funds , military contractors , and tech giants . The groups fighting for working class Americans saw their voice diminish as corporate campaign cash drowned them out .
It wasn ’ t the trial lawyers that really suffered from this shift ; it was the victims that you fight for every day . They saw as their rights in both the courtroom and in their personal lives were stripped away by a political system that appears more broken with each passing election . No matter which of the two major political parties is in power , those rights continue to get trampled on .
So what I ’ m asking you to do is simple : Get off your ass . It is no longer enough to simply write a check to your favorite politician and hope that it will be enough to protect the lives of Americans who have been poisoned by a corporation . You have to get into the system and change it from there .
I recently had the pleasure of sitting in Mike Papantonio ’ s office as he made call after call to wealthy Republican donors and the offices of Republican Senators . Even though these were people that Pap has gone toe-to-toe with in the media more times than I can count , I listened as he reasoned with these former enemies , explaining the necessity of passing the recent veteran ’ s healthcare bill that Senate Republicans initially shot down . You ’ ll remember that this is the same legislation that former The Daily Show host Jon Stewart laid into the Republicans for blocking . Pap put his political disagreements aside , got active , and I have no doubt that his pressure helped get this bill passed . This is just a small example of what I ’ m asking you all to do . Many people reading this have already spent their lives in the
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