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                Financial reform on election campaigns has been active since 1907. Over the years, different acts were passed in order to regulate and ban certain lobbyist contributions, and these were all consolidated into the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971. However, between 2007 and 2010, there were three cases in which the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was taken to court. On the last case, Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court ruled that banning contributions from corporations and lobbyists violated their Constitutional right to “political free speech.” This ruling then led to the DISCLOSURE Act. Now, the question is not whether to ban lobbyist contributions, but how should these contributions be regulated? I researched people in politics that directly represent me about their positions on finance reform and regulation on election campaign contributions. Living in Congressional District 1 of Pennsylvania, I am represented by Representative Robert Brady, Senator Robert Casey Jr., and Senator Patrick Toomey.

                Robert Brady was sworn into office for his 8^th term representing Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District on January 5, 2011. He is a Democrat, born and raised in Philadelphia, and graduated from St. Thomas High School. He currently serves as Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration, helping to lead the Committee’s oversight of federal elections and budget authorizations for expenses of House committees. He has consistently advocated for legislation that supports the well-being of financially disadvantaged communities. So, how has he voted in the past on financial reform on election campaign contributions? Over the years, he has consistently voted in favor of regulation on lobbyist contributions and soft money. He voted yes on campaign reform banning soft-money contributions and on requiring lobbyist disclosure of bundled donations, helping to clear up some of secrecy that goes on with campaign contributions. He also supported criminalizing false or deceptive information about elections. This is helpful to me since it seems as though, despite having accepted contributions from several individuals along with corporations and lobbyist groups, Representative Brady is in favor of at least regulating these contributions and making sure they are fair and lawful.

                Robert Casey Jr. is  Democrat, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and  joined the Senate in 2007. Since becoming a Senator, Senator Casey has definitely been focused on the people. He has consistently worked to help turn around the economic crisis, and voted on tax cuts to help businesses hire more employees. He has also worked on several areas of reform such as Health Care reform. And, such as with Rep. Brady, Senator Casey voted yes on requiring more public lobbyist financial disclosure. He has also accepted lobbyist contributions in past and was quoted as saying, “I’ve accepted money from lobbyists. The question is what impact does that money have on our vote. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m very independent. I’ll be focused on needs of Pennsylvanians – not special interests in D.C.” This statement and his vote for more lobbyist disclosure leads me to believe that his position is the same as Rep. Brady in the sense that supports regulation on lobbyist contributions. He believes that the money should not get in the way of what people in government vote and decide on.

                Patrick Toomey serves along side Senator Casey and is a Republican. Unlike Senator Casey and Rep. Brady, Senator Toomey was not born in Pennsylvania, but Rhode Island instead. He just joined the Senate this January, and I can actually remember his several campaign commercials that aired during his election process. He has taken a position in favor of restoring fiscal discipline to Washington and economic opportunity for all Americans and has worked for such position. However, his position of federal election campaign contribution reform has not been as consistent. In September of 1999, he was against banning soft money and issue ads. Then, in July of 2001, he voted yes of banning soft money donations to national political parties. But, voted against just that in February of 2002. So, it is a little hard to tell where Senator Toomey is coming from. He, too, has accepted contributions from corporations and lobbyists, along with my other representatives. Senator Toomey still requires a little more looking into.

                So, based off of this information I have gathered on my three representatives, Rep. Brady and Senator Casey seem to be the ones I should contact and discuss further on regulation on lobbyist contributions in government. Rep. Brady, being from Philadelphia, seems to have the background most in common with myself, though Senator Casey does not seem to be all that much different. I would probably only contact Senator Toomey just to understand his most current position on regulations, though I will not focus a little less on him. All in all, Representative Brady seems to be my closest bet in favor of my lobbying case.  

I want to show my point of view as a single mother that has 3 children on how I feel about the oil pipelines and the effect that it my have on not only my family but but community as well. I want people to know how I feel about and hopefully it will make a difference. I wanted to raise the importances of how dangerous that this can be and the health hazards that it can cause.  

Monologue 1:

(Setting: In the kitchen making dinner for the kids but you have a lot of things on your mind. After they eat, they get ready for bed)

My name is Kimberly Williams. Well, people call me “Kim” for short. I am 36 years old and I’m a long term resident, living in Fort Chipewyan, Canada. I’m a single woman. Have three children. Two sons and one daughter. I’m in trying to make dinner for them, and get them ready for bed, but so much is going on right now. But anyways “Am I married?” Well, no. Divorced actually. I’m more so married to the environment now, if that’s how you want to put it. The trees, the plants, the bugs, water…yeah, that’s all-important to me. “Kids come down for dinner!” (pacing back and forth shakes head) A lot of my family worked in the oil industry. My mom has worked in the oil industry for years, so it has been a big role in my family. I have always been vocal in my community and always a voice about the tar sands industry. I will always call Fort Chipewyan my home, despite of the situations. Me, well, I believe that my kids and I are being jeopardized by this. (leaning against the counter). You know, my kids love to swim in the lake near the house, but now…one of the hardest things to tell them is no because as a mother, I fear for my children, and I am afraid of what is in that water. When I was little, in 1970, there was an oil spill that only a few people knew about. As I was walking along the beaches, I saw a bird covered in oil and GUESS WHAT?? People were still swimming. I know, (acting surprised) it was mind-boggling. Now, what would you have done, if you saw birds covered in oil? Cause, I know that if I saw a bird covered in oil, I wouldn’t allow my kids to swim. The waterfront where we used to dive off the dock into the water has no water anymore. It’s bone dry. (pulls out the salt and pepper for dinner) The water levels are low and the flood lakes are not flooding. You know what my main question is (confused) “Where are the people that are responsible for this? This community is very close and everyone knows each other so if anything would happen, we would automatically know about it. We have meetings about the tar sands and we are speaking out against them. I just want the industry to take another look at this and realize that what they are doing is not right. Yeah, it’s hurting us and possibly killing us. Like I said I’m 36 years old and I want to continue to raise my kids and see them grow. (trying to hold back tears) My neighbor told me something and it was really true, now that I think about it. She said, “Everyone always thinks about the next dollar but in reality, we need to take time to develop something better than what we have.” Come on kids! Hurry so ya’ll can get into bed early for tomorrow. You can’t possibly tell me that there isn’t a better way.

Monologue 2:

(Setting: Outside cutting wood)

Hi, my name is Mike. Mike Daniels that is. I’m 45 years old, married, and have 2 kids. I live in Winsboro Texas. I am also a carpenter. As you can see, I am building this new tree house. Well, I’ve been one for years now. I fell in love with the community for its beauty and nature. Later on, I purchased the spot that I liked, and later on, got married to my beautiful wife, started building my house, and later down the line, I had my 2 wonderful kids, Mike Jr. and Melissa. I own 20 acres of land with spring fed creeks, and hardwoods. (puts wood down) Now look. It’s about to be destroyed by this stupid oil pipeline. My property now, is being threatened because they now want to run the pipelines through my grounds. MY GROUNDS! The Canadian oil company, TransCanada wants to run the Keystone XL pipeline through the heart of the community. But here’s the bad part. The pipeline carries the most dirties oil in the world and it can really harm myself, as well as my family. I don’t want them to get sick ad possibly die. “Hold up where is my wood?” (looking around for it)…oh there it is. Anyways, really, I didn’t know anything about this “project” that they were talking about doing until my next door neighbor came and told me that she had caught surveyors on my property. So I do some research about it and when I got home, I found all these stakes coming up from the ground all around my property. I was so confused. As the weeks go by, my wife told me that she had received some mail stating a request for looking at my property. I thought it was kind of to late for that being as though there were already stakes up coming out of the ground. (laughs a little) I don’t know what they were going to do. Now look, I love this place and I would die in this place. So I refused to give them the permission to make any more moves. Two months later, I received another letter from the Houston attorney saying that if we didn’t respond within a week, then they would have domain over the property and come anyhow and take me to court. But who are they to tell me what I can and cannot do? At this point, I just don’t know what to do. So I wrote them back telling them that they can come and do what needs to be done, as long as I have a 24hr notice that they are on my property. I watch them do what needs to be done and all but wait…I found out something that was very surprising. I talked to Harry Balswind from Nebraska University and he said that TransCanada did not have a presidential permit and that the EPA was not approved. So wait? I’m thinking to myself, “What was all that for then? Look, I was so mad (cuts wood really hard). Pres. Barack Obama needs to know that having these pipelines are not cool. I have a life to live and so does my family. Having them hasn’t proved anything for our best interest and neither has it created jobs for people to work. You have to treat the landowners with respect and they need to stop with all of the lies. Just tell the truth. Safety should always come first. I think I should stop now and check on my kids.

 Monologue 3:

My name is Victoria Meadows. My husband and me have been living in Channelview Texas for a while now. We both are business owners of a motorcycle repair shop. Were we live, is not far from the San Jacinto River so other oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron ship petroleum. Unfortunately, those type of companies pollute the are with toxins and most of the community is effected with the chance of having cancer. I am one that is active in my community and I am apart of a group called The Fight Against Pollution. We come together and think of ideas of trying to stop the air pollution and Channelview and make it a better place to live. (concerned)My community has struggled so much in the past 4 years and it’s our job as a community to stop the XL pipelines from coming through the grounds. In 1989, Shell oil blew up and it killed a lot of people and also polluted the air very bad. Uhh …what else happened? Oh, in the early 90’s there was an explosion. I can’t remember where it was though. Uh, Let’s see. The river flooded in 1994 but a lot of the oil companies refused to cut of their lines because of the pipelines that had exploded. So with all of that happening, you mean to tell me that you want XL PIPELINES RUNNING THROUGH OUR LAND?? Okay, I get it. You just want to hurt us even the more (getting mad) I don’t think it fair, Not only to me, but to all of the other families living here. This has to be the nastiest oil that we would be having if they still do decide to bring it to us. This is a really bad idea and they need to not follow through it. A lot of people ask me, (sarcastic voice) “Why do you live here?” It gets annoying after a while but I just say because I was born here. All of my memories were created here and I met my husband here. It will be like leaving a place where I spent my life. I don’t think it would be a good idea if I moved and let everyone suffer instead of trying to make a difference and helping my fellow peers and neighbors.

5th District Council Representative DARRELL L.CLARKE

Topic #3-

Weather-

Title- Don’t wear the rain

We all need to know how to say the weather in order to prepare for your day ahead. You want to know if it’s going to snow so you can wear a warm outfit. Or if you’re going out to party at a club and outside is hot and inside is much hotter you’re not going to wear something thick or bolcky. So I am going to help you know the weather like the back of your hand.

Weather & Seasons

GO TO THIS TO LEARN IN A FUN WAY -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU9I59_QcKs  

http://casey.senate.gov/about/biography/