May 4, 2010

Videography by Dewey Smith

See the entire panel discussion at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/221732

We did something unusual for a Coffee Party event. With two distinguished guests — Linda Killian, senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, columnist for Politico and US World & News Report and the author of The Freshmen: What Happened To The Republican Revolution? and Darrell West, the vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute — we decided to do a panel discussion, moderated by Annabel Park, and then open it up to questions and comments. The result was a really productive town hall style discussion.

Busboys was nice enough to provide, not only free coffee, but free tea for participants! There were about 70 people here (we are writing from location before dashing off to Frederick, MD for a 4 PM film festival screening).

C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News, and Voice of America were all there, so look for the news reports. The panel discussion that opened the meeting is available at C-SPAN's website: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/221732

Darrell and Annabel about the broken political process: money in politics, Citizens United decision, campaign finance, Senate rules, redistricting reforms, etc. There was a consensus in the room that Coffee Party USA must focus on finding ways of fixing our broken political process and Congress in particular. Linda and Darrell agreed that this is a nonpartisan issue with wide consensus among Americans.

The influence of corporate money on our democracy was a dominant topic of discussion. Issues discussed in break-out groups after the panel included: * Coffee Party needs to narrow down to more specific initiatives as we move forward * Can the Coffee Party make Campaign Finance reform an election issue by supporting candidates who support Campaign Finance Reform legislation? * How can we limit the potential damage caused by the Supreme Court's "corporate personhood" (Citizens United) decision?