Few issues facing us today are in greater need of civic action by all of us than fixing America’s election and political money problems. This is because lawmakers are captive to the election and political money problem. Our ever-growing election money situation in the US – 2022 federal campaigns spent $16.3 Billion! That was nearly 3 times as much as that spent in the 2018 federal elections. It is truly exploding!
Changing this situation takes us – regular citizens – to forcefully demand change by elected officials. It is not in their self-interest to lead the charge. They MUST keep up with the campaign money trends or seriously risk failure in their election campaigns.
Again, our overall goals or programs
1:- A resolution calling for the federal amendment to restore the right to set limits in US election financing.
2:- Ending secret money in Michigan elections.
And, fortunately for the people of Michigan, a failure by our elected officials to adequately address the changes needed with meaningful legislation is not the end of the story. In that event, we can and will pursue a Michigan Constitutional ballot measure to require disclosure of all secret money in Michigan elections.
In the fall of 2023, the target of our campaigns and activities is the Michigan Legislature.
Our Campaigns and Activities include the following (click on an activity below to get more information on that activity):
1:- Citizen Petitions for Action
2:- People Must Govern-Not Money local resolutions.
3:- Community presentations on the ShowMItheMoney effort
4:- MiFTE Data Grubbers Team Member.
The significance of these campaigns and activities to our goals are summarized in the following table. ANY of these activities is worthy of your time, we promise!
| Campaign or Activity Opportunity for Volunteers | Significance to Our Program(s) | |
| Federal Amendment on Campaign Finance Limits | Ending secret money in Michigan elections | |
| Citizen Petitions for Action to the Michigan Legislature | Creates pressure for a Legislative Joint Resolution to be passed and sent to Congress requesting the federal constitutional amendment | Increases ground-swell on legislature for meaningful legislation to end secret money in elections for Michigan elections |
| People MUST Govern-Not Money local resolutions | Resolutions from local governmental and civic groups are especially compelling for the legislature to pass a resolution | Resolutions from local governmental and civic groups are especially compelling for the legislature to pass important legislation |
| Request and attend a ShowMItheMoney presentations for your local group or community | These presentations are our most successful method to generate the volume of Citizen Petitions that will move the legislature to pass a joint resolution | These presentations are our most successful method to generate the volume of Citizen Petitions that will move the legislature to pass the necessary transparency legislation |
| Serve as a member of the MiFTE Data Grubbers Team | ||
A. Citizen Petitions for Action
This is a relatively simple action that anyone can take! And you do NOT have to be a voter to sign this petition. You are simply expected to be a resident of Michigan or own property in Michigan. There is no age minimum.
This petition gives you an ability to tell your state representative and your state senator that you expect him/her to support:
1:- A resolution to congress to pass a bill that prepares a federal constitutional amendment, for enactment by the states that restores our right to set election campaign financial limits.
2:- A bill that will end secret money in Michigan’s elections.
As this format identifies the ShowMItheMoney campaign logo, it makes it clear to your legislator that you are part of a growing group (in the hundreds as of October 2023) of citizens that are pulling together across this state. Those citizens are demanding the end of the hijacking of our elections, and our representatives’ attention, by Big Money and Secret Money.
Click here for a download of the petition and instructions.
B. The People MUST Govern-Not Money local resolution.
In motivating any state-level elected representative to take action on any issue, it is important that they know that there is support from their constituents for such an action. That can be done in a number of ways. Some examples are:
1:- Conversations or communications with individual constituent
(i) petition,
(ii) email,
(iii) letter,
(iv) phone call,
(v) meeting,
2:- Group communication
(i) Meeting involving the elected representative.
(ii) Letter
(iii) Formal resolution
3:- Communication with local governmental units
(i) Meeting involving the elected representative.
(ii) Letter
(iii) Formal resolution
All group communication has a raised importance to an elected representative, as it reflects the opinions and needs of multiple constituents. Indeed, people who are engaged in community group activity tend to be more involved individuals generally.
Finally, local governmental units are even more of interest to elected state representatives, as these local units (1) have greater dependencies on state government, and (2) these local leaders are politically influential in those local communities.
THOSE are the reasons why MiFTE created the Local Resolution Campaign. That campaign is a very flexible one in which an individual or team can approach a local unit of government and request that it pass a formal resolution.
This link will provide you with a copy of our current model resolution.
There are a variety of materials to help local resolution advocates, as well as mentors to assist those advocates. If you send us an email at the following address with your contact information, a mentor will reach out to you. Info@showmithemoney.org
C. Community Presentations on the ShowMItheMoney effort
MiFTE and any of its ShowMItheMoney partners are ready to deliver a very informative presentation in person, or virtually using Zoom, to any gathering in the state of Michigan. This presentation covers the following topics and can be tailored to meet the needs of your group:
1:- Explanation of what is Big Money and Secret Money (BM&SM)
2:- Current trends in BM&SM in US and MI elections
3:- The risks and actual consequences of BM&SM
4:- Current plans and actions to address BM&SM in MI
5:- The growing ShowMItheMoney coalition
Opportunities to engage in the ShowMItheMoney Efforts
Want a presentation? Call us at 810-207-1688 or email a request at info@showmithemoney.org and we’ll help you with all the arrangements.
D. Become a MiFTE Data Grubbers Team Member
So, you are not in a position to organize with others, or you are not comfortable with becoming visible in your community on political activity? That’s OK, as working on our Data Grubbers Team simply requires only that you are comfortable with working on your personal computer in the comfort of your own home.
Doing data grubbing is VERY important to our effort!! This group simply tracks all the advertising on major media being done by political and elections groups. Much of this advertising is financed by secret election money. THIS is how we track who are the secret money sources (big and small), who owns them, and the nature of their political advertising. We take this information and share it to our social media followers.
This is a great team that is very interested in growing. We have a LOT of media outlets that we need to add to our existing list. Help make it happen!!
Want to join? Call us at 810-207-1688 or email a request at info@showmithemoney.org and we’ll get you going!!