Regina Weiss

Back in the 1990s I was doing research for my graduate school thesis, which looked at how differently poor working mothers and middle class working mothers were treated by the press. While doing this work, I noticed that members of Congress routinely voted against the wishes of the people they were elected to represent. In fact, I noticed that Congress often voted against what large majorities of Americans said they wanted on dozens of important issues. When I decided to find out why, I stumbled upon the slimy world of campaign finance.

My goal is to contribute to a growing conversation about the fact that if we want a working democracy in America, we need to turn off the special interest money spigot that funds elections. If we band together as citizens, we absolutely have the power to get this done.

I am a writer and policy analyst by training who has spent the last few decades working in nonprofit organizations and government agencies. I live in Brooklyn, NY with my husband and our two children. When they grow up, I'd like them to live in a United States with greater, more powerful, more open and democratic citizen engagement than ever before. I deeply believe that democracy - majority will - is a good system - that Americans of diverse political and social views can be trusted to make good decisions about public policy. What we need is to improve our democracy so that every vote really counts.

Whatever your political or social views, I want to hear from you, so please comment on my blog or email me at [email protected]

Thank you for reading!