By Tal Axelrod
Joe Biden on Thursday announced he had received endorsements from End Citizens United (ECU) and Let America Vote (LAV) as the former vice president works to unite Democratic support around his White House bid.
Biden said in a statement first provided to The Hill that he would work as president to curtail the power of outside money in politics and expand access to the ballot for all voters.
“Our Constitution doesn’t begin with the phrase, ‘We the Democrats’ or ‘We the Republicans.’ And it certainly doesn’t begin with the phrase, ‘We the Donors.’ It begins with ‘We the People.’ Today, our campaign finance and electoral systems are broken. I’m excited to work with End Citizens United and Let America Vote to fix this once and for all,” he said.
Biden said he would work to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which lifted restrictions on independent expenditures to political campaigns by corporations and would institute automatic and same-day voter registration and incentivize states to automatically restore voting rights for ex-felons who served their time.”
ECU and LAV, which have a combined 4 million members, advocate for curtailing the power of outside money in politics and fighting voter suppression, respectively. The groups cited the former vice president’s commitments to end “the dominance of big money in politics,” fight gerrymandering and strengthen federal ethics rules in announcing their endorsements.
“Donald Trump is the most corrupt President in modern history and he has spent his Presidency enriching himself, his family, and corporate special interests,” said ECU and LAV President Tiffany Muller. “Joe Biden has spent his career fighting to make sure our democracy includes everyone, and I know he’ll work to get big money out of our politics and more Americans participating in our democracy.”
“Joe Biden will take on the corporate special interests on day one and it’s why we need him as the next President of the United States.”
The endorsement from the two groups comes as Biden works to unite the Democratic base in his effort to unseat President Trump.
The former vice president has been backed by former President Obama and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in recent days as he works to shore up support from the Democratic Party’s left flank.