NEWSCORPORATE INFLUENCE

Hey everyone! It's William from Change.org. I wanted to pass on this message from Stef Gray about the amazing progress her campaign against Sallie Mae's "unemployment penalty" is making. Read on:

Whoa! Sallie Mae just blinked!

Today, only a couple of hours after I delivered 77,000 petition signatures from Change.org users to Sallie Mae’s front door, the company issued a statement saying that it would start applying its $50 per loan forbearance fee to customers’ loan balances instead of simply pocketing the cash. They’re obviously hearing your voices loud and clear!

I want to recognize how big Sallie Mae’s shift is. Previously, the company had called this fee a “good faith deposit”, even though it wasn’t a deposit at all! After so many people doubted Sallie Mae could be moved even a little bit, this policy change certainly comes as welcome news.

But it still isn’t enough, and my campaign isn’t over. Their move today does nothing to help borrowers like me, who graduated into the worst job market for new grads since World War II. The unemployed, the underemployed, and others facing economic hardship have no extra money to pay this onerous penalty.

The fact is, there’s still no reason Sallie Mae should be charging its private loan customers this fee when it’s not charged to their federal loan customers. The United States federal government doesn’t think people need to leave a “good-faith deposit” when requesting a forbearance for financial hardship -- why does Sallie Mae think this is necessary?

In fact, there are lots of questions Sallie Mae needs to publicly answer:

• Instead of this half-measure, why doesn’t Sallie Mae go all the way to remove this onerous burden from its worst-off borrowers?
• Does Sallie Mae still earn interest off the fees until they're released to borrowers?
• More importantly, do they get to continue counting the fees as cash on their financial books until the fee is applied to the loans?
• The Associated Press reports that their new policy will be retroactive to January 1 of this year. Why not make it retroactive to when they began charging this fee? This doesn’t give me back the $300 I’ve already paid!
• Why doesn’t Sallie Mae offer any forms of consolidation or income-based repayment to its student debtors?

It’s obvious to me that Sallie Mae isn’t at all serious about providing relief to distressed borrowers. Thankfully, there’s more you can do to push Sallie Mae to do the right thing:

• You can call Sallie Mae spokeswoman Patricia Christel at (302) 283-4076 and tell her you want them to drop their unemployment penalty. Here’s a sample script you can use:My name is _____, and I’m calling because Sallie Mae needs to go all the way to help distressed borrowers. Drop the unemployment penalty now!
• You can post a message to their Facebook Wall- here’s a sample message you can use:I won’t be fooled by Sallie Mae’s financial tricks and half-measures. If you’re serious about helping distressed borrowers like Stef Gray, you need to offer a real solution. Drop your unemployment penalty NOW! http://t.co/fiFCxMdG
• You can also call them out on Twitter! Just post this message:No more tricks! If @SallieMae is serious about helping distressed borrowers, they’ll drop the unemployment penalty NOW! http://chn.ge/SallieMae

I understand that my student debt is my responsibility. It’s a debt I want to pay back. But when my mom told me that education was the key to my future, neither of us knew the game was so rigged against borrowers like me. No student considering college, or who’s in college now, should be duped into using Sallie Mae’s private financial products.

-- Stef Gray

While the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) were both put on hold on Friday, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) became the first major industry association to drop its support for SOPA. The ESA is the main trade association for video game companies and was one of the main business associations pushing for the bills that critics say would result in internet censorship. The ESA spent $190,000 lobbying the Senate to pass PIPA in just six months in 2011. In a statement, the ESA said: "Although the need to address this pervasive threat to our industry's creative investment remains, concerns have been expressed about unintended consequences stemming from the current legislative proposals. Accordingly, we call upon Congress, the Obama Administration, and stakeholders to refocus their energies on producing a solution that effectively balances both creative and technology interests."

The victory comes after over 136,000 people joined Shashank Katsurirangan's Change.org campaign calling on Electronic Arts, one of the most prominent ESA members to oppose SOPA as a way to push the video game industry to end its support for the legislation. EA had previously stated it did not have a position on the bills even though it is a member of the ESA.  At least five ESA members had publicly opposed the bills and ESA's position in support of them before the ESA made its announcement.

Additionally, Mark Kern, CEO of Red 5 Studios, created a Change.org campaign calling on the ESA to drop support for SOPA that was signed by over 32,000 people. This week, Kern formed an alternative organization for gaming companies and fans who oppose the ESA called the League for Gamers and had called for a boycott of the ESA's largest and most profitable annual event, E3.

The internet backlash against two proposed pieces of legislation grew rapidly last week as thousands of websites went black to protest SOPA and PIPA. Supporters of Shashank’s petition to EA increased the pressure on the company, and therefore the ESA, to drop support for the bills by

participating in a virtual march on The Sims 3’s Facebook wall. Sims characters You can see an image of the Sims protesting online here.

At the same time that the Sims held their march, others used Twitter to send a message to EA. A Board member of the company, Jeff Huber, who works at Google, publicly opposed SOPA and PIPA. Supporters of Shashank’s campaign signed a Twitter petition asking Huber to stand up and encourage EA to join him in opposing SOPA and PIPA.

As the first major industry association that had been lobbying in support of SOPA and PIPA to reverse its position, the successful Change.org campaigns targeting the ESA will build pressure on Congress to bury the controversial bills.

A couple of weeks ago we took note of the exciting role Change.org is playing in the fight against corporate personhood, as more than a dozen regular folks from around the country have started petitions demanding that their municipal governments get behind a constitutional amendment declaring that corporations don't have the same rights as people and that political contributions aren't speech.

Well hold on to your hats, because we've got some exciting news -- two of these campaigns were victorious this month!

Change.org member Erin Madden's petition to the Portland, Oregon City Council generated more than 1,200 signatures, forcing City Commissioners to eliminate critical weaknesses in an earlier draft of a resolution decrying corporate personhood. The petition also asked for a referendum on corporate personhood to allow Portland's citizens a direct voice in the matter -- a demand that was also won. With the vote, the city attorney's office has been directed to "determine the legality and process of referring an advisory vote to the citizens of Portland on the issue of corporate personhood, and refer their findings back to Council for further consideration," according to a local news account.

We now go from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, where on January 18 Portland resident Will Gattis' campaign helped lead to the introduction and subsequent passage of a corporate personhood resolution.

These inspiring victories demonstrate that change really does start at home -- and more importantly, that anyone has the ability to create it. Consider using Change.org to start a petition asking your own city council to speak out against corporate personhood. Getting started is quick and easy. Until then, we'll keep you up to date on the progress of the corporate personhood campaigns here on Change.org.

There's a exciting, new front in the battle for economic justice on Change.org: real citizens vs. Citizens United.

You probably know that in January 2010 the United States Supreme Court, led by a conservative majority, overturned decades of legal precedent in ruling that corporations had the same First Amendment protections as flesh-and-blood people, and that contributions to political campaigns by corporations can be considered protected speech. The decision was handed down in the court case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission.

Americans of all political stripes were outraged by this new doctrine -- dubbed "corporate personhood" -- and in the two years since the decision, a grassroots movement has sprung up to overturn it. The first step? Asking municipal elected bodies to pass resolutions opposing corporate personhood.

Just last month, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on Congress to amend the United States Constitution to establish that corporations don't have constitutional rights and that money is not political speech. The New York City Council rung in the New Year by passing a similar resolution on January 4.

Similar efforts are afoot around America. How do we know? Because more than a dozen people have started their own petitions on Change.org calling on their city councils and state legislatures to pass similar resolutions.

From Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, Change.org members are using our platform to raise awareness of Citizens United's implications and to call on their local elected leaders to speak out. Petitions have also been started targeting the city councils of Redding, Washington, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Phoenix, Arizona, Taos, New Mexico, Moab, Utah, Corvalis, Oregon, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the New York State Assembly.

The strategy is simple: build support at the local and state level for a constitutional amendment that would end corporate personhood and reduce the influence of corporations in American political life. Critics of Citizens United say that the Supreme Court decision will be disastrous for American democracy. They argue that by removing the firewall that separated corporate money and American politics, the political process will be deluged with corporate money and influence.

We're proud that such an exciting new movement has found a home on Change.org. If you're upset by the Citizens United decision, or anything else impacting you and your community, consider starting a petition on Change.org.