Thread by @CallForCongress

The duopoly is going all out to deny third party voices this year

The Stein campaign has qualified for Federal Matching Funds, but Congress robbed the fund and Treasury is refusing to pay us $270,000. It is unconscionable and unprecedented….

Explanation 🧵 /16

What are Federal Matching Funds?

When you file your taxes each year, you’re asked “do you want $3 to go to the Presidential Matching Fund?”

It is essentially a fund reserved to help campaigns be more competitive against the flood of big money interests

Before presidential campaigns became billion dollar affairs, both duopoly candidates used to use the fund, which matches individual donor contributions up to $250

To qualify, a campaign must raise $5000 from 20 states, with each donor’s contribution only counting up to $250

Once that threshold is reached, the fund matches that $100k ($5k x 20 states), and also matches all other donors up to $250 retroactively and for the remainder of the primary

General election matching funds are also available

But the use of these matching funds comes with limits

To use the matching funds, a general election campaign would have to limit overall spending to $123.5 million and not take any other private donations

So the major parties do not use these funds, in fact haven’t used them since 2008 because they’d rather use the billions corporations give

The Jill Stein is the only campaign (other than Mike Pence, no longer active) that has met the threshold for this funding

And while the FEC has said we qualify for the match - a payment of $270k at this point - we are being denied that payment

Here’s what we are being told:

Since the duopoly candidates have rejected that funding for the last 16 years, that $3 per IRS filing grew to over $400 million

And this year, Congress decided to “appropriate” those funds for other uses. They took $320mil and gave it to the Secret Service…

They took $25mil and gave it to the Justice Dept. They took $55mil for “election security” (ironically securing elections from 3rd parties it seems)

Right now we are being denied our earned primary matching funds because there is a “shortfall”

There is still $17mil in the fund

What we have earned amounts to 1.5% of what’s in the fund

And they are saying there’s a shortfall?

But here’s their reasoning:

“We need to wait until the major parties have their convention so we will know if they are going to apply for the funds”

Excuse me?

Use of matching funds for the general election takes priority over use of funds for the primary, but the only campaigns that can qualify for those funds are the duopoly campaigns

(Btw, using funds in the general is allowed by campaigns who got 5% or more in the prior election)

So you can probably see at this point how farcical this is

The two major parties have not used matching funds for 16 years due to the imposed spending limits

They are not going to use them this year

And in past years, qualified campaigns have been paid out immediately

But this year, Congress robbed the fund (and if you are a taxpayer and have checked that $3 box, you should be righteously pissed off about this misappropriation)

And the Treasury is saying “sorry, we don’t have the money, we might need it for the general”

It’s a laughable justification

But understand this is a political hit. Congress appropriated that money right when we were messaging that we were about to hit the threshold

And Treasury is a politicized department with Janet Yellen as chair

The FEC is not the responsible party here. They qualified us, said we were good to go

This is coming from higher up, politically motivated to shut down our traction

And it has. It has stifled our momentum. This, and the bullshit lawsuits to keep us off the ballot

Democrats say they are defending democracy, but this is how they are doing it. Political trickery and lawfare

They are limiting the choices of voters when voters (not BlueMAGA of course, they are cheering on the chicanery) are fed up with the garbage forced on us by the duopoly

I hope people share what’s going on here

The Green Party takes no corporate money. We are following the rules. And the playground bullies are continuing to rig the system for the war machine and other corporate interests

This is not democracy. It is not justice