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[Video from 2011.]

The House results on Election Day 2012 were the only bad things that happened in what was otherwise obviously a pretty great day for Democrats and progressives. The biggest question for 2014 is whether we can find a way of turning that result around. Part of the answer, of course, is dependent on how the economy is doing. If the pessimists are right and things are not looking good, we will lose seats not gain them. But even if the economy is okay, do we have a chance at being the House majority after the 2014 elections?

As many Democratic activists have pointed out, we actually won the overall votes in House races by the same 2% plus margin that Obama did, so re-districting dominated by Republican gerrymandering clearly played a big role in them holding on to the House. Democrats, though, are making a big mistake in attributing our failure solely to gerrymandering and essentially giving up on retaking the House the rest of this decade as many pundits are suggesting. I remember the same points being made after the 2002 and 2004 failures to retake the House, and in 2006 and 2008 we not only retook the House but added considerably to the margin in 2008.

The pundits will be predicting doom and gloom for sure. Not only did we fail to win the House back in a good Democratic year, they will remind us, but in the 6th year of a Presidency the president's party almost always loses seats. But historical trends never would have predicted a lot of things we have seen in politics over the last couple of decades (an African immigrant's son with a Muslim name being elected President for one, and then being re-elected in spite of a bad economy for another), and I've been in the middle of a couple big surprises in terms of the House over the years that are worth recalling here because of the lessons they teach.

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The Communications Workers of America have joined the fight against the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, which allows unlimited corporate donations in electoral campaigns. CWA joins 60 other organizations in the battle to get corporate money out of U.S. elections. The groups, under the United For the People banner, are calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling.

More than 60 organizations have now joined the effort to combat the anti-democratic corporate and special interest spending in our elections made possible by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC (www.pfaw.org/CitizensUnited), by supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn that decision. The movement to fix the Supreme Court’s dangerously flawed decision is being supported by advocacy groups like MoveOn.org, think tanks like Demos, and a range of important allies like the Communications Workers of America (CWA) which recently became the first labor union to take up the cause. Through this effort, millions of Americans are taking action to ensure that our democracy responds to the needs of the American people, not just the bottom lines of wealthy special interests.

Under the United For the People (www.united4thepeople.org) banner, these organizations are harnessing the grassroots power of the vast majority of Americans who believe there is too much money in politics. As the second anniversary of Citizens United passes this month, the expanding network of organizations united in opposition to unchecked corporate spending in our elections is coordinating a series of actions from grassroots gatherings to rallies at courthouses and corporate headquarters across the nation to let the peoples’ voice be heard.

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