Stamp Stampede is a grassroots campaign mobilizing people across the United States to stamp messages on American currency in support of passing a constitutional amendment to Get Money Out of Politics. Ben Cohen, the co-founder of

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ice cream, spearheaded the campaign. They promote stamping through the distribution of rubber stamps, public stamping activities and national tours in the Stamp Mobile. The rubber stamps include different messages, such as: "Money is not free speech," "Not to be used for bribing politicians," "Corporations are not people; amend the Constitution," and "The system isn’t broken, it's fixed."

Background

The Stamp Stampede campaign launched in October 2012. According to

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) ...

, outside groups, candidates, political parties and Political Action Committees spent over US$6 billion in the 2012 elections, the highest expenditure of any US election. The Stamp Stampede supports a proposed 28th amendment to overturn

Citizens United v. FEC ''Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission'', 558 U.S. 310 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It wa ...

and other Supreme Court cases. The proposed amendment declares that money is not free speech and corporations are not people. The Stamp Stampede works in partnership with other groups including American Promise,

Move to Amend Move to Amend is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization that seeks to blunt corporate power by amending the United States Constitution to end corporate personhood and state that money is not speech. The group was created in response t ...

Public Citizen Public Citizen is a non-profit, Progressivism in the United States, progressive consumer rights advocacy group and think tank based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a branch in Austin, Texas, Austin, Texas. Lobbying efforts Public Citizen ...

and People for the American Way.

Currency circulation

On average, dollar bills stay in circulation for five years and pass through approximately 1,750 hands. As Ben Cohen told ''Wired'': "It's a really effective way of breaking through the clutter and interacting with people...I see it as a really cost-effective form of

guerrilla marketing Guerrilla marketing is an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. It is a type of publicity. The term was popularized by Jay Conrad Levinson's 1984 ...

." The campaign concluded that every dollar bill is seen by an average of 875 people, meaning that if 100 people stamped ten dollars a day for a year, the messages would reach over 300 million people. Ben Cohen describes it as a "petition on steroids". The campaign drew inspiration from Where's George? which has marked and tracked over 215 million dollars since 1998.

Stamp Mobile

The Stamp Mobile, or Amend-o-Matic, is a Rube Goldberg device mounted on the back of moving van. It was conceived by Ben and Alan Rorie. Users insert a dollar bill, which is then stamped with one of four different messages before being returned to the user. The first national tour was disrupted by

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

and mechanical problems, but the tour was scheduled to continue in 2013. After three years on the road, Ben Cohen donated the Stamp Mobile to the

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where it is currently on display.

Legal implications

According to the legal opinion posted on the Stamp Stampede website, the campaign is legal. In an interview with

Pioneer Magazine Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

, Ben Cohen notes "It's a fairly commonly held view that putting marks on dollar bills is not legal, but that's not the case." Stamp Stampede argues that the stamping of U.S. currency is protected as "expressive conduct" under the First Amendment as long as it does not promote a specific candidate or business.

References

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External links

Stamp Stampede
Campaign finance reform in the United States