Senator Sanders took to the Senate floor Tuesday to condemn our broken campaign finance system as “legalized bribery.” He voted, Monday, to stop the Republican effort to defund Planned Parenthood. On Tuesday, Sanders applauded the Securities and Exchange Commission for adopting a rule requiring publicly-traded companies to disclose executive pay as a rate of average workers’ pay. At a rally celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Sanders called for the United States to lead the world in voter turnout and introduced two bills to make going to the polls easier for Americans. Finally, Sanders called the nuclear agreement with Iran imperfect, but said “in the real world you do the best that you can do.”

Ending Legalized Bribery

In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Sanders said he would introduce legislation to provide public funding of elections to replace a “corrupt” system of “legalized bribery’ with candidates “begging for contributions from the wealthy and the powerful.” “We are talking about a rapid movement in this country toward oligarchy, toward a government owned and controlled by a handful of extremely wealthy families,” Sanders said. Sanders announced in the speech he will formally introduce legislation when Congress returns in September to provide public funding of campaigns to make elections more competitive and allow candidates to spend more time discussing issues with voters and less time raising campaign funds. Watch Sanders’ speech.

Planned Parenthood

The Senate blocked a Republican drive Monday to terminate federal funds for Planned Parenthood. Sanders opposed the bill. Sanders equated the Senate Republican attack on Planned Parenthood, where 1 in 5 women get care, to an attack on woman's health care. "The current attempt to discredit Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies," Sanders said.

Workers Before Executives

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to adopt a rule requiring companies to disclose how much more chief executives are paid than workers. “The decision to require companies to disclose how much more CEOs are paid than workers is an important step in the fight against income inequality," Sanders said after the decision. "The average chief executive in America now makes nearly 300 times more than the average worker – and the gap between the people at the top and working families is growing wider and wider. I hope that shining a spotlight on the disparity will help working families.”

Boosting Voter Turnout

Sanders spoke Thursday on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act at a rally hosted by leading civil rights organizations. He branded as “political cowards” state lawmakers who exploited the court ruling to enact laws designed to suppress voter participation. “If we believe in a vibrant democracy, we want to have the highest voter turnout in the world.” The senator announced the introduction of two bills, the REGISTER Act and the Democracy Day Act,  to ease registration and encourage voting.  Watch Sanders’ speech.

Jobs Numbers

The U.S. economy added 215,000 jobs in the month of July and the unemployment rate remained at 5.3 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The unemployment rate about 4.6 percent for white Americans, 6.5 percent for Hispanics, and 9.1 percent for African Americans.  The rate jumps to 10.4 percent if you include people who stopped looking for work or who were forced to settle for part time work. The national youth unemployment in July was 16.2 percent, and it was 28.7 percent for African Americans between the ages of 16 and 19.

Iran Deal

Sanders spoke Wednesday about a proposed nuclear agreement with Iran during a radio interview with Ian Masters on KPFK-FM’s “Background Briefing.” “It is very easy to say the agreement is not perfect. It is not perfect … But in the real world you do the best that you can do,” he said. “Without an agreement Iran could have a nuclear weapon,” Sanders added. The Washington Post listed Sanders among senators who are “clearly leaning yes” but “reserving final judgment.”