# Campaign Finance Amendment (as a wedge issue) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 26, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626 "2014-03-26T19:55:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/1 "2014-03-26T19:55:31Z")
So I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the proposed constitutional amendments to reign in campaign finance spending. I’ve heard there were issues with them but I didn’t take them seriously because it’s so difficult to amend the constitution that any partisan objection (and there is plenty to shutting off the flow of Big Money) spells doom for any proposal. But then I was thinking about abortion. There is no chance of legislation to outlaw it and yet it remains a big issue. The fact that it can’t and doesn’t get solved is beneficial to conservative politicians since it’s an issue that doesn’t go away. Can a campaign finance amendment do the same thing for populist politicians? I’m thinking that it might if supporters could unite behind a single, simple amendment and then challenge politicians to support it. If Democrats start taking the pledge this pressures other Dems to do the same a la Grover Norquist and the GOP. Once the Democratic Party unites behind the pledge they can use it as a club against Republican opponents not only for federal office but for state governorships and legislatures as well since it’s a state and federal issue. But what is the right amendment? I think something along these lines: \*\*American citizens have the right to spend money on elections and partisan activity. Each individual may spend or donate as much as a dedicated median income individual might afford each year as determined by Congress. No other private money shall be spent or donated. Public funds shall be made available for non-incumbents who petition with the valid signatures of a reasonable fraction of the total number of constituents of that office. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.\*\* That’s not what you would call a final proposal, of course. I’ve only just started thinking about this. Let me know of any flaws you see but I think that’s at least a start to making a nice balance. It limits campaign/party building money to something most people could afford if they really really cared. But it doesn’t seek to fully eliminate the advantage of deep pockets. The wealthy still have the advantage in that they can afford that much without breaking a sweat and can still spend unlimited amounts on issue advocacy so long as it doesn’t support any particular candidate or political party. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/2 "2014-03-27T11:52:04Z")
Well, it could depress voter turnout by putting a lot of them to sleep… ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/3 "2014-03-27T12:15:19Z")
That’s just cruel. The crickets were bad enough. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/4 "2014-03-27T14:55:53Z")
Are you interested in restricting donations in kind? Suppose some organization wanted to go door to door canvassing for some candidate, or cold calling, or doing a push poll, instead of giving the money directly. Is that OK? Can you spend your own money on your own campaign? And, as I usually point out, this kind of thing gives a huge advantage to the incumbent, who does not have to spend his own money to get publicity and air time. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/5 "2014-03-27T15:05:31Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > But what is the right amendment? One that makes **any and all** private campaign spending illegal. Give every candidate an equal share of TV time and nothing else. Works in France. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/6 "2014-03-27T15:11:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > One that makes **any and all** private campaign spending illegal. Give every candidate an equal share of TV time and nothing else. Works in France. So every time the president appears on the news his opponents get free air time? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/7 "2014-03-27T16:03:36Z")
I think campaign finance reform is a very important issue, but is there really widespread concern? Will this be a “wedge” issue with even a fraction of the impact of guns, homosexuality, or abortion? Since taxpayer-funding for campaigns are part of many proposals, I’m afraid anti-tax sentiment might just cause the wedge to backfire. The commercialization of political campaigns is an example of a pervasive problem. Consider [the commercialization of public schools](http://www.ibiblio.org/commercialfree/commercialism.html).: > [@](#): > > Leading the corporate rush into the classroom has been Channel One – a twelve minute news and advertising television program viewed daily in 12,000 middle schools and high schools across the country. > > Students in schools with Channel One are required to watch the program on nine out of ten school days. In return for students’ time, schools are loaned TVs, VCRs and a satellite dish by Channel One. > > … A 1998 study by Professor Alex Molnar … and Max Sawicky … found that taxpayers in the U.S. pay $1.8 billion dollars per year for the class time lost to Channel One. Channel One’s commercials alone cost taxpayers $300 million per year. The average secondary school spends $158,000 per year on the show, $26,333 on the commercials alone. Has there been much public outcry against the commercialization of U.S. public schools? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/8 "2014-03-27T16:04:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So every time the president appears on the news his opponents get free air time? They pretty much get that now, from one news network or another. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/9 "2014-03-27T19:58:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > One that makes **any and all** private campaign spending illegal. Give every candidate an equal share of TV time and nothing else. Works in France. Why just “TV time”? Why not forbid news networks and newspapers from inveighing for or against a candidate. Why should anyone other than a candidate for office be allowed to publish an OP-Ed attacking or praising a candidate? Same with websites of course. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/10 "2014-03-27T20:06:33Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Are you interested in restricting donations in kind? Suppose some organization wanted to go door to door canvassing for some candidate, or cold calling, or doing a push poll, instead of giving the money directly. Is that OK? Can you spend your own money on your own campaign? Certainly candidates could spend money on their own campaigns. I would expect every candidate to spend their entire limit on themselves. Donations in kind is what we want to encourage so long as it’s the kind of donation most everyone can afford. We want to encourage people to become engaged and to be able to make a difference. At the same time we are looking to level the playing field a bit so that the efforts of average individuals aren’t swamped by the big spenders. So if you get volunteers to cold call for you, great. But you can’t just hire people to do it with unregulated funds. > [@](#): > > And, as I usually point out, this kind of thing gives a huge advantage to the incumbent, who does not have to spend his own money to get publicity and air time. ## I’m familiar with this objection. I’m proposing we publicly fund challengers but not incumbents. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > One that makes **any and all** private campaign spending illegal. Give every candidate an equal share of TV time and nothing else. Works in France. Campaigns must have funding. If public moneys are the entire campaign chest and not just a supplement then it really really really matters how you qualify. I’m not inclined to put that much trust in getting the rules to fit every single case. I’d rather err on the side of caution in giving non-qualifiers some chance of winning. Also what about regulating the money donated directly to political parties? That’s a lot of potential influence to be sold right there. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/11 "2014-03-27T20:46:16Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Why just “TV time”? Because that’s the thing that costs campaigns the most money. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/12 "2014-03-27T20:55:11Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Donations in kind is what we want to encourage so long as it’s the kind of donation most everyone can afford. I am not sure how this can be limited to what everyone can afford. I am talking about large organizations using their already-existing resources - phone banks, membership lists, volunteers - on behalf of a political campaign. What kind of limits are you going to impose on them, if any? > [@](#): > > So if you get volunteers to cold call for you, great. But you can’t just hire people to do it with unregulated funds. I still don’t understand. Suppose I am the head of some trade group, and I want candidate X to be elected. Can I set up a committee to campaign for them? Can I hire pollsters and run focus groups? Or suppose I am filthy rich candidate Y - can I spend ten million on my own campaign? > [@](#): > > I’m proposing we publicly fund challengers but not incumbents. Do the incumbents have to raise their own election funds? > [@](#): > > Also what about regulating the money donated directly to political parties? We do that already. That’s the distinction between soft and hard contributions. You can only donate so much directly to a campaign, but you can give much more to a party. Are you saying you would outlaw things like Emily’s List? Would you forbid the teacher’s unions in Wisconsin from working on Walker’s recall? The devil in this is always in the details. Not to mention what was mentioned in _Freakonomics_, who contend that the amount spent is not very closely correlated with winning elections. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/13 "2014-03-27T22:26:07Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Not to mention what was mentioned in _Freakonomics_, who contend that the amount spent is not very closely correlated with winning elections. Sometimes, I’ve read here and there, megadonors will give to both sides, just so the winner is sure to owe them. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/14 "2014-03-28T07:02:15Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I am not sure how this can be limited to what everyone can afford. I am talking about large organizations using their already-existing resources - phone banks, membership lists, volunteers - on behalf of a political campaign. What kind of limits are you going to impose on them, if any? > I still don’t understand. Organizations aren’t citizens so they can’t spend their own money on elections but they can take donations from citizens for that purpose. Volunteers are free to volunteer; free=no problemo being the guideline. Incidental costs hopefully being ignored. Your gas driving around to canvass neighborhoods is negligible but your ticket to fly somewhere else for that purpose might have to come out of your limit. Your home telephone bill where you cold call people, fine. But a call center? I hadn’t considered election infrastructure being valuable from election to election. This sounds like it could well be far too complicated far too quickly. I see why **BG** likes the simplicity of just regulating commercials. > [@](#): > > Suppose I am the head of some trade group, and I want candidate X to be elected. Can I set up a committee to campaign for them? Can I hire pollsters and run focus groups? Or suppose I am filthy rich candidate Y - can I spend ten million on my own campaign? You and everyone else can only spend up to the limit, a set amount per year on all electoral spending. So sure you can set up a campaign committee. Pollsters and everyone else would have to be paid in regulated money only. > [@](#): > > Do the incumbents have to raise their own election funds? Yes. Well, everyone does. Public monies being seen as a supplement to counter the advantages of incumbency. The issue there being that given the small amounts each donor can give that means expensive elections would require a lot of retail fundraising. There are downsides to that, as in less time available for duty in committee or on the floor, but it is face time for constituents. There is something to be said for getting people out of Washington. > [@](#): > > We do that already. That’s the distinction between soft and hard contributions. You can only donate so much directly to a campaign, but you can give much more to a party. Are you saying you would outlaw things like Emily’s List? Would you forbid the teacher’s unions in Wisconsin from working on Walker’s recall? My quote was in reference to **BrainGlutton** ’s proposal. I was differentiating our ideas for the contrast. (I’m not actually quite sure where he stands on contributions to parties.) Organizations like those you mention would seem ideally placed to steer money where it helps the most. > [@](#): > > The devil in this is always in the details. Not to mention what was mentioned in _Freakonomics_, who contend that the amount spent is not very closely correlated with winning elections. I’m not familiar with that argument. But yes the details. Obviously I’ve very rough ideas. Thanks for helping me punch it into shape. I’ll think it over. It was bad timing on my part to start this thread. I’ll be out of town for the weekend after tonite. I’m just glad the thread didn’t plummet to the bottom with no replies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/15 "2014-03-28T14:06:52Z")
_sigh_ Time to trot this bit out yet again . . . From [_The Next American Nation,_](http://www.amazon.com/NEXT-AMERICAN-NATION-Nationalism-Revolution/dp/0684825031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214163307&sr=8-1) by Michael Lind (The Free Press, 1995), pp. 256-259 (from before the McCain-Feingold Bill, but I don’t think the picture has changed all that much since it passed): > [@](#): > > Campaign financing is by far the most important mechanism for overclass influence in government. The real two-party system in the United States consists of the party of voters and the tiny but influential party of donors. The donor party in the United States is made up of an extraordinarily small number of citizens. In 1988, according to one study, only 10.2 percent of the American public made a contribution to a candidate, party, or partisan group. . . . The group of large political donors is a still more exclusive club. According to a study by Citizen Action, in the 1989-90 election cycle only 179,677 individual donors gave contributions greater than $200 to a federal candidate, political action committee (PAC), or party: “Thirty-four percent of the money spent by federal candidates was directly contributed by no more than one-tenth of one percent of the voting age population.” One may reasonably doubt that this one tenth of one percent is representative of the electorate or the population at large. > > \ > > Special interests buy favors from congressmen and presidents through political action committees (PACs), devices by which groups like corporations, professional associations, trade unions, investment banking groups – can pool their money and give $10,000 per election to each House and Senate candidate. Today there are more than 4,000 Political Action Committees (PACs) of various kinds registered with the Federal Election Commission; in 1974, when they were sanctioned by law, there were only 500. PAC money is driving campaign costs to new heights. In 1992, the average Senate incumbent spent more than $3.6 million for re-election; that is the equivalent of raising $12,000 a week in a single six-year term. Members of Congress, by comparison, spend only an average of $557,403 to be re-elected – a “mere” $5,000 a week for a two-year term. The average cost of a House campaign has risen to this level from $140,000 in 1980 – and $52,000 in 1974. > > The chief beneficiaries of rising campaign costs and PAC contributions have been incumbents. In 1972, 52 cents of the average PAC dollar went to incumbents, compared to 25 cents to challengers (the rest went to candidates for open seats); in the 1988 House elections, incumbents received 84.4 cents of each PAC dollar and challengers only 8.6 cents. It makes more sense for lobbies to buy access to established members of Congress and senators – particularly those with important leadership positions – than to fund challengers, who, if elected, would have no seniority and little influence. . . . Former Senator Barry Goldwater has lamented, “The Founding Fathers would frown in their graves if they saw us rationing candidacies sheerly on the basis of money: who has – or can raise – the millions necessary to run for office.” > > Democrats, when they were members of the majority party, received more PAC money than Republicans, though both parties are saturated with it. Contrary to conservative claims that liberal lobby groups dominate Congress, PAC funds come overwhelmingly from business: in 1990, 65 percent of PAC contributions came from business PACs, compared to 24 percent from labor and only 11 percent from ideological groups (including conservative as well as liberal pressure groups). “At one point,” John Judis has pointed out, “the American Petroleum Institute employed more lobbyists in Washington than the entire labor movement.” They don’t come much more libertarian than Goldwater, and even he was appalled at this state of affairs. From the same book, pp. 311-313: > [@](#): > > Today’s U.S. government is democratic in form but plutocratic in substance. . . . In a misguided 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court held that Congress could not limit spending by rich Americans promoting their own candidacies. This decision was to the equalization of voting power what Dred Scott was to abolitionism. In The Yale Law Review, Jamin Raskin and John Boniface have argued that political candidates in the United States must win a “wealth primary.” Candidates without enormous amounts of money, either from their own fortunes or from rich individuals and special interest groups, cannot hope to win the party primaries – much less general elections. Indeed, the Buckley decision is one reason why more than half the members of the Senate today are millionaires. . . . > > **It is time to build a wall of separation between check and state.** Curing the disease of plutocratic politics requires a correct diagnosis of its cause: the costs of political advertising. The basic problem is that special interests buy access and favors by donating the money needed for expensive political advertising in the media. Elaborate schemes governing the flow of money do nothing to address the central problem: paid political advertising. Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office. The replacement of political advertising by free informational public service notices in the electronic and print media would level the playing field of politics and kill off an entire parasitic industry of media consultants and spin doctors. > > An outright ban on paid political advertising and the imposition of free time requirements on the media are radical measures, but nothing less is necessary if we are to prevent our government from continuing to be sold to the highest bidders. **The argument against strict public regulation of money in politics is based on a false analogy between free spending and free speech protected under the First Amendment. The analogy is false, because limits on campaign finance do not address the content of speech – only its volume, as it were. It is not an infringement on free speech to say that, in a large public auditorium, Douglas will not be allowed to use a microphone unless Lincoln can as well.** \* > > \*A much more compelling analogy would be between the electoral process and the judicial system, with the electorate playing the role of the jury. In our system of trial by jury, there are elaborate rules governing the presentation of evidence to the jury by plaintiff and defendant (the “candidates”). If our judicial system were organized the way our judicial system is, then rich candidates would be allowed to buy time before the jury. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, in one Senate election, outspent his opponent by 300 to 1; the equivalent, in the judicial system, would be allowing a rich defendant to buy, say, six months to present his side of the case, while the poor plaintiff might be able to purchase only twenty minutes for his side. “Wall of separation between check and state” is, at least, something you can get on a bumper-sticker. FWIW, some [Wikiquotes on campaign-finance reform:](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Politics#Campaign_finance_reform) Today’s political campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters. You simply transfer money from contributors to television stations. Senator Bill Bradley, 2000. We’ve got a real irony here. We have politicians selling access to something we all own -our government. And then we have broadcasters selling access to something we all own — our airwaves. It’s a terrible system. Newton Minow, former Federal Communications Commission chairman (2000). You’re more likely to see Elvis again than to see this bill pass the Senate. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (1999) on the McCain-Feingold Bill on Campaign Reform Unless we fundamentally change this system, ultimately campaign finance will consume our democracy. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) (1996). [Buckley v. Valeo is] one of the most weakly reasoned, poorly written, initially contradictory court opinions I’ve ever read. Senator (and former federal district court judge) George J. Mitchell (D-ME) (1990). We don’t buy votes. What we do is we buy a candidate’s stance on an issue. Allen Pross, executive director, California Medical Association’s PAC (1989). Political action committees and moneyed interests are setting the nation’s political agenda. Are we saying that only the rich have brains in this country? Or only people who have influential friends who have money can be in the Senate? Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) (1988). The day may come when we’ll reject the money of the rich as tainted, but it hadn’t come when I left Tammany Hall at 11:25 today. George Washington Plunkett (1905). Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor, not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and propitious fortune. James Madison, Federalist 57 (1788). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/16 "2014-03-28T14:24:22Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So every time the president appears on the news his opponents get free air time? European broadcasters generally differentiate between “party political” (“vote for me!”) broadcasts and ministerial (“the government is doing X”) ones. There are very strict requirements about what can be said in the latter. The staggered nature of federal elections might make that trickier, though. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/17 "2014-04-30T17:26:25Z")
Senator Tom Udall has a well worded campaign finance amendment. It allows Congress to regulate donations to federal candidates and spending by, for, and against them while specifically not limiting freedom of the press. The bill gives states the same power for state elections. According to [Politico](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/senate-campaign-finance-amendment-vote-106179.html) this will come to a vote in the Senate this year. This is just what the Democrats need. If they can unite behind this clear and concise amendment they will have their wedge issue to deploy against the GOP this fall and in subsequent elections. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/18 "2014-05-02T07:34:59Z")
This kind of thing is actually ridiculously easy to attack. I read the Udall amendment, it contains no press protections, because if it did, then it would protect the Koch Bros press rights. There is no way to do this without giving the government broad censorship powers over political speech. The democrats think they have a wedge issue. Problem is, the ACLU, the NRA, the Sierra Club, unions, everyone, is going to campaign hard against this amendment, because this amendment purports to silence them, one and all. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/19 "2014-05-02T07:52:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I read the Udall amendment, it contains no press protections _“SECTION 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”_ That seems kind of like a press protection to me. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2014, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626/20 "2014-05-02T07:55:02Z")
I don’t see why you would think that. [The bill](http://www.tomudall.senate.gov/files/documents/Legislation/UdallAmendmentCampaignFinance.pdf) doesn’t silence anyone it merely gives Congress the right to regulate campaign spending. Issue advocacy is not mentioned only electioneering. The third section states, _“Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”_ That seems like press protection to me though I don’t see what that has to do with either Koch Bro. They aren’t journalists or anything. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-finance-amendment-as-a-wedge-issue/684626.md?page=2)