It’s a shame then that the amendment expressly forbids other ideas for the convention. It’s like they saw you coming.
Yes, preventing oligarchs from utterly dominating the electoral process is a TERRIBLE thing. I’m so horrified I can hardly giggle!
Limiting direct donations only accomplishes nothing. It makes no sense to prevent me from giving you money to buy commercials but allow me to buy the commercials myself. That’s like regulating prostitution by banning sex for money but still allowing whores to have sex for jewelry or other valuables. I did misstate the situation slightly however. The goal of campaign finance reform is to reduce the effect of money in elections. That includes personal fortunes and not just the wealth of others.
If it comes to actually regulating ads then the amendment has been ratified. I really doubt it will get that far. And I don’t recall campaign finance advocates questioning the regulation of the Citizen United ads. For myself it’s plain that was the right thing to do.
I think the technocratic issue was in fashioning rules that would be upheld as constitutional rather than that restrictions other than on campaign ads were unworkable or politically foolish. Ads are hardly the entire expense for candidates. If we only ban them then the big money will flow into buying campaign infrastructure and personnel. All money must be regulated. That’s what it’s about and not that politicians like Tom Udall can spend and no one else can. The government wasn’t arguing that Citizens United couldn’t run campaign ads. They were saying that Citizens United could only do so with money raised within the campaign finance limits just like everyone else. CU and TU and you and I all equal. No one allowed to spend unregulated funds.
Again I see issue advocacy as a separate issue.
You say they are destroying the First Amendment. They say they are just trying to regulate the money. You say it’s free speech. They say money isn’t speech. You try to explain why they are wrong and we are back my last post. I think that’s a win for them.
Just like the old Congress in 1787 resolved “that in the opinion of Congress it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of Delegates who shall have been appointed by the several States to be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation…”?
Yeah that’s not how these things work.
the best amendment proposal:
all campaigning shall be in braile
Unless they are media or political oligarchs, in which case their money is welcome.
I think that this issue benefits Democrats most as long as they don’t actually try to do anything big on the issue. Once you actually write stuff down in a bill, it’s attackable, and as we saw with health care reform, and issue supported by 80% of Americans, actual legislation is easy to drain support from.
Given that this amendment would be only the second time an amendment was used to take away freedom(prohibition was the other), it would be ridiculously easy to demagogue. Because it is actually a repeal of freedom of the press, or at least a limitation of the right to only a chosen few.
Can I make a movie about a poor, illegal immigrant who dodges the system, becomes a doctor and saves hundreds of lives and who ends up testifying before Congress about the benefits to society of people like him? Or is that advocating for immigration reform.
Can I make a documentary about Hillary Clinton and air it on ABC so that women everywhere can be inspired by her story and strive to the first female president of The United States of America?
If I’m a journalist, can I take a sabbatical from my job for 6 months and donate my time as a speech writer to my favorite candidate? If I’m not a journalist, can I take 6 months of my salary and give it to a journalist to do the same thing?
Their powers will be restricted too. You just want to make the case that unless we can lessen EVERYONE’s economic advantages, that there is no point in trying to lessen ANYONE’s economic advantages. In a capitalistic system, this is impossible, the most we can do is keep the super wealthy from steamrolling the rest of us, which is what is happening now to an ever-increasing degree.
You don’t have a solution, your solution is for the super wealthy to steamroll the rest of us, as fast and efficiently as possible. You say we can’t have the good because the perfect is unattainable. Your every argument on this board is on the side of the super wealthy one tenth of one percenters. Your bias is very clear, your intent unmistakable. We will go for the good and leave you maundering about the perfect while we make a much more democratic society.
My solution creates the maximum number of voices, the maximum number of viewpoints. Yours reduces the number of speakers and viewpoints.
The campaign you’re looking for would consist of solely the candidates running millions worth of ads, along with the media picking the winners and losers.
But there isn’t any actual legislation until after the amendment is ratified. The handful of sentences that make up the amendment itself is little more than a general statement of support. And when legislation were to come, if it ever did, it doesn’t impact people in the same ways as health care reform. Saying to people they won’t be able to see the same doctors affects their lives in a way that telling them they can no longer spend millions to buy election commercials doesn’t.
I continue to believe that the side that doesn’t have to explain anything has the advantage in public discourse. You are talking about convincing people to be more concerned about a limitation of a hypothetical right that even politically educated Americans are unaware is believed by some to exist than with the endemic corruption that infects American politics. That’s an uphill battle.
if it only takes one line to explain it, then it’s easy.
“Democrats voted for an amendment that would repeal the 1st amendment.”
It’s not that simple, but it’s close enough, since it guts the 1st amendment’s protections for political speech and pretty much repeals freedom of the press entirely(unless of course the courts interpret the amendment to be self-nullifying due to the fact it says it doesn’t repeal freedom of the press).
So let’s say that I want to support a candidate in a way that’s actually effective. How do I do that without spending money and thus coming under the purview of Congress’ power to regulate money? I can’t even buy so much as a soapbox to stand on without permission.
I’d also note that given the way courts allow Congress to regulate anything that resembles commerce under the interstate commerce clause, Congress’ power to regulate political speech, even if no money is directly spent on it, would be unlimited. Congress would simply argue that say, even though I didn’t pay for a blog that reaches thousands of readers, the blog does exist due to someone paying for it, therefore it’s regulatable content.
Daily Kos has millions of readers, and they directly campaign for and against candidates. This amendment would allow Congress to regulate their content.
I agree. Such an amendment in whatever form it takes would be the death knell for freedom of speech and the press.
Speech would be limited to an individual screaming as loudly as he could in a public square since any money he expended to place his speech in front of more viewers could be regulated. (And I also wouldn’t put it past a future court to say that the money he spent on food to nourish his body to allow him to scream in the public sphere was not also regulable under the amendment)
I mean, it sucks that rich people have advantages in life. They live in nicer homes, drive nicer cars, take nicer vacations, and don’t have the daily worries about money that many of us have. Should we make one exception and also put a muzzle over them? I don’t think that extreme step is necessary when both sides of the political spectrum have rich advocates on their behalf.
THat’s the really Big Lie that politicians and the media tell us though. It’s not just the billionaires. Regular people do get their say, they get it through advocacy organizations. Moveon.org runs tons of ads and they do it by taking donations from regular folks(as well as some help from rich people too). The NRA, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, Americans for Democratic Action, Citizens Against Government Waste, labor unions. This is how regular Americans influence elections. Politicians HATE that. THEY want to have the only legal microphone. The media is in collusion with them. They value their role as gatekeepers and kingmakers. The way politics are conducted today threatens their oligarchy.
Right. This law effects every American by prohibiting them from setting up a foundation to donate $196,000,000 in political contributions like Charles and David Koch have.
Or look at Richard Scaife. As an individual, he’s donated $142,904 to political campaigns. Okay, he’s rich - not a problem. But he also runs several foundations which have collectively donated $340,000,000 to political campaigns. Or the $370,000,000 donated to political campaigns by the John M. Olin Foundation. Or the $500,000,000 donated to political campaigns by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
This isn’t about the average American. This is about a handful of billionaires who have established foundations that have taken over American politics. And the founders aren’t even around anymore in some cases. Look at the career of Michael Joyce. He ran charity foundations whose founders had died - and he redirected them to political issues. He ran the Olin Foundation for six years. In that period its donation to political causes rose from 2.5% to 60%.
The problem Adaher has is even worse than you state. He is objecting strenuously to a proposed viable solution to the very real, obvious, omnipresent corruption in American politics. His only ploy is to use massive slippery-slope arguments that limiting the power of money in politics will put an end to the First Amendment, which are pretty much what his subsequent posts in this thread are.
Most Americans already KNOW what it is like to have little or no ability to have our voice heard in public discourse, because that’s what it’s like not to be wealthy in America. Frightening us with that prospect is like frightening us with the prospect of continuing to have to drive older cars and live in older homes: are there, are doing that. No matter what we say, the people in Washington ignore us, why the HELL would we not look for an improvement? By leveling the playing field we hope to get Congress to pay attention to people who are not billionaires. Adaher likes that situation and wishes it to continue. He wants us to believe that Move.On can compete with Adelson and the Koch Brothers in economic terms. Also, that up is down and good is bad.
Good luck with that, Adaher.
Yes.
That’s a great argument if you trust Congress’ motives. Because the only way you can give them the power to do what you want is to give them total power over political speech. And then trust them with that power.
I just don’t trust them. The government has proven that they will not just exercise every power they have, but constantly push the envelope, trying to accrue power to themselves that they don’t have. If you allow them to regulate political speech, they will do it, and they will not just limit their regulating to millionaires and corporations. They’ll reach their tendrils into blogs and books too. Any speech that is a) paid for, and b) effective at persuasion, will be deemed illegal unless approved by a politician.
The solution is viable, I’ll grant you that. Britain has controls on political speech, and in France, you can’t “insult the President”(Dopers would be arrested en masse for that if the US passed a similar law). There’s no slippery slope here. A slippery slope would be Democrats passing a law limiting direct campaign contributions and me saying that soon they would be trying to limit independent spending. This amendment is no slippery slope. It just pushes the 1st amendment right over the cliff. The amendment gives COngress unlimited power to regulate political speech, except by the corporate media.
This bill doesn’t “end the power of money in politics”. Politicians will still have to raise millions to get elected. They just want to be in control of how that is done. So you haven’t ended the power of money in politics at all.
As for ending the 1st amendment, as it regards political speech, the very purpose for which freedom of speech exists, would be stripped out. Even if Congress used this power judiciously, as you seem to trust them to do, the 1st amendment’s protections for political speech are still gone. Congress would have total power to regulate political speech from any paid source, no matter how small. Instead of having the right to free speech, we would have to receive permission from Congress to speak out on political issues if we so much as posted on our blog.
Strange, you won’t see NRA or union members complaining they don’t have influence with the government. And boy, the environmental lobby sure seems to be doing well with this administration, holding up Keystone.
Game on. This issue is so toxic I would even miss making the election about health care to fight this battle. Are you kidding? An election over whether the 1st amendment will stand as is, or be limited by constitutional amendment? Even if you think your argument is sound, what makes you think your side would have any chance at winning this debate given which side the money will fall on? Unions and all of the groups like the ACLU and Sierra Club and MOveon are going to spend to defeat this amendment, not to mention the ones on MY side.
You’re still claiming money is speech. And I disagree with that opinion.
If Charles Koch wants to deliver political speech, he’s free to do so. He can go on a speaking tour and deliver three speeches a day in every state. He can write books and newspaper editorials. He can appear on television and radio.
The only thing I would say he can’t do is donate a quarter billion dollars to political causes.
As for trust, I trust elected officials who have to answer to the voters more than I trust unelected people who happened to inherit large fortunes.