False. Our democracy does not allow for limiting certain speech based on the desire of the people not to hear it. See the First Amendment.
My statement has nothing to do with that.
Super PACs can spend on whatever they want. It shouldn’t be surprising that they spend money on political ads like campaigns do - that’s their purpose. The donors know the purpose too.
If you are talking about coordination, that’s a different issue, which you’re welcome to bring up.
You’re abusing the term “time place and manner” again.
“Time place and manner” is not a convenient way around the entire First Amendment. Sorry. Congress cannot regulate time, place and manner simply based on its desire to limit political speech from certain sources or because it thinks someone has “too much.” There must be a good reason that is compelling and doesn’t relate to the content or source of the speech.
Most exceptions to free speech don’t relate to speech, they simply happen to involve it. For instance, yelling fire in a crowded theatre isn’t illegal because of its content, but because it is a threat to public safety. You COULD yell “fire” in a crowded theatre if you knew it wasn’t a threat, say, if you told people beforehand that you were going to do it and to not panic. On the other hand, you couldn’t induce panic in ways that don’t involve speech either, such as lighting a smoke bomb and then running away looking like you’re panicking. It’s not the speech itself that is being regulated.
I can bring up whatever I want within the limits of the board rules. Just because my posts poke holes in the premises of your argument (that superPAC donations are significantly different from campaign donations) doesn’t mean they aren’t permitted.
A compelling governmental interest (with ample open alternative channels of communication) for limiting speech in this time place and manner has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of most voters and most board members.
This board leans solidly left, so “most board members” is irrelevant.
But if you’re right about most voters, then they should elect to congress and their state legislatures representatives that will propose and approve an amendment that allows these sorts of restrictions.
Oddly, though, I don’t see any candidates running on this issue. Where are they?
Individual people decide what they see or hear, and whether to believe it. You pick up a magazine, or not, and you believe what it says, or not.
The government may NOT interfere with that. It may not ban the magazine so that you can’t have that choice.
Freedom of Speech 101.
The idea that the government banning speech is the same as the people decided what to see or hear, simply because the government was elected by the people, is more of your whacky Orwellian anti-logic.
Of course you are. I invited you to.
No holes are poked though. Super PACs are different from regular ones, and that’s a simple fact.
But not for the Constitution.
“I really really want it” is not the legal definition of compelling.
The funny thing is that most efforts to pass an amendment involve groups (which are not people and therefore don’t have speech rights, remember!), some of them even incorporated (LOL) that are collecting money and running ads to advance their cause. Do they realize they’re working to shut themselves down?
But this is where I have problems with using money to buy votes. All your arguments about money being allowable to fund campaigns through SuperPACs in unlimited amounts are internally consistent, except for the part about using money directly to sway voters to vote the way you like (i.e., buying votes). It seems to me that if you can allow the one, you should allow the other. If you feel that money should not be allowed to buy votes, you have to admit money has some special property that makes it different from other means of persuading voters.
Frankly, I think you really really really want for money to be allowable in unlimited quantities to buy speech, but are unwilling to advance the notion that buying votes directly is just an extension of your desires. It is here that your argument breaks down. If you can forbid people to buy votes directly, I don’t see why you can’t limit their expenditures for campaigns.
Because you can go spend money to print flyers saying “vote for Obama” and hand them out to voters, that means you should be able to put cash in their hands and bribe them to vote for Obama?
The two have no connection whatsoever. One is speech, the other is bribery. The fact that you use money to facilitate your speech doesn’t matter. The fact that money is involved doesn’t automatically make all use of money the same, or make it automatically corrupt.
Convincing someone to vote a certain way is how the system is supposed to work. Giving them something of value is not. Just because you use money to buy something that helps you convince someone of something doesn’t make it any different.
Well, no, it is here that you took over my argument and started arguing for me. Stop telling me what I think or “really really want.” I’ll speak for myself.
I think its incredibly obvious and I’ve explained it.
Banning expenditure on electioneering communications, as a majority of voters wanted. Orwell… the guy that wrote approvingly of churches being torn down and requisitioned for garrisons in Catalonia? Could the majority of people determine they didn’t want Ilona Staller’s political speeches broadcast during daytime ad slots?
Which has no relevance whatsoever to my point, which was that the majority of expenditure for regular campaigns goes towards electioneering communications. Limiting campaign contributions to candidates limits that candidate’s speech.
Here’s the wiki for governmental interest. Apparently, there’s a governmental interest in restricting access to unapproved drugs. Presumably there’d be an interest in ensuring that elected officials represent the will of the people.
SuperPACs are providing a service for candidates and there is an expectation of remuneration.
It wouldn’t be surprising if candidates running on a platform of reduced expenditure on electioneering communications wouldn’t have broad name recognition, would it? To name a few, Jill Stein, Buddy Roemer and John McCain have all proposed significant shifts in law.
So how come you can’t simply respect the fact that the majority of voters are electing the people the superPACs are supporting?
That’s what a majority of voters want.
Do you not see the ridiculous disconnect here? The voters are electing these people! If they don’t like the influence of certain speech, they can simply ignore it.
No it doesn’t. Money isn’t speech. Donations aren’t speech.
But hey, you want unlimited donations to candidates? Feel free to propose that.
Elected officials are representing the will of the people. The people elect them. If they no longer represent the will of the people, the people can elect someone else.
Prove it.
If you make a donation, or vote for a candidate, do you expect “renumeration?”
John McCain was thwarted from becoming a choice for voters?
As for Jill Stein and Buddy Roemer, were they on the ballot? If so, there was nothing stopping voters from choosing them, was there? Was there anything preventing them from being on the ballot in any state?
Was there anything stopping voters from learning as much as they wanted to about Jill Stein or Buddy Roemer? Most voters have internet access and could google them and learn all they want from their campaigns and media reports.
So how were the voters prevented from voting for these candidates?
I really need to know just what the goal is for reformers. Is it less election speech? If so, what’s the point of that? Every time there’s a reform, the goalposts keep getting moved. First we were told that direct donations to candidates were corrupting. Okay, I can buy that. So we limited donations to candidates. Then we were told that soft money was a big problem, all the rich folks and corporations were giving unlimited soft money to the parties. Okay, fine. So that was limited too. So then corporations and rich people do their own independent electioneering. They take their case directly to the people instead of just giving money to politicians and parties. And this is supposed to be a problem? I would think that would be a feature, not a bug.
But anyway, so now we’re told we have to actually start censoring now. I wonder what comes after that?
No, the Federal Election Commission has been attempting to limit expenditure on electioneering communications since FECA (1971) and limited corporate expenditure on electioneering communications since BCRA (2005). The goal is to ensure candidates represent the views of their constituents, rather than the interests of their donors and contributors to their campaign. I think the English scenario is ideal. I know tabloids are held to have a spoiler effect on elections here, but there’s a significantly lower per capita cost for elections and public funding for electioneering communications.
Someone else running a multi-million dollar campaign.
But Congress can’t limit donations intended for expenditure on speech, can they.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but BCRA was the first law to address independent expenditures. Previous campaign finance reform had focused exclusively on direct donations. Direct donations are not speech because they buy a lot of things other than speech. but money that is used 100% for speech is equivalent to speech. In the same way that you could limit donations to Miramax, but you couldn’t limit what Miramax spends on anti-Bush documentaries like fahrenheit 9/11.
No, CONGRESS attempted that - and it was ruled unconstitutional.
Again, unconstitutional.
You cannot suppress free speech to meet that alleged goal.
No, they can elect anyone they want.
Yet the keep electing the guys who spend millions. That means they like the guy who spends millions. It is not your place to say their choice is wrong.
OK, let’s turn this on its head. Bribing voters is forbidden, illegal. It consists of spending money to affect the electoral process in a very direct way. My position is that checks for half a million dollars are in essence bribes for candidates, and should be illegal as well. If you can forbid ONE means of bribery, you should be able to forbid the OTHER. Does it make sense now?
I was just making a conjecture. Your position is unfathomable to me, given my beliefs about the nature of very large campaign contributions. You claim to be an advocate of free speech and democracy, yet you ignore what is very clearly and obviously an attempt to buy candidates, which is fundamentally anti-democracy. You defacto reject any notion that SuperPACs coordinate their activities with campaigns, or that the plutocrats who write these very large checks have any interest in seeing any returned favors from the Congressmen when they are in office. I think that flies in the face of rationality and common sense, so I seek another explanation.
No censorship, just limiting donations to SuperPACs just as donations are limited to PACS, to prevent donations so large they are defacto bribes. $250 seems reasonable. No particular form of speech is being forbidden, and no one is proposing any exceptions to such a limit. Call a thing what it is.
No. Your definition of bribery is still incredibly vague and broad. You could include pretty much anything in it.
Bribery has a specific definition. Simply spending money on speech in praise of a candidate is not bribery.
There is nothing anti-democracy about free speech.
FALSE.
I do not reject that notion.
I support beefing up the definition of coordination and enforcement of the law against it.
Again, false. Of course they might. Lots of people have lots of ways of currying favor with politicians. The fact that they do so does not automatically make them corrupt. If you tell a candidate for mayor that you’ll vote for him if he promises to fix the potholes in your street, is that corruption?
So you would have no problem with individuals sending their money directly to a TV station to contribute toward paying the bills for a particular advertisement, pooling their money? That way they wouldn’t be donating to a Super PAC.
If I made the expenditure of large amounts of money on electioneering communications contingent on whether or not he promises to fix potholes on the streets, I’d think so. Especially if a majority of voters didn’t want to fix potholes on the streets.
Not in a simple plurality system.
Limiting donations to candidates doesn’t suppress free speech, but limiting corporate expenditure directly on electoral communications does?
Ok, it was hyperbole. Apparently the least expensive winning campaign was $182k. Limiting campaigns to that amount would be unconstitutional though, right?
Congress passed the law, the Federal Election Commission is the regulatory body charged with enforcing the law. Yes, 608(e) was ruled unconstitutional since the risk of independent expenditure on electioneering communications was held not to pose any threat of corruption. That wasn’t my point though, it was that “we’re told we have to actually start censoring now” is an inaccurate statement. Thanks for the emphasis caps anyway.