# How do we get Congressmen to do their jobs instead of peddling influence all the time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 11, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911 "2013-01-11T22:59:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/41 "2013-01-13T20:11:42Z")
I disagree, I think the influence of money in politics CAN and SHOULD be drastically decreased, and putting a stop to the unlimited contributions of the wealthy would be an EXCELLENT start. You say that money can’t be completely driven out of politics, well, nobody has advocated that. But getting our elected representatives off a track where they are calling the rich people in their districts for five fucking hours a day is the most pro-democracy, anti-oligarchy thing we can do. And all you nay-sayers … if you have a BETTER idea, let’s hear it. Cause so far, all I’m hearing besides the Wolf PAC’s ideas is … crickets. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/42 "2013-01-13T20:15:37Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I can see a few reasonable lines of attack: > > 1. Repeal McCain-Feingold and its ilk. Let it all go. If someone can raise a few million from a single donor, that’s more efficient than begging from umpteen donors. Will that put Congressmen in rich men’s pockets? Sure. But they are in rich bundlers’ pockets now. Repealing campaign finance laws would mean more flexibility for those who want to compete in different ways and defy the system. > **But this does not address the real problem.** > > 2. Change the social attitudes. Make it shameful to waste the public’s investment in you by spending your time begging for bribes. Make it shameful to bribe. > > 3. Pass laws prohibiting sitting Congressmen from spending too much time soliciting donations. This is where I was trying to go with this thread. And when I posted the OP, I had an idea how to do it, too, but put off saying it in the OP (clearly a mistake). > States with a referendum process could pass laws prohibiting any sitting Congressman from personally soliciting donations until after, say, the June primaries. You presumably have a record, you can run on that. If your friend, your wife, your brother, or your confessor want to raise money for you, fine. If you’re out of office and trying to get in, you can go out and raise money. \*If you’re in office, \*you have a duty to do the work, and should be prohibited from “campaigning” in the form of soliciting or receiving donations personally until a defined election season. We restrict gifts to public officials, we prevent uniformed personnel from campaigning, this is in that vein. > **But this doesn’t make them do their work. It’s still indirect.** > > 4. Mandate that they spend time on their constitutional duties. This is the nitty-gritty. Maybe even make them spend a certain number of hours a week in “study hall” and set up an authority who will watch them like students in detention. If they can’t be trusted to do their work unwatched, watch them all the time, like high school students or assembly-line workers. This would presumably also be accomplished by referendum. > **Maybe this is the best answer.** > > 5. Failing all of the above, maybe some kind of executive _coup d’etat_, dissolving Congress and declaring emergency martial law. If they won’t do the work, they don’t get to keep the position. > **But this would be a revolutionary act, and thus could well backfire.** I like number four, but I don’t think it would solve the problem of the INFLUENCE of money in politics, the work would just devolve to staffers who would convey the wealthy donor’s messages about how to vote on legislation. Number five is so likely to turn the US govt into an outright dictatorship that it does not bear thinking about. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/43 "2013-01-13T21:40:14Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I can see a few reasonable lines of attack: > > 1. Repeal McCain-Feingold and its ilk. Let it all go. If someone can raise a few million from a single donor, that’s more efficient than begging from umpteen donors. Will that put Congressmen in rich men’s pockets? Sure. But they are in rich bundlers’ pockets now. Repealing campaign finance laws would mean more flexibility for those who want to compete in different ways and defy the system. > **But this does not address the real problem.** It’s an arms race, so as soon as the R and D have the billionaires’ money, they’ll need to work on the millionaires. Then work their way down. > [@](#): > > 1. Change the social attitudes. Make it shameful to waste the public’s investment in you by spending your time begging for bribes. Make it shameful to bribe. I think it already is seen as shameful. But doing shameful things has never stopped most politicians, in my experience. > [@](#): > > 1. Pass laws prohibiting sitting Congressmen from spending too much time soliciting donations. This is where I was trying to go with this thread. And when I posted the OP, I had an idea how to do it, too, but put off saying it in the OP (clearly a mistake). > States with a referendum process could pass laws prohibiting any sitting Congressman from personally soliciting donations until after, say, the June primaries. You presumably have a record, you can run on that. If your friend, your wife, your brother, or your confessor want to raise money for you, fine. If you’re out of office and trying to get in, you can go out and raise money. \*If you’re in office, \*you have a duty to do the work, and should be prohibited from “campaigning” in the form of soliciting or receiving donations personally until a defined election season. We restrict gifts to public officials, we prevent uniformed personnel from campaigning, this is in that vein. > **But this doesn’t make them do their work. It’s still indirect.** That won’t change what the Congresscritters do, only the pathway the money takes into their campaign coffers. You can’t forbid them from meeting with their constituents (or any American). We have the right to “petition government” as part of the 1st amendment. > [@](#): > > 1. Mandate that they spend time on their constitutional duties. This is the nitty-gritty. Maybe even make them spend a certain number of hours a week in “study hall” and set up an authority who will watch them like students in detention. If they can’t be trusted to do their work unwatched, watch them all the time, like high school students or assembly-line workers. This would presumably also be accomplished by referendum. > **Maybe this is the best answer.** It could only be accomplished through referendum. Do you think legislators would pass such a law? However, you’ll have to mandate that they have no access to computers, the internet or cell phones while in “detention”. And yet without those devices, I don’t see how a person these days could do their job. I couldn’t do mine. > [@](#): > > 1. Failing all of the above, maybe some kind of executive _coup d’etat_, dissolving Congress and declaring emergency martial law. If they won’t do the work, they don’t get to keep the position. > **But this would be a revolutionary act, and thus could well backfire.** Could well backfire? It _most certainly would_ “backfire”. Perhaps the best you could do would be some combination of #2 and #4. Pass, by referendum, a requirement that each CongressCritter be assigned a non-partisan, public ombudsman whose duty is to follow the Critter around and publish his/her schedule. Or, require all CongressCritters to publish their schedules with lists of meetings and the purpose of those meetings on their websites. A non-partisan committee would be responsible for spot audits of these schedules to make sure they are accurate. Call me cynical, but I just don’t think people would care. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/44 "2013-01-13T21:46:12Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Ah. So we’re back to the old, “change the funding,” argument. I think this is the wrong tack. This is what I get for letting others lead the discussion. > > What I’m concerned with is how elected representatives are spending their time, not how much money they are spending. > > Maybe we can stop Strip and Land Mines, Inc. when they want to donate $50 000 000 in a single Congressional race. Maybe we can’t. That’s another issue as far as I am concerned. > > What I want to do is stop Representative Dimbulb from spending 5 or 6 hours a day begging when he could be educating himself on bills and doing his constitutional duty. Apparently McCain-Feingold was supposed to make raising money so time-consuming that it would pull money out of politics. Instead it pulled politicians’ time into fundraising and away from doing their actual jobs. And no, their actual job is neither beggar nor prostitute. Their actual job is to legislate. That means knowing what’s going on. > > It’s not about the money. It’s about the time wasted on begging for money, which breeds ignorance and incompetence. Get Representative Dimbulb and his colleagues out of the begging queue, and get their brains focused on the text of the bills, and it will eventually matter less how much money the elites throw at them. > > So no, it’s not about campaign finance reform, it’s not about the money, it’s about the behavior of the legislators who spend more time begging than legislating. It’s about the time. I don’t think you’ve made any kind of facts-supported argument to support the claim that we have a major problem with congress not getting the people’s business done because they’re too busy doing other stuff (in this case fundraising.) And like another poster said, it’s a fallacy a congressman’s job is to “be knowledgeable.” No, it isn’t. It is to represent their constituencies in Congress. The specifics are going to vary from representative to representative, and it’s the job of the constituents to decide if the way the congressman interprets that responsibility is bad or good. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/45 "2013-01-13T21:53:50Z")
It’s worth reiterating, this forum is an extension of GD. To support the claim a serious problem in our Congress is time management, you have a Salon opinion piece that references a HuffPost opinion piece and a “suggested schedule” given to new Democratic congressmen. None of which really suggests congressmen can’t do their jobs. Congressmen have staff and a massive Federal bureaucracy to generate endless reports, and then it has hearings it can conduct in which they ask external experts to be informed on issues. No one can be meaningfully informed on everything in this day and age, all subjects are simply too broad, and the infinite sub-specialties are far too intricate for anyone to master more than one of them. A congressman needs to know enough to understand how a bill will affect the country or their constituents, and I think the only way to reasonably do that is with tons of staff. “Study hall” is an infantile joke that would be nothing but theater, it would serve no public good and fix no problem whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![ed\_anger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbce88/32.png) [@ed\_anger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ed_anger)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/46 "2013-01-13T22:25:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I don’t think it would do much good. Political ads are designed to create an an immediate emotional response, and most people won’t even notice the small blurb at the end stating "This ad was paid for by the Americans For Freedom And Puppy Dogs And Pretty Flowers Committee, only a small minority of those would bother to look up the AFFAPDAPF Committee to find out that the entire “committee” is paid for and run by Buck Pornogamian, and only the tiniest fraction of _those_ will do a background check and find out that ol’ Bucky is CEO of Strip And Land Mines, Inc. disallow all political ads, except for an equal amount of publically financed ones. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/47 "2013-01-13T22:39:06Z")
> [@ed\_anger](#): > > disallow all political ads, except for an equal amount of publically financed ones. How would that survive a court challenge on 1st amendment grounds? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/48 "2013-01-13T23:20:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > How would that survive a court challenge on 1st amendment grounds? As long as everyone who wants to run an ad is allowed to run one using that money, I don’t see how it harms freedom of speech. In fact, it makes it more free by not allowing those who raise more money to use their speech to drown out the other persons, as there’s only so much time for ads. The committee would be tasked with making sure that every message has an equal say, or at least equal to the number of people who want to say it. That’s freedom of speech, not a system that depends on whoever has the most money being allowed to talk. That’s the problem of equating money to speech: some people have more money than others. They shouldn’t have more speech. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/49 "2013-01-13T23:24:30Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I don’t think you’ve made any kind of facts-supported argument to support the claim that we have a major problem with congress not getting the people’s business done because they’re too busy doing other stuff (in this case fundraising.) And like another poster said, it’s a fallacy a congressman’s job is to “be knowledgeable.” No, it isn’t. It is to represent their constituencies in Congress. The specifics are going to vary from representative to representative, and it’s the job of the constituents to decide if the way the congressman interprets that responsibility is bad or good. So … why do you think that letter got circulated if it had no meaning? And are you cool with Congressmen being glorified telemarketers? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/50 "2013-01-13T23:26:34Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > As long as everyone who wants to run an ad is allowed to run one using that money, I don’t see how it harms freedom of speech. In fact, it makes it more free by not allowing those who raise more money to use their speech to drown out the other persons, as there’s only so much time for ads. The committee would be tasked with making sure that every message has an equal say, or at least equal to the number of people who want to say it. > > That’s freedom of speech, not a system that depends on whoever has the most money being allowed to talk. That’s the problem of equating money to speech: some people have more money than others. They shouldn’t have more speech. That’s not what was being suggested, I don’t think, and if it was, then it’s absurdly impractical. Everyone who wants to say something gets public financing to do so. Great idea. That’ll save money! And please don’t say that such speech will be rationed. If speech can only be financed publicly, and public financing can’t finance all speech, then you’re back to a 1st amendment challenge that you’ll lose. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/51 "2013-01-14T02:40:49Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > And all you nay-sayers … if you have a BETTER idea, let’s hear it. Cause so far, all I’m hearing besides the Wolf PAC’s ideas is … crickets. There are no better ideas, because it can’t be done. Public financing is not a solution, either - it’s just a toe in the door, a slight alleviation. Nothing will happen until our entire society moves in a different direction. Since that different direction would imply an end to capitalism I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime. But I already said that. In the meantime, you can present your fantasies and we’ll shoot them down. How’s that for nay-saying? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/52 "2013-01-14T03:00:21Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > So … why do you think that letter got circulated if it had no meaning? > > And are you cool with Congressmen being glorified telemarketers? I didn’t say it had no meaning, and I think the article says it’s technically a PowerPoint presentation. What I’m saying is I don’t think a Congressman spending 4 hours a day on fundraising is any kind of proof they aren’t doing the people’s business. New, backbench House members are usually extremely low in political influence. Truth is, unless they’re somehow politically powerful in Washington prior to being elected to the House then they have to win election about two times before they start to even have a chance to start jockeying for coveted committee positions and getting their hands into things that matter. The House is not the Senate, it runs based on political platooning, basically. You do what the leadership tells you and it’s a team effort. Voting in the House is political, almost no one is going to vote on an issue contrary to their party just because they’ve been forced to sit in a study hall session and some of the reports they’ve read suggest maybe the party-line vote isn’t a good idea. The House has always been about strong party loyalty and strong leadership, it’s a necessity to get things through a 435-member body. The best way a new House member can serve his constituents is to accrue more power in Washington. If your district has a new member, you’re already fucked, because your guy in Washington has little influence or political power. The Senate, where your guy is one of 100, it isn’t quite as bad to have a freshman representing you (but since the Senate by tradition runs on seniority rules a freshman Senator kinda sucks for you to have as well.) If part of playing the party game is doing grunt work your first term or so, I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. Are they unable to vote? Doubtful. Are they less informed on issues than any other House member? Maybe on some of them, but the vast majority of House members are not subject matter experts and in fact never have been, all the way back to the 18th century. A politicians job is to be a political leader, and to represent the interests of the voters that represent them. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/53 "2013-01-14T03:04:26Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > How do we get Congressmen to do their jobs instead of peddling influence all the time? That _is_ their job. > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The legal fictions that have been created to protect business owner’s money may have to be revised, well, tough shit, really. Soylent Green is made of corporations. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/54 "2013-01-14T17:25:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Your own link says: > We’re not getting public financing of elections in my lifetime unless the whole system falls apart. But the system won’t fall apart. That’s as likely to happen as people needing guns to fend off a fascist government takeover. > > But you know what? People were apoplectic about the rich controlling Congress at the turn of the last century as well. The solution then was reform movements to put in honest men. That never worked well for long. And today’s reform movement equivalent is called the Tea Party. It worked well for one election cycle and fairly well for a second, putting in candidates against the wealthy establishment’s wishes. > > Be careful what you wish for. You may get it. You know, I have a confession. Back in late 2008 I was sorta intrigued by nascient movement that would later become the Tea Party when they seemed to come out strong against the Wall Street bailouts.:smack: Then I tuned out everything for a few years, I was so mad it was the only way I could keep my sanity. When I came back what I had parsed as the original Tea Party message had been corrupted … thank sin large part to Rick Santelli at CNBC. > **[CNBC's Santelli: Tea Party Rant 'Best 5 Minutes Of My Life'](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rick-santelli-i-sparked-t_n_731249)** > > CNBC's Santelli: Tea Party Rant 'Best 5 Minutes Of My Life' Wall Street brokers, banking executives and hedge fund managers were now considered to be average Joes in need of tax relief just as much as the rest of us and the true culprits of the financial crisis were the poor people whose names were used in the widespread mortgage scams. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/55 "2013-01-14T19:08:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s not what was being suggested, I don’t think, and if it was, then it’s absurdly impractical. Everyone who wants to say something gets public financing to do so. Great idea. That’ll save money! > > And please don’t say that such speech will be rationed. If speech can only be financed publicly, and public financing can’t finance all speech, then you’re back to a 1st amendment challenge that you’ll lose. In the UK (I know, no constitutional right to free speech), every political party gets one advertising slot of about a minute on television to make their claim. The party chooses when to air it. This avoids relying on the effective frequency of advertising in order for the voter to form an availability heuristic - in theory at least, since billboard advertising is unregulated. The argument that private expenditure on speech ought to be unrestricted is a powerful one, but it causes one to contemplate why certain individuals in society have more capacity to reach wide audience than others. Is it due to the relative merits of the arguments presented? Do the individuals spending more on these communications have a greater concern for the Union, justice, tranquility, defence, welfare and liberty? What the public is content to consume in the form of media is ultimately up to them - are they content with unrestricted expenditures on advertising? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/56 "2013-01-14T19:14:45Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > In the UK (I know, no constitutional right to free speech), every political party gets one advertising slot of about a minute on television to make their claim. So as a non-candidate (American even!), am I permitted to purchase a TV ad in support of David Cameron? What if I don’t want to support Cameron, but do want to take out an ad in favor of, say, holding an election this Spring? I’m guessing those things are perfectly legal, just as they are in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/57 "2013-01-14T23:19:55Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > The argument that private expenditure on speech ought to be unrestricted is a powerful one, but it causes one to contemplate why certain individuals in society have more capacity to reach wide audience than others. Is it due to the relative merits of the arguments presented? Do the individuals spending more on these communications have a greater concern for the Union, justice, tranquility, defence, welfare and liberty? What the public is content to consume in the form of media is ultimately up to them - are they content with unrestricted expenditures on advertising? This recapitulates much of the debate over the First Amendment over the years. Why do some individuals have more capacity? Because that’s how life is, and because any attempts to create an artificial fairness lead to greater abuses. Are people content with this? No, people are never content - until someone tries to regulate their speech and suddenly they’re extremely content with waving the First flag. The First Amendment came from experiences with the British government, although all European monarchies were pretty much the same. The concern was never about equality of speech. What they wanted to ensure was that the government couldn’t jail you for speech. (Which made Adams’ Alien and Sedition Laws all the more ironic.) Once they got the government out of speech the rest was a good ol’ American free-for-all. It’s stayed that way ever since. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/58 "2013-01-15T00:19:07Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > In the UK (I know, no constitutional right to free speech), every political party gets one advertising slot of about a minute on television to make their claim. The party chooses when to air it. This avoids relying on the effective frequency of advertising in order for the voter to form an availability heuristic - in theory at least, since billboard advertising is unregulated. > > The argument that private expenditure on speech ought to be unrestricted is a powerful one, but it causes one to contemplate why certain individuals in society have more capacity to reach wide audience than others. Is it due to the relative merits of the arguments presented? Do the individuals spending more on these communications have a greater concern for the Union, justice, tranquility, defence, welfare and liberty? What the public is content to consume in the form of media is ultimately up to them - are they content with unrestricted expenditures on advertising? The (US) government is not allowed to rule on the “merits” of anyones argument, so that isn’t a consideration. However, regulation of the public airways is an added complication on top of free speech, and while one might be able argue for regulation of TV ads, it’s harder to make the same case for other media. And with the increasing importance of the internet, it all becomes rather moot. But that also levels the playing field a lot more wrt to financing free speech, too. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/59 "2013-01-15T08:17:54Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > So as a non-candidate (American even!), am I permitted to purchase a TV ad in support of David Cameron? What if I don’t want to support Cameron, but do want to take out an ad in favor of, say, holding an election this Spring? > > I’m guessing those things are perfectly legal, just as they are in the U.S. They’re perfectly legal [up to the point of spending £500 on them](http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/uk.php#third). Far [less](http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-finance-analysis/campaign-expenditure/uk-parliamentary-general-election-campaign-expenditure#Categories) is spent on each election than in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911/60 "2013-01-15T13:48:04Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > They’re perfectly legal [up to the point of spending £500 on them](http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/uk.php#third). > > Far [less](http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-finance-analysis/campaign-expenditure/uk-parliamentary-general-election-campaign-expenditure#Categories) is spent on each election than in the US. Wow. No wonder the major parties are able to agree not to talk about certain issues. I just skimmed the link – is the ban on just TV or all third party advertising expenditure? ETA: Also, how does that rule apply to media properties like Sky News? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-get-congressmen-to-do-their-jobs-instead-of-peddling-influence-all-the-time/646911.md?page=4)