# If money is speech, and speech is money... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 8, 2016, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523 "2016-02-08T08:52:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [February 8, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/21 "2016-02-08T16:28:11Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Well, no, you don’t. Because you’ve been misinformed if you think the Supreme Court ruled that “money is speech,” so your entire thesis is based on a straw man. > > Here’s what the Supreme Court said: “A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” > > I find that logic impossible to argue with, but I disagree on the principle at stake. I am totally fine with limiting the amount of money that can be used for certain types of political activity, because I believe there are yuuuuuuge benefits to society for maintaining a more level playing field for political activity relating to elections. In fact, as time goes by, I’m more and more convinced that public funding of elections is a far more just and democratic method of electioneering. > > Public funding of elections necessarily means restrictions on private money, and thus certain kinds of speech. I could go into the benefits that I see in this approach, but I don’t think that’s necessary at this time given that the OP simply needs to be corrected in the straw man premise of his post. Yeah–I actually agree pretty strongly with the Citizens United decision and I think most of the history of restrictions on “electioneering communication” (and obviously the money spent on them–donating to a Super PAC wasn’t invented per se due to Citizens United, it’s just that allowing them to run election ads during election season immensely increased the appeal in funneling large amounts of money into them) in fact did violate the First Amendment but for a long time had been “tolerated” by courts who basically felt as you (and I) did–they felt the ends justified the means. The Supreme Court has history of “ends justify the means” arguments for example in justifying things like DUI checkpoints (to my mind a clear violation of both the 4th and 5th amendment) However I do think there is a constitutional mechanism by which we could substantially limit campaign advertising–there is a long standing acceptance we have a right to manage the public airwaves. I believe it’d be 100% proper for Government to limit political advertising on broadcast networks and radio. Cable television is more complex, but there may be a legal way to limit it there as well. The reality is the biggest problem with Super PACs is the TV advertising, if you limit that the money side of it doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/22 "2016-02-08T16:28:32Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I think “money is speech” is fair paraphrase of Buckley v. Valeo’s holding that you quote. What aspect gets lost such that a distinction is necessary? Would changing it to “money is a form of speech” or “money can be used as a form of speech” or “money can be used to facilitate speech” be better? No, it’s a terrible paraphrase - look at how it has been confused, including by the OP. I’d prefer “a limit on spending money on speech is a limit on the speech itself.” ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/23 "2016-02-08T16:31:38Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > However I do think there is a constitutional mechanism by which we could substantially limit campaign advertising–there is a long standing acceptance we have a right to manage the public airwaves. I believe it’d be 100% proper for Government to limit political advertising on broadcast networks and radio. Cable television is more complex, but there may be a legal way to limit it there as well. The reality is the biggest problem with Super PACs is the TV advertising, if you limit that the money side of it doesn’t matter. But now you’ve switched from trying to limit the role of money in politics to limiting speech itself, or the total amount of it, even if constitutional. Or do you mean a limit on the total amount of political ad time allowed would have the effect of limiting money spent? (It might cause more problems than it solves, but that’s another story). Or would you give out free airtime to candidates so they wouldn’t have to spend as much money? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/25 "2016-02-08T16:38:58Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I think “money is speech” is fair paraphrase of Buckley v. Valeo’s holding that you quote. What aspect gets lost such that a distinction is necessary? Would changing it to “money is a form of speech” or “money can be used as a form of speech” or “money can be used to facilitate speech” be better? I disagree that it is a fair paraphrase of the issue. It’s like saying “air is oxygen.” Well, yes, oxygen is an essential component of air, but that does not mean that air has all, or even most, of the characteristics of oxygen. In this case, speech is air and money is oxygen. Money is very often an important component of speech, but that does not mean they are interchangeable. I haven’t put thought into a clever, and more accurate, summary of the issue than “money is speech.” But I suppose it would be something closer to, “You can’t squelch speech by squelching money.” (Which is a conclusion I disagree with, but at least it is closer to what the court actually said.) ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/26 "2016-02-08T16:43:02Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I disagree that it is a fair paraphrase of the issue. It’s like saying “air is oxygen.” Well, yes, oxygen is an essential component of air, but that does not mean that air has all, or even most, of the characteristics of oxygen. In this case, speech is air and money is oxygen. Money is very often an important component of speech, but that does not mean they are interchangeable. > > I haven’t put thought into a clever, and more accurate, summary of the issue than “money is speech.” But I suppose it would be something closer to, “You can’t squelch speech by squelching money.” (Which is a conclusion I disagree with, but at least it is closer to what the court actually said.) That is an excellent way of putting it. As for your disagreement with it - really? Suppose the government banned all spending on phones, the internet, printers, paper and cardboard, bumper stickers, buttons megaphones, all advertising and anything else that could be used for speech just before an election, or before a big protest. Do you not see that as an obvious limit on speech? Suppose it confiscated all phones, computers, etc. - would that be enough to convince you? ---
**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:** [February 8, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/27 "2016-02-08T16:45:05Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > But now you’ve switched from trying to limit the role of money in politics to limiting speech itself, or the total amount of it, even if constitutional. Or do you mean a limit on the total amount of political ad time allowed would have the effect of limiting money spent? (It might cause more problems than it solves, but that’s another story). > > Or would you give out free airtime to candidates so they wouldn’t have to spend as much money? Right now there is no limitation other than money (i.e. how much the campaigns can afford) to the size of campaign ad buys on broadcast TV. Obviously beyond a certain point where all advertising slots are bought up, a network cannot sell any more spots, but when that starts to happen the last few slots start to go for exponentially more in response to the ad purchasing frenzy. I can’t imagine how many hours of advertising a typical radio or TV broadcast affiliate has in say a week, but let’s use a random round number of 100 hours. If you say political speech is limited to say, 1 hour per week, that will immensely reduce the money spent on advertising. Also, the network (radio/broadcast TV) would be required to apportion equal shares of that 1 hour to each candidate. The British model for example disallows essentially all broadcast political advertising, except for a very limited number of party ads that air in the immediate run up to the election. I wouldn’t go that restrictive, but I’d be getting close. Now this does leave print media and cable TV an open question, but I don’t see a constitutional issue with regulating the airwaves–the airwaves are a public good, and we can regulate them for that purpose. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/28 "2016-02-08T16:48:43Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Right now there is no limitation other than money (i.e. how much the campaigns can afford) to the size of campaign ad buys on broadcast TV. Obviously beyond a certain point where all advertising slots are bought up, a network cannot sell any more spots, but when that starts to happen the last few slots start to go for exponentially more in response to the ad purchasing frenzy. > > I can’t imagine how many hours of advertising a typical radio or TV broadcast affiliate has in say a week, but let’s use a random round number of 100 hours. If you say political speech is limited to say, 1 hour per week, that will immensely reduce the money spent on advertising. Also, the network (radio/broadcast TV) would be required to apportion equal shares of that 1 hour to each candidate. Would you ration the ads among the candidates? Otherwise, just limiting the total amount wouldn’t stop one candidate from lots of money from buying them all up - in fact, it would make it easier. If your goal is to reduce the impact of money in politics, this could backfire. And what about independent spending? > [@](#): > > The British model for example disallows essentially all broadcast political advertising, except for a very limited number of party ads that air in the immediate run up to the election. I wouldn’t go that restrictive, but I’d be getting close. Now this does leave print media and cable TV an open question, but I don’t see a constitutional issue with regulating the airwaves–the airwaves are a public good, and we can regulate them for that purpose. True, but I wouldn’t bet that you’d succeed in court. The government can regulate the airwaves, but it is still subject to the First Amendment. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/29 "2016-02-08T16:50:32Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > As for your disagreement with it - really? Suppose the government banned all spending on phones, the internet, printers, paper and cardboard, bumper stickers, buttons megaphones, all advertising and anything else that could be used for speech just before an election, or before a big protest. Do you not see that as an obvious limit on speech? I think you’re misunderstanding my position. I wrote in my first post: “I am totally fine with limiting the amount of money that can be used **for certain types of political activity,** because I believe there are yuuuuuuge benefits to society for maintaining a more level playing field for political activity relating to elections.” As I use the term “political activity,” I mean it as the term of art for political campaigning done for the purpose of influencing an election for or against a particular candidate. As I look back on how I phrased that, I see that some people would surely read that term “political activity” as being much broader – perhaps including people writing to their elected representatives to urge them to vote on some bill or another. That’s absolutely not what I was referring to. I mean the term very precisely in terms of electioneering, convincing people to vote a certain way, etc. My general belief is that as money has become more and more important for running political campaigns, not only are candidates more obligated to spend more time raising money (and less time doing their jobs as elected officials if they are incumbents), but also that large donors, whether directly to a campaign or indirectly through supporting Super PACs, are going to be a greater and greater risk of corruption and influence. As far as my disagreement with the phrase I just coined, I think it is proper to limit the influence of money to preserve a more democratic election process, even if that means that a few people/corporations with very deep pockets have their speech impinged in the process. ---
**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:** [February 8, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/30 "2016-02-08T16:50:56Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Would you ration the ads among the candidates? Otherwise, just limiting the total amount wouldn’t stop one candidate from lots of money from buying them all up - in fact, it would make it easier. If your goal is to reduce the impact of money in politics, this could backfire. And what about independent spending? I already answered that in my post. > [@](#): > > True, but I wouldn’t bet that you’d succeed in court. The government can regulate the airwaves, but it is still subject to the First Amendment. I think it would prevail. ---
**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:** [February 8, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/31 "2016-02-08T16:53:03Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I think you’re misunderstanding my position. > > I wrote in my first post: “I am totally fine with limiting the amount of money that can be used **for certain types of political activity,** because I believe there are yuuuuuuge benefits to society for maintaining a more level playing field for political activity relating to elections.” As I use the term “political activity,” I mean it as the term of art for political campaigning done for the purpose of influencing an election for or against a particular candidate. > > As I look back on how I phrased that, I see that some people would surely read that term “political activity” as being much broader – perhaps including people writing to their elected representatives to urge them to vote on some bill or another. That’s absolutely not what I was referring to. I mean the term very precisely in terms of electioneering, convincing people to vote a certain way, etc. > > My general belief is that as money has become more and more important for running political campaigns, not only are candidates more obligated to spend more time raising money (and less time doing their jobs as elected officials if they are incumbents), but also that large donors, whether directly to a campaign or indirectly through supporting Super PACs, are going to be a greater and greater risk of corruption and influence. I think public funding of elections (widely used in Europe) and disallowing direct contributions from individuals could help with this. But there is always going to be a problem with going after lobbyists and other third parties–namely, in a free society how do you prohibit a bunch of people of like political mind (not just the evil Koch Brothers, but liberal lions like NAACP and AFL-CIO) from expressing their political desires to elected representatives? Lobbying and influence groups are almost required in a representative democracy in which public officials have far too many constituents to notice/deal with them on an individual level. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/32 "2016-02-08T16:55:31Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I already answered that in my post. Yes, you did. Sorry. Except the part about independent expenditures. But what do you hope to accomplish with this? How would it improve things? ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/33 "2016-02-08T16:56:39Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I think public funding of elections (widely used in Europe) and disallowing direct contributions from individuals could help with this. But there is always going to be a problem with going after lobbyists and other third parties–namely, in a free society how do you prohibit a bunch of people of like political mind (not just the evil Koch Brothers, but liberal lions like NAACP and AFL-CIO) from expressing their political desires to elected representatives? Lobbying and influence groups are almost required in a representative democracy in which public officials have far too many constituents to notice/deal with them on an individual level. WHY SHOULD you prohibit a bunch of people of like political mind from expressing their views? That’s what the First Amendment protects. Why try to get around it? Free speech is good. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/34 "2016-02-08T17:02:46Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Corporations are not “people”. They are treated as a distinct legal “person” to separate the assets of the company from the personal assets of the owners. Corporations are people, [my friend.](https://youtu.be/E2h8ujX6T0A?t=17s) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/35 "2016-02-08T17:14:04Z")
Money isn’t speech, but when money buys a platform to speak on, then freedom of the press is being exercised. Another way of reading the 1st amendment is that Congress shall not infringe free speech, and Congress shall also not infringe on speech that costs money to spread to the masses. So bribery is still illegal. Direct contributions to candidates can also be limited, since the donation of money is not speech. But if Sheldon Adelson wants to buy an ad favoring Newt Gingrich, that is speech. Besides, while most people still do get their ad consumption from TV, the internet share of that is expanding all the time, and you can’t regulate that in any meaningful way without breaking the internet. Plus Donald Trump, who has spent like nothing, has proven that the media provides more campaign contributions than a thousand billionaires. The media controls who we focus on and controls the narrative around their campaigns, if they choose to do so. You can’t talk about campaign finance reform seriously without also talking about media controls. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/36 "2016-02-08T17:17:56Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The media controls who we focus on and controls the narrative around their campaigns, if they choose to do so. You can’t talk about campaign finance reform seriously without also talking about media controls. Yep. What’s the difference between those who pay to rent air time for ads and those who buy their own TV networks and say whatever they want? How is the first an outrage and the second just freedom of the press? If it’s okay to ban spending on speech, why is it not also okay to start regulating the media for spending money on speech too? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/37 "2016-02-08T17:22:47Z")
It depends on what the goal is. If it’s to control “undue influence”, then the media should be your first target. If your goal is to control corruption though, that’s a different kettle of fish. If a law was passed and an administration could show that indeed the Kochs “control” legislators, then you could probably get it past the courts, although it would depend on precisely what was in the bill. That is the trick, writing a bill that is narrowly tailored to address a compelling government interest. The dirty little secret though is that politicians aren’t interested in controlling corruption. They are interested in a) doing less fundraising, and b) making it easier to get reelected by handicapping their opponents’ fundraising. If you really want to deal with corruption, you close off the methods by which Congressmen get personally enriched while in office and after they leave office. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/38 "2016-02-08T17:30:15Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Political money is political speech in the same sense that a printing press is speech or canvassing is speech. If a government curtails the amount of money that I can spend on distributing a message, that is equivalent to curtailing how many newspapers I can print or how many doors I can knock on. I’m not really interested in defending the merits of the OP and in any case I think the whole issue of money in politics has already been well discussed elsewhere, most recently [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=782325) which I think elucidates the issues quite well. What I do want to say is just that the above is a bullshit analogy. I believe that Scalia said something similar, which is solid evidence of what utter right-wing bullshit it is. The principle of limits on electioneering is not analogous to how many newspapers you can print, but rather analogous to the principle that prevents a single entity from owning all the newspapers in a single geographic area, and/or owing newspapers and broadcast media in the same market. Not surprisingly, the principle limiting concentration of media ownership has also been substantially weakened by Republicans over the years, but it still exists in countries that actually have democracies not overwhelmingly dominated by money, and for exactly the same obvious reason as limits on election spending. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/39 "2016-02-08T17:36:53Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It depends on what the goal is. If it’s to control “undue influence”, then the media should be your first target. Yes, and to clarify, we both understand that controlling influence, due or undue, is unconstitutional. > [@](#): > > If your goal is to control corruption though, that’s a different kettle of fish. If a law was passed and an administration could show that indeed the Kochs “control” legislators, then you could probably get it past the courts, although it would depend on precisely what was in the bill. That is the trick, writing a bill that is narrowly tailored to address a compelling government interest. But how would someone “control” someone else? > [@](#): > > The dirty little secret though is that politicians aren’t interested in controlling corruption. They are interested in a) doing less fundraising, and b) making it easier to get reelected by handicapping their opponents’ fundraising. If you really want to deal with corruption, you close off the methods by which Congressmen get personally enriched while in office and after they leave office. Most of those ways have already been closed off while in office. After they leave, perhaps not, but are they doing things in office that are a conflict of interest affecting them when they leave? If not, it’s not corruption just because they make money. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/40 "2016-02-08T17:39:57Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > What I do want to say is just that the above is a bullshit analogy. I believe that Scalia said something similar, which is solid evidence of what utter right-wing bullshit it is. The principle of limits on electioneering is not analogous to how many newspapers you can print, but rather analogous to the principle that prevents a single entity from owning all the newspapers in a single geographic area, and/or owing newspapers and broadcast media in the same market. Not surprisingly, the principle limiting concentration of media ownership has also been substantially weakened by Republicans over the years, but it still exists in countries that actually have democracies not overwhelmingly dominated by money, and for exactly the same obvious reason as limits on election spending. I’d say your analogy is bullshit, since Citizens United overturned a law that simply banned spending by certain groups. But you do shine a light on the fact that limits on news media ownership are probably unconsitutional too, at least for non-broadast media. In fact, I wonder if there are such laws for non-broadcast media in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523/41 "2016-02-08T17:40:37Z")
Actually, Congress only recently passed a law barring Congressmen from trading on inside information. Previously, things Congressmen found out in secret hearings or things they knew because they were about to pass legislation, they were allowed to trade on that information. > **[Congress: Trading stock on inside information?](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/)** > > Steve Kroft reports that members of Congress can legally trade stock based on non-public information from Capitol Hill Of course, because of seperation of powers, Congress self-regulates, which basically means they don’t regulate: > **[Congress Tells Court That Congress Can’t Be Investigated for Insider Trading](https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-investigated-insider-trading/)** > > After taking a victory lap for passing a bill meant to curb insider trading, the House declares itself immune from insider-trading investigations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-money-is-speech-and-speech-is-money/745523.md?page=3)