There is no drowning out effect. You can speak to the maximum of your ability, which is probably here on SDMB. You will not be heard more if the Kochs are heard less. Nor will you be heard less if the Kochs are heard more.
This seems to be an issue where normally very good critical thinkers abandon their usual standards and accept certain concepts uncritically. There is no “drowning out” effect of any sort because there is no limit to the number of outlets where one can be heard.
Also, there is no collective right or collective concern that outweighs individual rights. Individual rights are only limited by direct threats to other individuals, not societal concerns of an amorphous sort that might come up if everyone is allowed to do what they want. So your right to speak ends where it does another person direct, substantial harm. It does not end where other citizens might think it causes society harm in some convoluted way.
Well. I guess that settles it. No “…collective right or collective concern that outweighs individual rights…” exists. Son of a gun, coulda swore there were. Darn!
We need a Constitutional Amendment to limit the amount of money that any individual or organization can contribute to a party or a political candidate. The fund political campaigns with tax money and pay for ads etc. Otherwise, the oligarchs, like the Koch brothers will control the country and use their influence to their own ends. Democracy is in major trouble under the present system
We already limit such money. What we don’t limit is how much they can spend appealing directly to the public.
Why we’d want to limit such spending, I don’t know. I would think that millions spent trying to persuade the public directly is less corrupting than millions given to a candidate or political party. I can understand why the political class hates independent spending, but there’s no reason for the public to go along with their reasoning.
Note that the ~$900M that Koch brothers intend to spend is not (well, the majority of it is not) intended to be contributed to a party or a political candidate. Koches intend to use it to promote their ideals. Those ideals somewhat overlap one political party’s stated goals.
What Constitutional Amendment do you intend to pass that would prohibit Koches from gathering and spending a lot of their (and other people’s) money promoting their ideals?
The Kochs use their money to smear the opponents of the candidate they prefer. Every year we get all these negative ads with (often false) accusations of what the other candidate did or plans to do, and they all hide behind the fig leaf in the disclaimer “Lie Like Motherfuckers PAC is not affiliated with any candidate”.
How would you regulate that?
I can get limiting contributing to a campaign or party directly, but once you limit what people can say on their own, you ran afoul freedom of speech and press.
You are welcome to keep trying. All amendments proposed so far would either self-nullify or make a mockery of equal protection of the laws by creating a special class of people who are licensed to advocate. And all of the amendments proposed so far would give Congress the power to silence political opponents in a very arbitrary manner.
I’ll take a shot. Every organization that puts out a political ad must provide a thorough accounting of all its donors, including names and social security numbers and how much they contributed. The FEC takes this info from all the PACs, along with the political parties, and the amount donated by each donor closely monitored. Any donor whose total contribution to PACs or parties exceeds 10% of the annual salary of a minimum wage worker shall be tried for the new crime of trying to buy elections. This would take the money out of elections and cut down on the number of political ads, forcing the candidates to rely on stump speeches, debates, and policy statements.
DIsclosure of campaign contributions is already legal, the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because the NRA is really, really, powerful and opposed it. And with them, you can’t just say it’s money, since Bloomberg alone can spend them into oblivion and has probably tried. But anyway, already legal.
You can also limit individual donations to campaigns. That’s already legal too, although there are exceptions under current law.
The only thing you can’t do right now is limit how much one can spend of one’s own money directly. That’s going to be the tough one, even in an amendment. How would another Fahrenheit 9/11 get funded? Oliver Stone and Michael Moore would be out of luck.
Plus remember what happened to the interstate commerce clause and the general welfare clause? Political advocacy takes place all around us. And it’s all paid for, even SDMB(bandwidth ain’t free). The FEC has already stated a willingness to regulate blog content, and that didn’t even taken a amendment to get them talking about that.
I’m just cautioning you that no matter how well you write an amendment, Congress will use that license in ways you might not like. YOu know what’s worse than billionaires influencing elections? The government itself influencing elections by making it illegal for certain people to speak.
I’d assume the income limit would only kick in after about $10 million or so. Which means Rupert Murdoch should probably hire a lawyer.
And I love how we try to dodge the real issues here. We’re going to put people in jail, ruin their lives, rather than just censor them? It’s funny watching liberals twist themselves into knots to stifle political advocacy without actually having to censor it directly. Just support censorship, it’s easier and doesn’t ruin lives!
Sure, you want to influence elections, fine, just observe the cash limits. Do you want to spend your $200 or so going in with others on that billboard or donate to the We Love Jane Fonda PAC, that’s up to you.