Yeah it’s a brave new world out there. Thanks for cheering me up. 
No it’s not.
Your goal is to stop certain speech based on the fact that it helps a candidate. By that standard, the fact that money helps get that speech doesn’t matter.
And that is unacceptable and unconstitutional. Period.
Of course it is!
Okay, but when the two conflict (or appear to), free speech must prevail.
It’s not one. It’s reductio ad absurdum.
What rights are in conflict here?
But that’s a terrible analogy, because in that case, it has nothing to do with the CONTENT of the speech. It’s the noise that is a nuisance. You want to ban speech because of its content, not because of some nuisance unrelated to speech.
Hell no!
No, they aren’t. But even if they were, that would mean you could ban ANY speech you want - even if money wasn’t involved - simply because it benefits a candidate! And that means you could ban pretty much all political speech! That’s the absurdity of your argument that speech can be corrupt.
Instead of trying to take away civil rights and regulate speech and all that, you should use your own speech rights to point out to voters that they should not vote for those you think are abusing their power in Congress. See how that works? You’d be much less frustrated. And you can even join with others to pool your money and magnify your voice - happens all the time. There are many groups already set up to do just that.
Stop trying to game the system and start playing the game.
I forgot to address this from 2sense:
**This is an overlysimplistic view of how rights work. It isn’t possible to respect all rights absolutely because sometimes they come into conflict. **
As Lance asked, what rights are in conflict? There is a conflict as many perceive it: Sheldon Adelson’s right to speak out on political issues conflicts with society’s interest in clean elections, or perhaps society’s interest in no one having too big a megaphone, depending on what your point of view on the issue is.
The problem is that neither of those interests affect rights. There is a conflict between a basic right and society’s goals, but not between rights and other rights. And in most cases, society’s goals have to come in second to basic rights. Probably the only exception has been when the very existence of the country has been at stake, and even then everyone involved had to have felt pretty dirty about it.
You’re supposed to wait until he can’t answer or comes up with a bad answer so I can pounce on him and say this. You ruined my fun.
I’m finding it difficult to accept that you lack the reading comprehension to understand the difference between saying that certain behavior might (or might not) be undesirable and saying, “I get to decide how people will be allowed to behave.”
Yes we know that’s how you feel and we know that I disagree so this comment is completely unhelpful. On what basis do you believe it is unacceptable? (You can keep the constitutional argument.) What awful result will result?
Why should that be so? Free speech is important, to be sure, but so is responsible government. Surely if it is a choice between keeping something incidental to the former or keeping something essential to the latter the former should give way.
It would be if you could demonstrate the inevitability of the next guy coming along to criminalize more speech. But since no such reason exists someone might or someone might not. Since that action doesn’t necessarily follow from my proposal all you have here is fallacy.
The right to free speech and the right to free and fair elections.
Don’t cop out. Answer the question. Either free speech is absolute and I have the right to park there and say what I want or it is OK to regulate my speech. Which is it?
(I recognize the distinction you are making about content but my interest here is not to make an analogy that fits in every particular but merely to help you to realize that there are no such things as absolute rights.)
Again I ask that you not cop out. How do you feel about these situations? Are you OK with someone giving a candidate $60 million dollars? Do you understand that it still helps the candidate if that someone just spent the money on campaign commercials themselves?
I’m not arguing that speech can be corrupt. It cannot. I’m arguing that it can be corrupting. Lets review, we both agree that campaign commercials are speech. And we both understand that campaign commercials help elect candidates. And candidates want to be elected, right. So purchasing commercials for them is doing them a favor. Such an important favor that the politician might be willing to do favors in return to keep the money (er… speech) flowing. Doing favors, tit for tat, is the essence of corruption. So speech can be corrupting in the sense that it offers politicians something they really want.
This is rich. Those of us in favor of campaign finance reform are trying to level the playing field. If that is “gaming the system” then what does that say about the actions of opponents who are working to ensure that the wealthy can continue to use their wealth to gain political advantage?
We’re discussing laws that would regulate how people could behave. If you’re not, never mind.
Free speech is the absolute most fundamental bedrock of democracy. You cannot have democracy without it. You cannot have responsible government without it.
Of course it exists. You give them the power to do something, they could do it.
Our elections are free and fair now.
I answered it. Noise ordinances are about noise, not speech. A barking dog would be subject to it too. It has nothing to do with regulating speech. Don’t pretend laws regulating political speech are just about noise or other nuisances that aren’t meant to regulate speech, but irriating loud noises.
But your example fails miserably to do that.
There’s a huge difference between giving a candidate money and spending money on your own speech. It’s obvious.
Whatever. Speech cannot be corrupting.
And by that logic, ANY SPEECH that helps a candidate could be corrupting! If you walk door to door to tell people to vote for someone, and they win, and they do something you like (which is why you supported him) did you bribe him?
THINK ABOUT IT.
Tell me, if you really believe in a level playing field, do you support rationing of speech? Everyone gets exactly 2 minutes, say, and then they go to jail if they talk more? That would be the most fair, after all. It’s not fair that some of us have the time, or ability, or energy, or whatever to speak more than others.
Right?
Hard to say. IF you grant the government these broad censorship powers, they MIGHT use them exactly as you wish and only the .0001% will see their freedoms infringed, and I admit, in a way not even all that important to them. Sheldon Adelson isn’t likely to lose sleep if he can’t spend $25 million on TV ads. And nothing in any proposed amendment would prevent the Kochs from donating to libertarian causes which operate outside of the actual electoral process.
But I could make a similar argument about the Patriot Act. We’ll give the government all these new powers of surveillance, and then we’ll hope they only use them against terrorists. Now of course the end result isn’t the police state alarmists would predict, but it’s gone well beyond what those who supported it intended. An amendment to grant the government these powers would also go well beyond what is intended, although I’m sure it would fall well short of what I’d fear.
Free speech is a basic right. Responsible government is just something we’d like to have and a very long project in which we’ve made baby steps over the decades and will continue to do so. There was once a time when a politician could have a single sponsor who would just bankroll their entire candidacy. That’s now illegal and that’s a good thing. Campaign finance reformers correctly point out that money is not speech. Donating money to a candidate is not a fundamental right. However, using money to buy speech is, because while money is not speech, speech IS speech.
If we could rely on the government to use its powers wisely, we wouldn’t need a bill of rights. Now I’m sure Congress will never try to censor political speech in wide swathes, but they certainly have shown a propensity to advantage themselves at the expense of independent voices. They will use speech laws the same way they use ballot access laws.
There is no such right anywhere in the Constitution. Leaving the Constitution aside, you are again confusing a policy goal with a basic right. It’s like comparing the right to privacy to the right to be safe from terrorists. The difference is that we actually have a right to privacy. We only have the right to be safe from terrorists to the extent that our government can protect us, which is going to be a factor of competence and funding.
A ban on political ads entirely, even by political candidates and parties, would probably be constitutional. Banning political ads, EXCEPT those by candidates and parties, is not constitutional. The problem is in choosing who can and who can’t. The government cannot demonstrate a compelling interest in letting some people run ads and prevent others from running ads. Just as the government can’t decide that rap music lovers can’t blast their music at 3am but rock music lovers can. If a government is going to ban loud music at 3am, it has to do so for all people who would like to play loud music.
You’re right, but as Lance pointed out, you’re not using a good example. You were on firmer ground with the “fire in a crowded theater” example. Because that demonstrates a compelling interest, which in turn means that a law can survive strict scrutiny. Four justices believed that the BCRA restrictions were constitutional because they were limited in time, place, and manner, and agreed with you that avoiding the perception of corruption was a compelling government interest.
That would depend on their message. A lot of politicians hate outside spending even in their favor because they don’t control the message. Sometimes your friends can do you more damage than your enemies.
We’ll need a few more election cycles to know for sure, but I keep a close eye on political favoritism. And I’m still seeing politicians primarily reward their direct donors, not outside spenders. Maybe things will change, but as of right now, it’s still a lot easier to get in a politicians’ good graces by giving them money than by advocating independently on their behalf.
Money is only one way to gain political advantage. Fame works too. I submit that Matt Damon has just as much political influence as George Soros. Michael Moore has more than either of them. Rush Limbaugh more still. Rich guys with 30-second ads aren’t going to be able to change a narrative that Rush Limbaugh or Rachel Maddow have spent day after day hammering home to their listeners/viewers.
The other problem is incumbency. A well-funded challenger is still going to get less TV time than an incumbent. I don’t know whether campaign finance reformers in Congress intend to help themselves stay in office or whether they are actually well meaning, but it sure is convenient that campaign finance laws prevent them from being outspent by challengers.
No we were not discussing laws that would regulate how people could behave in this section of the discussion. Here we were discussing your inclination to misconstrue the plain meaning of the words I have written. So I don’t know if I should nevermind or not.
So which is it? If the 2 come into conflict would it be better to give up something essential to responsible government or give up something incidental to free speech?
“They could” is not the same thing as “They must”. If one doesn’t automatically follow from the other then you are left with a hole in your logic. Rhetorician, heal thyself.
I disagree.
Another cop out. Yes, my speech would be noisy but it would still be speech. Can it be regulated or not? Yes or no?
What’s obvious is that you are dodging the question. I’m not saying they are exactly the same. I’m saying they are both tempting to the candidate. So stop copping out. Do you believe it is OK for someone to give a candidate $60 million? If not then how can you think it is OK for someone to just spend the $60 million themselves to support that candidate?
So you believe that $60 million worth of campaign commercials aren’t valuable enough to tempt politicians?
I wish I lived in a world with such paragons.
OK now we are back to the place where you jumped off the track. Lets see if we can keep you more focused. Yes any speech that is useful to a politician is something they might find useful. But would it corrupt them? Lets say that a homeless person offers to endorse a candidate. That may be valuable… at least that person themselves might be able to vote for the candidate. But is it enough to tempt the candidate into trading favors for the support? I don’t think so. This is what I was getting at before when I was saying that not just any speech can be corrupting. Only valuable speech.
Now lets consider money. Money is valuable, right? Do we prevent people from giving money to candidates? No, we don’t. We only limit contributions we don’t forbid them completely. And why is that? Because we don’t believe the support that most any citizen is capable of offering a candidate constitutes a bribe. It’s only an issue with extraordinary amounts of money/support. Think about it.
I believe in a level playing field, yes, but that’s not all I believe in. Unfortunately in the real world actions have unintended consequences. You have to take those into consideration as best you can when deciding on a course of action.
You’re making good points, but how do you word a constitutional amendment so that it doesn’t give Congress too much power? Or do you just trust them to use it responsibly?
From what I can see, that’s been the big challenge and why no amendment has really gotten traction despite 80% of Americans supporting overturning Citizens United.
Then I suggest we not give the government broad censorship powers but only carefully limited powers in carefully limited situations.
Well said. It fails to address the question I was asking but so what? It’s a valuable insight.
The courts are part of the government and if we could rely on the courts to govern wisely then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. 
The Bill of Rights doesn’t force the government to do anything. It only gives one part of the government an opportunity to restrict the actions of other parts of the government.
Um, I can’t help but notice that we only have the right to privacy to the extent that our government can (and will) protect that right. Obviously you don’t think the right to privacy is a mere policy goal so there’s a hole in your logic somewhere. For myself, I don’t see why the right to free speech is any more important that the right to democratic governance.
This looks like a legal argument to me so I’ll leave it alone despite how interesting it sounds. Though it does seem as if you agree that the right to free speech can be limited by the government. Can you somehow explain that to ** lance strongarm**?
Thank you.
True enough but sixty million offers a lot of chances to get something right.
You have gone off track. The quote this responds to has nothing to do with real elections and is only remedial stuff to bring ** lance strongarm** up to speed. Again though it’s a solid insight.
Yes there are other issues. I’m talking about this issue.
I don’t take any partisan constitutional amendments seriously. It’s so hard to get done that you have to get both parties on board or at least out of the way in order to jump through the hoops laid out in Article 5.
I figure it’ll come down to court packing.
Lance understands strict scrutiny. That’s the standard restrictions on rights have to meet in order to be legal. There has to be a compelling government interest, and the law in question has to be narrowly tailored to address that compelling interest.
The compelling interest is there: the interest in avoiding the appearance of corruption. The challenge is in creating a narrowly tailored law. BCRA failed on that count. It was too broad. I actually believe that creating a law that is narrow tailored enough is impossible.
It would take some serious courtpacking to undo Citizens United. At first glance it appears to be a simple 5-4 decision, but the disagreement was pretty narrow. None of the justices would limit individual independent spending, only corporate spending. And they’d only be in favor of limiting THAT spending 60 days before an election, and only on TV ads.
Even if Citizens United was overturned, the dissent established pretty firmly the limits, and those limits are pretty strict. So you would actually need an amendment to do what reformers want to do. Not that they all want to do the same thing, but a lot of the things we hear said, such as “corporations are not people!” and “we have to get big money out of politics!” can’t be addressed under current jurisprudence. Even the most liberal 4 justices won’t go for that. You’d have to pack the court with some really fringe people.
Another solid point though completely legal and verboten. I continue to agree with your assessment that it’s not encouraging for reformers.
On the contrary, I think there’s plenty reformers can do. You just have to address the money going out. Congress has complete discretion to set its own rules. Doesn’t require a Presidential signature and it’s not reviewable by the courts. A lot of useful reform has been done this way. The root problem is Congressional ethics, and Congress has complete control over setting those rules. So that’s where reformers should apply pressure. Earmark reform was a good start.
Freedom of speech is essential to responsible government.
Sorry, but life doesn’t work that way. You can’t give government a power it doesn’t deserve and just hope it won’t use it.
It’s not a cop out. Noise regs have nothing to do with speech, but with the level of noise. It has nothing to do with the content or purpose of the noise.
Because one is giving money, the other is one’s own speech. I’ve explained this over and over. It’s not a copout, it’s an essential fact.
By your logic, yes!
Sure, if you pick a homeless person. But how about a celebrity? Or high-ranking political figure? Or community leader?
If, for instance, the NRA endorses a candidate, and that’s valuable because lots of voters are pro-gun, and then the candidate votes against gun control, that’s corruption according to your logic.
Do we prevent anyone from speaking?
In the real world, any policy that depends on limiting free speech is by definition a failure for democracy, and doomed to fail anyway.
No. You can’t just decide that your particular “carefully limited powers” are necessary, and you can’t be sure someone else won’t want other “narrowly crafted powers.”
They are the same thing!
I’m pretty confident I know more than most people here about elections and campaign finance (though others know more of the legal/court issues) from personal experience.
2sense, You have yet to address the fact that the amendments proposed to overturn Citizens United would allow the government to outlaw the means being used to advocate for those amendments, such as spending money on speech and respecting group speech rights.
What does that tell you?
Cop out. Obviously in an ideal world we would keep 100% of both but that doesn’t mean we should settle for 50% of one because we fear to lose 1% of the other.
Non sequitur. Yes governments abuse power at times but that doesn’t prove that this time the authority will necessarily be abused further and further. So no, you don’t have a foot to stand on logically.
And if my point had anything to do with content or purpose then THIS response wouldn’t be a cop out as well. But the world is imperfect. Look, we both support the regulation of my speech in that situation which means that speech can be regulated. The fact that it’s inconvenient for the position you’ve carved out here doesn’t make it untrue.
I’m not saying that there is no distinction between the 2. I agree that there is and that it is indeed an essential fact. It’s also an essential fact that you can’t separate money from speech when it comes to political advertising. Yes, we get that. Move on already.
The cop out is that you won’t answer simple questions about the ramifications of these facts. If you don’t want to discuss then why are you involving yourself in the discussion?
OK we seem to have gotten through to you that not all speech is valuable. That’s encouraging. I mean, I don’t see why you were unable to do so after my earlier attempts in posts #110, #122, and #173 but here we are so lets enjoy the moment.
I’ve said straight out that speech itself is not corruption. I don’t know how much more basic I can make it for you. Are you aware that you are continually substituting corruption for corrupting?
How can you possibly believe that is this a reasonable response to my point that we allow small contributions of money itself to candidates so obviously we don’t consider just anything that helps a candidate to be corrupting.
I disagree. I see no reason why we can’t accept some minor limitations on speech in order to have a better democracy. Your wish that this not be true is not evidence that it is not true. As I have argued, we might prevent outsiders from buying campaign ads during political campaigns. You recoil at this limitation of speech yet you haven’t produced any logical arguments against it.
More non sequitur. Both of these assertions are true but neither addresses my point. Which was, since you seem to have missed it, to disagree with ** adaher**'s characterization of my belief in, “some regulation of speech in the interests of reducing the influence of the influential” as giving the government broad censorship powers.
I don’t know how you mean that. Certainly you realize that they aren’t exactly the same. You can have free speech without having democracy (though I don’t see how you can have democracy without free speech). Are you trying to make some point by highlighting the similarities? Perhaps you are enthusiastically agreeing with me that free speech and democratic governance are equally important? Somehow I suspect not.
I wasn’t talking about your expertise on the topic, about which I have no cause to complain. I was referencing the fact that I have been forced to feed you my points with a baby spoon because you have continually failed to acknowledge them. It would be much easier if you responded to the actual words you are quoting. Do you read them more than once before you respond?
Isn’t enough that I’ve said that I don’t take any of these constitutional amendments seriously? What does it matter what they say since they have no chance of becoming part of the Constitution?
That you just aren’t paying attention?