This system is easily gamed. A side note here or there, strategically timed contributions for set amounts, etc. Any system that requires anonymity is a bad idea - it hides people’s polical agenda(s).
Instead, what we should do is allow (perhaps limited?) personal contributions, but report it. Disallow organizational and corporate contributions. Individuals should be able to speak/contribute their minds. Period.
When I write out a check to Senator Schmoe’s re-election campaign, what would I be writing it out to? Some random trust name that is not distinguishable as being for Schmoe?
Something has to distinguish that check as being for one campaign or another, and I’m not exactly going to be thrilled if I can’t get some sort of proof that my guy got the money I sent. That proof can also be sent to the Senator, no?
I don’t want to speak for the OP, but this “proof” stuff negates the whole point of anonymity. It’s silly. If you’re saying “I need to be able to show that I contributed or else I won’t do it” the response would be “Fine. Don’t contribute. This system is designed to have only anonymous contributions. If you need proof, then you can no longer contribute to political campaigns under this system.”
This might toast your shorts, but that’s the OP. If you want to argue that the OP is illegal, suggest which law is being broken. If you want to suggest that it would decrease campaign contributions overall, whch it would, then show why that’s necessarily a bad thing. If you want to rail that it pisses you off, open a Pit thread. But don’t argue that the OP is wrong because it’s asking for anonymous political contributions --that’s what it’s doing. Show why it’s wrong, if you can, not just that the idea offends you.
No. I would imagine most of those suggestions would be unconstitutional. Only financial contributions made directly to the candidate’s office would be illegal. Which illustrates just how useless the idea of making campaign contributions illegal would be. One would simply informally outsource campaign elements to separate entities.
I don’t think there is an elegant solution to the problem of politicians pandering to special interests that isn’t worse than the problem in the first place. I’d much rather have the influence out in the open, where people can make informed decisions about a candidate’s influences. If the American people are willing to tolerate politician’s who act outside of their interests because they were paid off by a specific company, then they get what they deserve.
It’s not silly, the OP asked for objections, and this is mine. If I give my hard earned money to someone, I’d like some sort of expectation that they’d actually get it.
If nobody can prove that my money went to my politician’s campaign, then my money could be re-directed to anyone’s campaign without me ever knowing. It’s a perfect breeding ground for corruption.
Millions going in, millions going out, and no paper trail. What could possibly go wrong with that?
That is fine, but there needs to be some formal mechanism for saying who you want the money to go to. Surely you would have a copy of this that you could show to the politician? A screenshot of the website where you clicked “Joe Schmoe”? Nothing at all? And who audits this blind trust, anyway?
Even if that wasn’t an issue I have a feeling that an honor (ha!) system of sorts would develop. I don’t think the economic benefit of cheating outweighs the economic benefit of paying off the politician. Even if individual line items are hard to reconcile I’d imagine if you were a lobbyist who regularly cheated politicians would eventually pick up the pattern. Say goodbye to whatever the lobbying company was proposing then! Not smart.
And even if that wasn’t an issue you in effect have a similar system to where the direct campaign contributions are illegal. Since they’re not effective they’ll just outsource to companies who can accept money from whoever they want.
Yes, but how does a contributor know that the trustee isn’t just taking the money and spending it on hookers and cocaine?
The trustee has to have an audit trail. If I write a check to the Sierra Club, I can see that the Sierra Club cashed my check. I can see how much each year that the Sierra Club gets in contributions. I can see what the Sierra Club chooses to spend that money on. And if I don’t like it, I can refuse to contribute, or petition the officers of the Sierra Club to change their practices, or report them for fraud. And this is all accomplished by making the finances of the Sierra Club public and transparent. Any Sierra Club trustees that want to spend some of that money on hookers and cocaine are going to have to go to a lot of work to hide the missing money, and a little investigation by any interested individual can turn up discrepancies.
In the case of anonymous campaign contributions, how do you even know that your check was recieved? You can donate to the Sierra Club anonymously and get back the check cashed by the Sierra Club as your proof they got the money. If you get back a check cashed by Senator Bedfellow, then you have proof the Senator got the money. Only trouble is, you can take that cancelled check to your meeting with Senator Bedfellow as proof.
Anonymous donations only work if one of the parties wants to remain anonymous. If neither wants to remain anonymous, any anonymyzing scheme can be defeated by the parties. Regulations that depend on openness and transparency are fail-safe, regulations that depend on anonymity and secrecy are fail-deadly.
The proposal does nothing to prevent you from doing exactly that. Contribute to your heart’s content to the candidate of your choice.
And you can say this without a hint of irony?
This is a bandaid solution anyway. It is just covering up the problem. The problem isn’t individuals being able to contribute, its organizations being able to contribute.
Ah, but that might be an indirect benefit of the bandaid. Would organizations contribute at all, if their contributions were truly anonymous?
But I think lemur raised an insurmountable objection – anonymity is, I believe, a brilliant solution – but it can only be maintained if at least one of the parties wants to remain anonymous.
How about this:
Unlimited individual contributions provided
[ul]
[li]The contributor is a registered voter[/li][li]The contributor can only donate to (indivuals that will appear on their ballot)/(registered candidates for their local elections)[/li][li]Campaign money cannot be transfered to other candidates - unspent funds get pro-rated back to contributors or go to whatever district the candidate was running in.[/li][/ul]
I think this would solve alot of the political sponsorship problems.
Which would effectively mean no limits on individual contributions to presidential candidates.
Are there any constitutional protections on corporate contributions? Are they entitled to ‘free speech’? (And what kind of statement is it making when an organization contributes to *both * candidates (other than ensuring that they have access to the winner, of course.)
I don’t want to be egotistical or anything, but in the old thread I referenced (post # 10), many of these issues were discussed at length, so if you’d take a look, I think you’ll see where some of this discussion could be heading.
Actually, I understood your points just fine. The points, however, were based upon a facile understanding of the relationship between politicians and contributors.
In summary, here are the problems with requiring anonymous contributions to political campaigns.
It will not instill mistrust between politicians and contributors. Midwestern congressmen aren’t big supporters of the Cattlemen’s Association simply because the Cattlemen contibute big money to Midwestern congressmen. The two groups have good relations because both see farm issues the same way, they work with each other on many issues, and trust is built up through that working relationship, of which campaign contributions are but one among many facets. The amibiguity of whether the Cattlemen may or may not have contributed some money to the campaign would not eliminate the trust built up through the Cattlemen mobilizing their membership to support Congressman XYZ, nor does it affect the trust of the membership of the Cattlemen that Congressman XYZ does a good job of representing their interests.
It is in the best interest of lobbyists to publicize what they are doing. The system will be gamed, because contributors will still make it known that they contributed to politicians who favor their viewpoint, because it makes the lobbyists clients or membership happy. The rank and file of unions want the unions to give money to politicians who support union causes, and therefore unions have a strong incentive to tell their members that the group is doing what the members want it to do.
Lobbyists have little to no incentive to go around lying to politicians about how much they gave in campaign contributions. Being caught in a lie (“I gave your campaign $5,000,” when they actually didn’t) would eliminate all trust by any politican in that organization. It would also show to the membership of the lobbying organization that the lobbyists are liars and might not be working in the best interests of the membership.
There is a benefit to the public knowing who is contributing to particular congressmen. Look at all the politicians who took money from Jack Abramoff. If there were an anonymous system, the public wouldn’t know that Senator ABC was taking tainted money. There’s a public interest in maintaining a transparent system.
In my mind, the only way to reduce the influence of money in politics is to create a public funding system for elections, probably with campaign spending limits. Pretty much anything short of that won’t actually do anything.
and? The president is only a third of our government.
IMO, no. As far as case law, I have no idea, but I would argue that organizations/corporations aren’t individuals. We want individual personal freedoms. As soon as you give groups of people the same rights as individuals, you skew the playing field against the individual.
Oh, boy. Let me focus on your 4th point alone here. Senator ABC wouldn’t be ABLE to take money,tainted or untainted, because ANY money he took outside of the Commission I’m suggesting as a clearing hourse would be illegal. “Do you have campaign contributions? Did you get them from the Campaign Commission?” If you answer “No,” you go to jail. End of story. No trail needed, no complex song and dance. Produce a receipt from the Campiagn Commission or do time. Very simple. I don;t think you’d see many Abramoffs under such a system.
Politicians taking money directly from people is illegal today. Political contributions have to be directed to a campaign committee, which then must make quarterly filings with the FEC.
Abramoff directed tainted money to campaign committees. He could have just as easily directed tainted money to a blind campaign trust. The only difference is that the public would then have no idea which candidates campaign trusts took money from a shady dealer like Abramoff.
Nor would “good” candidates be able to reject contributions from unsavory people, whether it be a political player like Abramoff or from other objectionable sources like, say, the NAMBLA PAC. Most politicians wouldn’t want to take any money from an organization that advocates child molestation as a matter of moral principle.
Why shouldn’t politicians have an opportunity to return contributions from people or causes that they despise? How can that possibly be accomplished if the politician is prohibited from knowing who is giving him money?
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If he gets no credit for donating money, why would he do it?
There are many reasons why lobbyists donate money. Reread my post #34, which explains some of them.
Let me also respond to your other points (4 was easiest, but I want to clarify some points, in the hope that I simply haven’t made my positions clear previously.)
This sounds like a contribution that the Commission is designed to encourage. The Cattlemen would continue to contribute to Congressman XYZ for legitimate reasons, and he would vote the way he does because he thinks it’s the right way to vote. No problem there.
Lobbyists can say whatever they want. They’'ll just have zero proof. There’s a lot of liars out there, you know.
So this would a disincentive to lie. I have no problem with that, either. Eventually, you’d have people contributing to campaigns whose espoused aims they approve of, with no hope of having their contributions known to the pols, not for any quid pro quo.