The NRA might not be the example you really want here, considering the malign nature of their iron-fisted control over Congress on behalf of a minority of zealots. “Powerful”, yes. But not in a good way. Nor is it particularly typical of what campaign finance laws are targeting. More typical are the lobbyists for moneyed interests: the oil companies, the American Petroleum Institute, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, etc. ad infinitum up to and including every last large corporation and its now-sanctified “personhood”.
Let me explain exactly how. John Smith can raise all the money he wants. And McCain can have access to all the usual billions. But they are each only allowed to spend the same legal maximum on electioneering. This actually helps the challenger since a well-connected incumbent is likely to be able to raise a lot more money. It levels the playing field, especially when you have spending limits coupled with uniform public funding for qualified candidates.
What is it about “the same rules apply to everybody” that is so hard to understand? :rolleyes:
Its a good Amendment and one that I support. As for why there isn’t a parade of Democrats talking about it, maybe the feared reach of the vast liberal media slipped this time?
People can say “Oh, this is a terrible idea. It’ll hurt small town newspapers and unions and poor people.”
But I don’t see small town newspapers or unions or poor people arguing against this proposal. I see Ted Cruz and big corporations arguing against it and claiming they’re doing so on behalf of small town newspapers or unions or poor people.
I figure small town newspapers or unions or poor people aren’t stupid. If they thought this would hurt them, they’d argue against it themselves. So I figure this proposal would mostly affect the people who are arguing against it - big corporations and their puppets (like Ted Cruz).
As for the OP’s argument that you only hear about the people who are arguing against this idea (the libertarians and the conservatives) but you don’t hear anything from the people who support this idea (the liberals) - ask yourself a couple of simple questions:
Where do you hear about things? The media.
Who owns most of the media? Big corporations.
So the fact you’re not hearing any arguments in favor of this amendment is itself an argument in favor of this amendment.
It doesn’t help a challenger. John Smith has to overcome McCain’s built in advantage because of his incumbency and name recognition. That can’t be done if Smith expends the exact same resources as McCain.
First of all when it comes to money, an incumbent will usually have the advantage anyway. Yes, usually an incumbent is likely to have more name recognition, or at least be regarded as more of a known quantity – that’s just a fact of life. That’s what incumbency is. What you seem to be claiming is that campaign finance limits would mitigate against someone being able to win an election just by virtue of being able to spend vast amounts of money flooding and dominating the media instead of competing on a level playing field and on the substance of his platform. Yes, that’s quite true. That’s why it’s a good thing! A level playing field tends to promote a healthy democracy informed by issues instead of a political system dominated by money and mindless sloganeering.
On the contrary, I’ve seen plenty of liberals defending this most sensible amendment to our Constitution. I don’t see how a law that attempts to bring the United States into accordance with other advanced countries with regards to campaign financing is a “silly political stunt”.
Because the evil effects of massive private donations are real and attempts to combat it aren’t “showmanship”
The problem here is that there isn’t a binary scale of increasing individual freedoms in exchange for less government and vice versa. Actors beyond the State exist in American civil society, and they can act in a way that hampers the freedoms and itnerests of the people.
We still are in favour of it-the fact is however allowing certain private donors to spend as much money as they like corrupts the political debate not so much by determining who will be elected as by setting the parameters of political debate. This was why during the push for health care reform single-payer or even something like the German system to use government to negotiate for lower prices was never seriously considered.
Yes, I happen to think it unsurprising that we may recognize that the laws framed by a fairly enlightened but nonetheless oligarchic class of Northern merchants and Southern planters for a largely agarian republic of four million people may not be fully suitable for a modern postindustrial democracy of three million souls.
You can express any opinion you want-however you should not be allowed to use campaign financing as a form of bribery to corrupt the public discourse on the major issues of the day.
It is no more a curtailment than not being allowed to publish any sort of accusation against an individual in a newspaper or not being allowed to publish military secrets.
Well, in my view, you’re right that unions and small-town newspapers don’t think this amendment will hurt them.
And if this amendment came to pass and then rules were passed under its authority that DID hurt small-town newspapers or unions, there would be outraged cries that said, in effect, “We didn’t mean US!!”
And such a thing is possible, although not in the near term.
Still, this is how our system works. I am pleased to see someone saying, “I don’t like one consequence of our Constitution. We should amend the text of the Constitution to avoid this consequence.” That’s how to change the text of the Constitution: amend it, assuming your goal has supermajority support. Good for them.
Money is not speech, but it is always a necessary prerequisite. Control of money should not be used as a backdoor way to suppress people’s rights, whether that’s directly by banning people from spending money to perform constitutionally protected acts, or indirectly by leaning on banks to blacklist people whose livelihoods depend on those constitutionally protected rights that you wish to suppress.
The problem with this logic is that this pretty much was the law of the land before Citizens United yet no such laws were passed during that time. I’m not even entirely sure what such a law would look like.
I get the general principle: the amendment does seem overly broad. I don’t know why the more restrictive versions were deleted. They seem to actually address the problem. They specifically deal with contributions to candidates and organizations that exist specifically to influence elections. (I also like the phrase “money and in-kind equivalents.”)
Not narrowly defining your purpose does seem ripe for abuse. But I have trouble thinking of any actual abuse that could happen. Could anyone give examples?
No such laws were passed prior because we haven’t yet descended into tyranny. Pass an amendment saying that money does not equal speech, then when the bad guys take over, a challenger is only allowed to spend $11 on his campaign, but can still yell at the top of his lungs.
Free speech preserved while incumbents send “official” mail reminding voters to take advantage of the latest federal park opened nearby at his assistance. Once again, free speech requires money. If you say that money can be limited, you are saying that free speech can be limited.
Not necessarily so. If one takes the view that the Constitution should express broad, timeless general principles – and for that very reason is, and should be, difficult to amend – then it’s neither realistic nor desirable to require it to articulate the kinds of detailed and nuanced contingencies that are best left to statute and to SCOTUS interpretation.
But of course, that assumes that the court will be rational. My own view of the particular campaign finance situation – and I know many will disagree – is that the present right-leaning SCOTUS has made some extraordinary pronouncements promoting the unfettered role of money in politics that seem an affront to all reason, of which Citizens United was perhaps the most egregious. The amendment noted in the OP seems like more of a symbolic attempt to highlight this fact, and perhaps born out of frustration that it’s hard to see how and when such a grievously misguided decision can ever be reversed.
I do see a significant difference between donating money to a political campaign and donating time to a political campaign. A wealthy man can easily donate an amount money equal to what ten thousand average people could donate. But he couldn’t donate ten thousand times as many hours.
That’s the key point of this whole issue. Wealthy people want money to keep its protected status because it allows them to have a greatly disproportionate influence on the political system. They want to preserve a system in which they don’t have to compete on equal footing.
I suspect the thing you like most about this process is its almost certain ineffectiveness. I’m guessing if there was any realistic chance of this amendment being enacted you wouldn’t be taking it so well.
Actually the idea that money is protected speech goes back to the Buckley v. Valeo decision in 1974. Citizens United just expanded it to corporations.
That said, when people like the OP claim they’re defending the founding principles of this nation, they need to be reminded that the country wasn’t founded during the Ford administration.
Seems like a very simple amendment that says “corporations are NOT people” would wrap up the whole thing. That’s the contorted logic the Robert’s court used to make the citizens united ruling. Once you knock that absurdity out, there’s nothing to stop congress and state legislatures from putting contribution limits and extra disclosure rules on them.
Well considering the reason the book burners in America had hissy fits over a Citizens United was because the Supreme Court said “No you can’t effectively ban a movie because it criticizes a political candidate” Cruz does have a point.
Thankfully most principaled Civil Libertarians celebrated Citizens United and the defeat of the modern day book burners.
Citizens United said nothing about corporate citizenship.
Corporate Citizenship was established in the 19th Century.
Beyond that, I’m not sure anyone wants to start arguing that the NAACP, the NRA, or The New York Times aren’t citizens and therefore aren’t protected by the First Amendment.
I am – and have always been – a strong proponent of civil liberties as well as a strong proponent of social democracy. These are powerful complementary principles, and entirely at odds with lunatic concepts like liberatianism. I don’t know exactly what “Civil Libertarians” is supposed to mean, or whether the capitalization denotes some formal status, but I can assure you that it’s possible to vehemently oppose Citizens United on the grounds just stated above without engaging in book burning. I myself have never burned any books, though I admit that my dog has gnawed on several, but I suspect not with any political motivation.
Indeed, it is Citizens United that argues in favor of book burning: let the rich purveyors of books and all information prevail, let the public be swayed by their glossy and attractive missives, and let the rest burn in obscurity.