For most of the United States’ history, limiting political spending was seen as compliant with the first amendment. Then the supreme court decided it wasn’t. Supreme court rulings have been overturned before. But if the court’s not willing to do that, then yes, you would have to amend the first amendment to make it clear that being able to pay for advertising is not the same as the type of speech specified in the amendment. Yes, I realize this is not politically feasible. I took this thread as more of a “the situation is bad and it could be done better if our political situation wasn’t so stupid”, not “here are some easily implemented laws that will immediately make everything better”.
Take money out of the process, and you know who benefits? Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. They already have 100% name recognition.
Know who loses? Somebody like, hypothetically, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. Right now, nobody knows who they are. To get name recognition (let alone the nomination), they’d have to advertise HEAVILY.
That costs money. Which you are forbidding them to raise or spend.
Are you just nitpicking over the semantics here? Because I’m not seeing any real point to your argument.
You don’t, but getting reporters to listen is that person’s problem.
If we had an all-publicly-funded system, Jeb and Hillary would still have a lock, I’m sure. Though it might make for a more interesting primary season – because Warren or Sanders would have a better shot than they have now, as they would get an equal amount of TV time to Clinton’s without having to trouble about fundraising.
Well, it would be a lawyerly exercise; study all the SCOTUS cases that prevent it, and their legal reasoning, and draft the amendment to go narrowly to that reasoning.
You made a claim and have failed to back it up. I can see why you might want to hide behind the excuse of a semantic argument if you’re unwilling to admit that you’re just plain wrong.
Well, yes, but that’s exactly the debate we’re having. You said you don’t accept the premise of the OP. I think it’s manifestly obvious, as cited in that study, that the premise is correct.
I don’t believe that the Roberts court is uniquely responsible for this – what I do believe, and have stated or implied in other discussions on these boards, is that in a deteriorating situation of increasing big-money control of the nation’s political systems, they have issued rulings that have made the situation dramatically worse.
The extent to which corporations and the wealthy wield political power has been increasingly apparent in recent decades; it certainly didn’t start with the Roberts court, and the 80s is a pretty good marker of when things started going to hell, when the nation’s political systems began what would prove to be a sharp turn to the right and an unprecedented pandering to the wealthy. Richard Nixon, in doing things like establishing the EPA and trying to enact an ACA-style of health care reform, practically looks like a leftist Democrat by today’s standards. And the actual Democrats of the past enacted things like Medicare in the 60s and Social Security in the 30s, and you are totally kidding yourself if you think anything like that would be even remotely possible today. It was barely possible even to pass the ACA, Republicans are still trying to kill it, Republicans rejected Medicaid expansion in every state they control, and the “public option” of the ACA was dead on arrival. There is every prospect that the current Republican Congress will be the most regressive in living memory, or perhaps ever, as the hard-right pandering to the wealthy ramps up even more.
Nice job completely turning the facts on their head! The point of the cite, and of the OP, and of this discussion, is that America is no longer a democracy. And that this has occurred because government, the only means by which the people can exercise power and counter the power of corporate wealth, has been taken over by said corporate wealth.
Absolute bullshit. See above. This is mostly a recent development, and moreover, is mostly an American phenomenon.
You don’t get freedom by crippling the government. Crippling the government gets you an economy and a society that is entirely controlled by the dominant and most ruthless private interests, a system in which you have no representation and no rights.
Just an interesting side note, I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet but the 2016 Presidential election is estimated to run in excess of $3 billion dollars;.or about 1.5bil spent for each candidate. That is truly stunning to me.
No, I’m being serious here.
I posted “The idea that money is a form of speech isn’t in the First Amendment or anywhere else in the Constitution. It was declared by the court in the Buckley decision in 1976.” And you asked “Can you quote the part of the decision that said “money is a form of speech”? My copy of Buckley v. Valeo seems to be missing that section.”
I offered a quote from the Buckley decision where it said the campaign expenditures were protected by the First Amendment. Campaign expenditures are money and the First Amendment protects speech. So this seems to be the clear equivalent of ruling that money is a form of speech.
I’m confused why you’re saying I haven’t backed up my claim. Which means I probably don’t understand what your point is. Are you saying that the words “money if a form of speech” don’t appear in the decision? If so, I’ll agree. But that’s not what I claimed. I said the idea was there (which it is) not those exact words. But that doesn’t seem like an argument you’d be trying for.
So I’m assuming you’re saying there is some significant distinction between money being a form of speech and campaign expenditures being protected by the First Amendment. And if so, I don’t know what distinction it is you’re seeing. I don’t see it. So if you’d like me to respond, you’re going to have to explain what it is you’re saying.
And once again you ignore The Incumbent Advantage-even when not campaigning, it is possible for those already in office to be constantly in the public eye just by doing the job.
That sounds high. 2012 was only 2 billion. At 3 billion, its over $20/vote.
The way I see it working is by taking all private money out of politics and using only tax-payer funded election pool funds. If you use it up, then you use it up, but both sides (with some smaller funds for 3rd and 4th parties) start off with equal amounts and cannot use more. One area of compromise would perhaps be that instead of a pool fund for smaller candidates, they are allowed to spend up to a certain amount equaling but not exceeding the 2 major parties. For that extra money, they are allowed to raise private donations, with rules similar to what we have now (no foreign donations, individuals contributions capped at $X)
Actual news organizations would be free to criticize or report on whoever they want. The restrictions would not interfere with this type of speech. Similar rules in place should remain, such as a news organization giving time to one side much give time to another. If you have a Republican on for an hour talking about what he would do, you must have a Democrat on for an hour talking about what he would do. There are enough differing news organizations that I feel small inequalities would essentially balance out, so I’m not interested at all in counting the seconds one candidate has and making sure another candidate has equal seconds right down to the nanosecond.
As for public officials getting free PR, they don’t get it unless its being reported, just like now. Fox threatened to not carry some of Obama’s speeches early on because they felt he was making too many. Any network can do the same in this situation, the media polices itself well enough without interference. Opposition party officials or just rabblerousers are free to give speeches of their own, its nobody’s fault if people don’t give a damn what they say. There’s no reason a Donald Trump gets to buy up time to promote oppositional views. If what he’s saying is newsworthy, the media will report it. You nor I have to resources to buy up an hour of primetime to push our views and neither should Trump get to do the same
A big part of eletioneering is the private events, the speeches in stadiums, the tours, commercials, etc. I would force candidates to fund all of that through the pot I mentioned before. If they run out of money, sorry, no more lawn signs and no more commercials. Its not unfair to not let them spend more money, its unfair to let one person spend much much more. We already know what that does to fairness. We know its unfair. To say that we shouldn’t change our policies just because something may be unfair when its already unfair right now is a terrible argument. By definition, randomizing the rules for elections would even be more fair than the current system. ANYTHING else we do differently is fair. So I’m not worried about what might be unfair in my system, I’m more concerned in fixing what’s unfair now
I’m seriously unsure of what you think I’d be banning other than money from an election. What are you afraid that people won’t be able to do if my plan is adopted? What specifically will disappear because no private money can be used? Are you talking about lawn signs, flyers, $500 a plate lunches to schmooze with the candidates? What exactly are you talking about?
You said it yourself. I can’t put a sign in my own yard supporting a candidate if it wasn’t purchased through the federal government? I can’t air an ad on my own TV station (or buy one on someone else’s station, or go on my cousin’s radio talk show) to support my candidate? Can I hand out flyers that weren’t bought with campaign-earmarked funds? Can I paint a mural on my building with paint I didn’t buy from the “campaign fund pool”? I can’t organize a party to tell my friends how great my candidate is? How is that not blatant infringement on speech?
Nicely spoken but the result of less government isn’t more democracy. In order to be given a voice about matters that relate to public interest, you need to have the tentacles of government embedded into these issues. Otherwise you’re left appealing private interests for your democratic rights. Even organized movements are no match for multi-billion dollar companies.
Libertarians don’t really care about democracy as long as someone’s basic human rights are not directly being violated … but there are plenty of ways to indirectly violate people’s rights and interests and that’s where Libertarians tend to fall right off a cliff in their reasoning.
It’d be nice if the government got out of our money.
I don’t quite follow you. What do you mean by “democratic rights” there?
I mean, yeah, granted, I’d hate to have to appeal to private interests for my right to worship as I please – but why would I appeal to them in the first place? I don’t need permission from Coca-Cola to be Jewish. I don’t need Paramount Pictures to sign off on my right to own a gun. I don’t need an okay from Kroger before I cast a vote. What democratic rights do you figure I need to appeal to private interests for?
[shrug] No campaign-finance reform is going to change that. Besides, we’re talking now about an open presidential race with no incumbent.
I’m suggesting a thread title for GD or IMHO. By “problems” I mean “issues or policies which our society could alter or redirect usefully, e.g. with legislation or constitutional change.”
I hope someone starts such a thread. There is a thread for suggested changes but, IMHO, changes should be focused on identified problems. Identifying problems should be foremost and key.
How does this relate to OP? Many or most Dopers will admit that the corrupt effect money has on politics is one of the five biggest problems. I post to state I strongly agree with OP. Remedies may be more difficult to come by – discard the Bill of Rights? :eek: – but we do want to point in the right direction. I know of no golden era when politics was not corrupt, but I’ve soon America spiral sadly downhill under corrupt influences in recent decades. Recent events (media concentration, polarized news, huge campaign bills, and ill-spirited Supreme Court decisions) have pointed us even more strongly in the wrong direction.
Yet some Dopers focus only on the 1st Amendment without even bothering to consider whether a problem has been identified.
Determine first whether a problem has been identified, and how severe it is. Then work on the best response, and compatibility with other privileges, responsibilities and priorities. Little Nemo agreed with me, as is so often the case. (Sorry he and I got off on a bad foot over a little mathematical detail.) But, as is also often the case, the best response, the correct and intelligent response, was by wolfpup:
But I want to nominate the following thought-provoking post for best of thread:
Is marshmallow correct? I find myself in general agreement; “corrupting influences of government and business on each other” would be one of my Top Five Problems (if not 2 or 3 of them).
Please someone, start such a thread.
Let’s think this through.
Let’s say the government wants to regulate, oh, the internet or the health care system. Does anyone believe that the 535 members of Congress have the knowledge required to make sweeping changes to highly technical industries? I sure hope not, because they don’t. Instead, they have to rely on industry insiders to help them draft legislation. That’s just the way it’s done.
Now, given that some industry insiders get a hand in making legislation, do you suspect they might help write legislation that benefits them? Even if it’s just bias, and not malice?
If so, what recourse does anyone have to stop it? If lobbying by opposing viewpoints is not allowed, if people can’t raise money for political action groups, if experts aren’t allow to pay for political ads opposing the legislation… Are we just going to let Washington be run by insiders and cronies, and no one can lift a rhetorical finger to stop them?
Are you sure you’re okay with stopping the activities of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Organizing for America, the Center for American Progress, etc?
And let’s not forget labor unions, which as I recall are the largest funders of politicians. Are they no longer allowed to spend money in support of candidates?
If you want money out of politics, there’s only one way to do it - lower the economic consequences of political decisions by shrinking the size of government. So long as government can issue rules and regulations that can change the flow of billions or trillions of dollars, people will find a way to influence the political process. That’s just the way it works.
I’d rather have it out in the open. So what I’d do is allow anyone to fund politicians for whatever reason, with the rule that any individual or corporation giving more than, say, $500 must have the donation registered in a searchable public database. Get rid of the shadow money, and make all large donations completely transparent so we can see who is being bought and who is doing the buying.
By the way, a lot of the influence peddling in Washington has nothing to do with campaign financing. To skirt that, all you have to do is promise a candidate that so long as he carries water for you, as soon as he’s out of office you’ll give him a cushy job doing very little for a lot of money. Or if you are nice to your cronies they’ll see to it that you land a sweet speaking gig for hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop. Or since Congress is exempt from insider trading laws (a scandal in its own right), maybe they’ll just slide you a few hot stock tips about an upcoming business decision so you can make your money and remain at arm’s length.
When that much money is at stake, people can be ingenious in how they get their influence.