The problem comes in defining what a campaign is. If it’s defined as donating money to a candidate or political party, then the law already has a much lower limit than that. If it’s defined as campaigning yourself for a candidate or party, then you run into legal problems and trying to establish a fair distinction. Because if a professional journalist can campaign for a candidate using the budget of a major media company, why can’t Sheldon Adelson do the same with his own money? That’s the crux of the legal problem.
Except people do make a difference when they are allowed to spend their money for organizations. If I want to give $30 to NRA (or the ACLU, or pick your group here) then the NRA takes these small donations and gives millions of gun owners a voice in government that they would not have acting individually. Individually, I can’t match the Koch brothers or Romney/Kennedy money, but by pooling our money we can: democracy at its finest. Your proposal would stop that.
Corporations are more of the same principle. The fact that they are equity financed means that they require shareholders who vote for directors who represent those shareholders.
You seem to graciously allow me to hold a “Vote for Ted Cruz” party at my home with chips and beer. Suppose me and twenty others pooled our money and rented the local community center for that party with a dinner and a cash bar. I think you would grudgingly allow that.
But if I organized a group called “Vote for Ted Cruz” with 50,000 members near me and we pooled our money (and God forbid if I organized it as a corporation) and rented a local sports stadium for a large rally, you would likely forbid it.
So where is the principled difference between the house party and the sports stadium? Is it because I was too good at organizing? Is it because Ted Cruz was too popular? It seems the objection is because it is “too much money.” But it costs money to buy things. The objection, at least to me, seems the same as saying that my efforts were too successful and required more money to operate.
Unless freedom of speech means simply yelling as loud as I can, money is a logical and necessary prerequisite to the right. Without money there is no free speech. I don’t understand why some of the left cannot understand that.
If I was able to get a law passed that said nobody could spend money on abortions, would you accept my argument that “abortions are not money”?
It’s not about the money spent it’s about how many interests the money represents. If you get 50,000 people together and rally under the same cause, you have large sample representation. If the Koch Brothers tap their tax free Caymen account and do the same thing, suddenly 2 voices are worth the same as 50,000 and that is not proportional representation.
People running ads is not a threat to democracy.
I have no problem with fifty thousand people putting their money together and holding a gigantic organized rally. I wouldn’t object if it was a million people doing it.
What I object to is one billionaire deciding to pay for a bigger rally across the street. One person should not be able to outshout fifty thousand people or a million people.
That’s the point you’re missing. We’re not trying to put a cap on the size of events or the total amount of money being spent. We’re trying to put a cap on how much one individual can spend.
How could that possibly not be an unconstitutional infringement on speech? I can speak, but only in government approved amounts?
Plus, there are obvious problems with that. It is okay for people who are already in the public eye (actors, entertainers, broadcasters, reporters) to use the platform that they have to reach millions of people, but you make it illegal for anyone else with the ability to do so. It creates an entrenched oligarchy where some people though dumb luck have the ability to speak on political matters.
Also, where is the line drawn between political advocacy and other speech? What if I own a large company (sole proprietorship, not a dreaded corporation) that manufactures widgets. One of the candidates has proposed a law to outlaw widgets, or alternatively has proposed a law that in my opinion will adversely affect the widget market. Under your proposal how far could I go to protect my business? Could I send a newsletter to my customers describing how the candidate’s proposal would hamper their widget enjoyment in the future? Could the newsletter contain factual statements about how to comply in the future if the candidate’s proposal becomes law (with an obvious hint that these regulations will be bad so don’t vote for the candidate? what about a not so obvious hint?)?
We would have all of these restrictions on speech to what end? To maintain a monopoly on speech for incumbents and those who already have a platform?
So then why are you saying there is no difference between the Koch brothers spending their own money and the Koch brothers spending money they raise from lots of other people as part of a PAC? Someone has to manage money that a group donates, no? Or are we to imagine that everyone donating money has to take part in actively managing how that money is spent? And how is money being spent by one group “outshouting” other groups?
Are you saying there is only so much speech to go around? Or are you saying that that one group is latterly making so much noise that you can’t hear the other group? Because if it’s the latter, can you show how that is happening?
In the end, the people upset that money buys political offices are the same people that vote for the candidates that win elections to those offices.
I think you’re misidentifying the problem. It’s not the job that can be bought, it’s the voters.
:smack: “literally”, not “latterly”.
It seems strange to me. We appear to be in agreement over what the problem is - individuals having the power to disproportionately spread their own message and drown out all other messages. You’re saying it’s a problem when actors, entertainers, broadcasters, reporters, or incumbents do it. I’m saying it’s a problem when billionaires do it. But we’re both agreeing it’s a problem.
If you really think I’m trying to create “an entrenched oligarchy where some people though dumb luck have the ability to speak on political matters” then you have massively misunderstood everything I’ve said. Because that’s the exact opposite of what I’ve been saying at every point in this debate.
Why is Matt Damon speaking out and starring in movies that attempt to alter public opinion different from the Kochs doing the same?
Also, where is the “drowning out” effect? I can read and absorb YOUR posts on a discussion board and they make more of an impact on me than 30-second ads which I’m barely paying any attention to. If the Kochs can’t drown Little Nemo out they can’t drown out anybody.
Who do the Koch brothers represent? Who donated the money that they are controlling?
The Koch brothers are controlling money given out by organizations like the TC4 Trust, an organization funded by “undisclosed” donations. The TC4 Trust is not required to say who its donors are or how much money they donated. It’s just a black box that money comes out of.
I think you misunderstood his post. He’s not agreeing with you. He’s pointing out a problem created by your “solution”. That is, anyone already in the public eye gets all sorts of speech allowed to them, but those not in the public eye get less. He’s OK with actors getting lots of free speech, as long as the rest of us get it, too.
I didn’t make the claim that Matt Damon was drowning out anyone. Jtgain did. (Okay, he said actors in general. He didn’t specify Matt Damon in particular.) So he’s saying that people can drown out other views.
So my question is this: if Matt Damon is a danger because of his ability to drown out other viewpoints, why aren’t the Koch brothers a much bigger danger? They’re much bigger than Matt Damon.
I want to know why jtgain and other people say we have to guard against Matt Damon but we don’t have to guard against the Koch brothers.
How many people are exposed to one poster’s comments on this board compared to the number exposed to national TV ads? I’m not going to take your personal alleged indifference to TV as evidence for the claim the one of America’s largest industries – the billion-dollar industry of public persuasion embodied in advertising and PR – is completely useless and a total waste of money. Not to mention all of the stealth operations and fake grass-roots front groups that special interests set up and fund.
No one is saying that. No one, including jtgain.
So you’re saying everyone has the ability to spend $900,000,000 in a political campaign? Because allow me to correct you on that - I don’t have the ability to do so. I doubt you do either. I’m pretty sure nobody in this thread has that ability. I’m pretty sure that nobody that anybody in this thread knows has that ability.
So what happens when you allow the few dozen people in this country who do have billions of dollars to spend the freedom to go ahead and use it to control political campaigns? “It creates an entrenched oligarchy where some people though dumb luck have the ability to speak on political matters.”
Jtgain may be saying that my solution, if put into effect, would create the problem. If so, then he’s wrong. My solution hasn’t been put into effect but the problem already exists.
No.
I am not going to allow you to correct me on something I didn’t say.
More people are exposed to the 30-second ads, but nothing about the 30-second ads means people aren’t getting exposed to other things. Millions tuned into SOTU, an overtly political speech that was the equivalent of a hundred 30-second ads. If anything, the President is drowning his opponents out.
This is a perfect example of how these proposals only protect incumbents. Take the 2012 election. Under the proposal, Mitt Romney can only spend $1k, $1M, or whatever the limit.
But Obama can be on the news daily touting his policies, giving the SOTU address, visiting senior citizens homes, orphans, and war widows.
Some have said that this can be cured through “equal time.” Putting the constitutional arguments aside, what is “equal time” when Obama visits a soldier’s grave at Arlington? Put on a Republican who says that he could have done it better?