Article. The Federal Election Commission chair has stated that 2016 election abuses cannot be curbed because of the composition of the the commission and the fact that they vote 3-3 on party lines.
What this means is that polling place intimidation, illegal contributions, resurgent Jim Crow activities, etc. will be able to take place unchecked. This has been the aim of certain political types since the turn of the century: to set up a system that is skewed heavily to the conservative point of view, and then to hamstring any regulatory effort to control it.
Emphasis added. The FEC has no jurisdiction over those things. I didn’t underline “etc” because I have no idea what you mean, but it’s unlikely that is under the FEC’s jurisdiction as well since campaign finance (which you already mentioned) is the sole area of that body’s jurisdiction.
Good. “Campaign finance reform” is a smokescreen to censor political speech, and anything that keeps the activist Democrats on the commission from enforcing this agenda is to be lauded.
That’s when a bunch of southern states who were originally set for special attention when changing their voting laws, got free of that special attention thanks to a SCOTUS ruling, and the very next day pushed through voter ID laws that disproportionately impose burdens on demographics likely to vote Democrat.
No, it’s literally referring to rich people throwing their money in to influence elections.
The Koch bros want to purchase a GOP government because it gives them a better business environment. Well, that, and they’re Libertarian dipshits.
If you think that campaign finance reform is the same thing as destroying free speech, you defacto believe in letting the richest put their thumbs on the scale. That’s repugnant, and certainly not something that most people believe in. Unless you couch it in obfuscatory language like, “censoring political speech.” No one is saying that you shouldn’t have the right to say what you believe. They’re saying that money shouldn’t be used in limitless quantity to saturate the media with one message over another.
Buying elections is accurate. Censoring political speech is histrionics.
I’m always amazed at how conservatives rail about the corruption of government and how easily politicians can be bought (which they actually share with liberals), EXCEPT when it comes to campaign finance. THEN everyone is trustworthy and everything is hunky-dory.
“Influence”…“purchase”…why won’t you acknowledge that what you are talking about is preventing people from engaging in political speech? That’s SUPPOSED to be an opportunity to “influence” others.
They want to help their preferred candidates buy commercials. That’s their right. The 2.5 billion dollars Hillary Clinton plans to raise will probably counter it, just as all the caterwauling about Mitt Romney “buying the election” resulted in Obama being re-elected.
The arrogance of the Democrats is only matched by their cowardice – are you really that afraid of people hearing other viewpoints that you have to tear up the First Amendment? Can’t your platform stand on its own merits?
Then I am merely paying attention.
Plusgood doublethink there.
I’ll just paste in this explanation I provided in another thread:
The issue here is quite simply – you want to ban people from engaging in political speech by defining speech as “money.” This the only area where obfuscation is taking place and it’s an affront to the core values of America.
I’m not talking about preventing political speech. That’s something you made up. I’m talking about preventing unlimited sums of money being spent on elections.
If you can’t see the difference, there is little hope in debating with you.
Money isn’t everything. But it does alter the chances. No amount of money would get a dunce like Ben Carson elected. But unlimited money would make his percentages a bit higher.
Money shifts marginal cases. And over hundreds of cases, it can mean much more power than otherwise would accrue.
It’s not arrogant to want a level playing field. It’s not cowardice to want large corporations deciding our elections. It’s sanity.
To RW drivel, yes.
Again, you’re the one trotting out a hyperbolic and emotional bleat of, “censoring political speech” when exactly zero people would have their political speech censored by campaign finance reform.
You’re the one who can’t stand on his own feet and has to hide behind bumper-sticker catechisms instead of reasoned debate.
That’s feeble reasoning there. Hillary wants campaign finance reform. Asserting she should ignore the system as it is, until it’s enacted is bafflingly stupid.
“Oh, if she wants campaign finance, why doesn’t she just turn away donors.” That’s not something a serious person suggests.
No, you got it exactly backwards. You want to keep huge amounts of money in politics by defining it as speech.
The core values of America aren’t that the rich should form a hereditary oligarchy. Your position is nonsense, and your ability to fight for it devolves to nothing more than demands that words mean things other than they do.
Are you going to address the fact that the centerpiece of the “campaign finance reform” initiative is overturning Citizens United and re-instating a law against political speech, or the general disconnect between CFR and reality embodied in their complete misunderstanding of every bit of Citizens United?
I find it astoundingly naive to think that only people you already disagree with are corruptible. I find it implausible that an American populace which, according to you, consistently votes for corrupt, suicidal policies because they are easily manipulated by shiny things would produce better results under a different legal regime. And I find all of this irrelevant to the fact that speech is sacrosanct, and even if you could prove that the First Amendment was leading to the rise of Hitler, that still wouldn’t make it 1% less worth defending.
Yes, of course. It should be overturned, because it’s wrong.
What law against political speech are you referring to? If the Koch brothers want to stand on the street corners and pass out flyers about their favorite candidates, they’re perfectly allowed to do so. They have the same rights to free speech as anyone else. Their money has nothing to do with their speech, however, and can and should be regulated.
First of all, I didn’t say only politicians I disagree with are the corruptible ones. You’re just making shit up with that comment. No political viewpoint is immune from greed.
Second of all, if you don’t think this country has a centuries-long challenge with politicians who honestly believed that blatant corruption was just the normal way of doing business, then you literally know nothing about past electoral systems.
Go read John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage.” That book is about the greatest senators in American history, and nearly every one of them would have spent decades in prison if they were around today. Most of them make someone like Duke Cunningham or Jim Traficant (to name politicians in both major parties) look like shoplifters compared to the blatant bank robberies those politicians committed. And yet, the politicians in that book held office, generally speaking, for quite a long time.
There are limits to freedom of speech. The right to yell fire does not extend to promoting a dangerous panic. The right to political speech ought not extend to promoting a direct connection between political fundraising and official favors.