# The FEC throws up its hands and surrenders **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 3, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156 "2015-05-03T16:42:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/61 "2015-05-16T22:39:47Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > When is one of them actually going to post what, specifically, they want to see with regards to “campaign finance reform” or “money in politics?” From [_The Next American Nation,_](http://www.amazon.com/NEXT-AMERICAN-NATION-Nationalism-Revolution/dp/0684825031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214163307&sr=8-1) by Michael Lind (The Free Press, 1995) (from before the McCain-Feingold Bill, but I don’t think the picture has changed all that much since it passed): > [@](#): > > Campaign financing is by far the most important mechanism for overclass influence in government. The real two-party system in the United States consists of the party of voters and the tiny but influential party of donors. The donor party in the United States is made up of an extraordinarily small number of citizens. In 1988, according to one study, only 10.2 percent of the American public made a contribution to a candidate, party, or partisan group. . . . The group of large political donors is a still more exclusive club. According to a study by Citizen Action, in the 1989-90 election cycle only 179,677 individual donors gave contributions greater than $200 to a federal candidate, political action committee (PAC), or party: “Thirty-four percent of the money spent by federal candidates was directly contributed by no more than one-tenth of one percent of the voting age population.” One may reasonably doubt that this one tenth of one percent is representative of the electorate or the population at large. > > \ > > Special interests buy favors from congressmen and presidents through political action committees (PACs), devices by which groups like corporations, professional associations, trade unions, investment banking groups – can pool their money and give $10,000 per election to each House and Senate candidate. Today there are more than 4,000 Political Action Committees (PACs) of various kinds registered with the Federal Election Commission; in 1974, when they were sanctioned by law, there were only 500. PAC money is driving campaign costs to new heights. In 1992, the average Senate incumbent spent more than $3.6 million for re-election; that is the equivalent of raising $12,000 a week in a single six-year term. Members of Congress, by comparison, spend only an average of $557,403 to be re-elected – a “mere” $5,000 a week for a two-year term. The average cost of a House campaign has risen to this level from $140,000 in 1980 – and $52,000 in 1974. > > The chief beneficiaries of rising campaign costs and PAC contributions have been incumbents. In 1972, 52 cents of the average PAC dollar went to incumbents, compared to 25 cents to challengers (the rest went to candidates for open seats); in the 1988 House elections, incumbents received 84.4 cents of each PAC dollar and challengers only 8.6 cents. It makes more sense for lobbies to buy access to established members of Congress and senators – particularly those with important leadership positions – than to fund challengers, who, if elected, would have no seniority and little influence. . . . Former Senator Barry Goldwater has lamented, “The Founding Fathers would frown in their graves if they saw us rationing candidacies sheerly on the basis of money: who has – or can raise – the millions necessary to run for office.” > > Democrats, when they were members of the majority party, received more PAC money than Republicans, though both parties are saturated with it. Contrary to conservative claims that liberal lobby groups dominate Congress, PAC funds come overwhelmingly from business: in 1990, 65 percent of PAC contributions came from business PACs, compared to 24 percent from labor and only 11 percent from ideological groups (including conservative as well as liberal pressure groups). “At one point,” John Judis has pointed out, “the American Petroleum Institute employed more lobbyists in Washington than the entire labor movement.” They don’t come much more libertarian than Goldwater, and even he was appalled at this state of affairs. Now, if that money does not buy influence over politicians (or, more importantly, is not useful for getting the pol the donor wants into office), then why do the donors **spend** that much, year after year after year?! These are people/organizations who ordinarily really, really hate to waste money. From the same book: > [@](#): > > Today’s U.S. government is democratic in form but plutocratic in substance. . . . In a misguided 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court held that Congress could not limit spending by rich Americans promoting their own candidacies. This decision was to the equalization of voting power what Dred Scott was to abolitionism. In The Yale Law Review, Jamin Raskin and John Boniface have argued that political candidates in the United States must win a “wealth primary.” Candidates without enormous amounts of money, either from their own fortunes or from rich individuals and special interest groups, cannot hope to win the party primaries – much less general elections. Indeed, the Buckley decision is one reason why more than half the members of the Senate today are millionaires. . . . > > **It is time to build a wall of separation between check and state.** Curing the disease of plutocratic politics requires a correct diagnosis of its cause: the costs of political advertising. The basic problem is that special interests buy access and favors by donating the money needed for expensive political advertising in the media. Elaborate schemes governing the flow of money do nothing to address the central problem: paid political advertising. **Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office.** The replacement of political advertising by free informational public service notices in the electronic and print media would level the playing field of politics and kill off an entire parasitic industry of media consultants and spin doctors. > > An outright ban on paid political advertising and the imposition of free time requirements on the media are radical measures, but nothing less is necessary if we are to prevent our government from continuing to be sold to the highest bidders. **The argument against strict public regulation of money in politics is based on a false analogy between free spending and free speech protected under the First Amendment. The analogy is false, because limits on campaign finance do not address the content of speech – only its volume, as it were. It is not an infringement on free speech to say that, in a large public auditorium, Douglas will not be allowed to use a microphone unless Lincoln can as well.** \* > > \*A much more compelling analogy would be between the electoral process and the judicial system, with the electorate playing the role of the jury. In our system of trial by jury, there are elaborate rules governing the presentation of evidence to the jury by plaintiff and defendant (the “candidates”). If our judicial system were organized the way our judicial system is, then rich candidates would be allowed to buy time before the jury. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, in one Senate election, outspent his opponent by 300 to 1; the equivalent, in the judicial system, would be allowing a rich defendant to buy, say, six months to present his side of the case, while the poor plaintiff might be able to purchase only twenty minutes for his side. “Wall of separation between check and state” is, at least, something you can get on a bumper-sticker. FWIW, some [Wikiquotes on campaign-finance reform:](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Politics#Campaign_finance_reform) “Today’s political campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters. You simply transfer money from contributors to television stations.” Senator Bill Bradley, 2000. “We’ve got a real irony here. We have politicians selling access to something we all own -our government. And then we have broadcasters selling access to something we all own — our airwaves. It’s a terrible system.” Newton Minow, former Federal Communications Commission chairman (2000). “You’re more likely to see Elvis again than to see this bill pass the Senate.” Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (1999) on the McCain-Feingold Bill on Campaign Reform “Unless we fundamentally change this system, ultimately campaign finance will consume our democracy.” Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) (1996). "[Buckley v. Valeo is] one of the most weakly reasoned, poorly written, initially contradictory court opinions I’ve ever read. "Senator (and former federal district court judge) George J. Mitchell (D-ME) (1990). **“We don’t buy votes. What we do is we buy a candidate’s stance on an issue.”** Allen Pross, executive director, California Medical Association’s PAC (1989). “Political action committees and moneyed interests are setting the nation’s political agenda. Are we saying that only the rich have brains in this country? Or only people who have influential friends who have money can be in the Senate?” Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) (1988). “The day may come when we’ll reject the money of the rich as tainted, but it hadn’t come when I left Tammany Hall at 11:25 today.” George Washington Plunkett (1905). “Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor, not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and propitious fortune.” James Madison, Federalist 57 (1788). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/62 "2015-05-16T22:41:03Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > . . . the American system. . . . is whatever it is **at the moment,** and is always renegotiable. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/63 "2015-05-16T22:44:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > . . . is whatever it is **at the moment,** and is always renegotiable. A truism (one that the German-American Bund, the Communist Party, etc would have heartily agreed with, but a truism nonetheless). The problem in this thread is that we have people saying on the one hand that they think the First Amendment is a dead letter and America must be overhauled wholesale, then immediately denying that they said such things when shown the implications. The same people are rather coy about what new system they would build on the ruins of the Bill of Rights, but are definitely sure that, once they figure out what it is they are advocating for, it will be worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/64 "2015-05-16T23:29:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 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. When does the Koch brothers activity of passing out flyers become something that can be banned in your opinion? Can they do it everyday? Can they make copies of those flyers or do they have to be hand written? Can they hire someone else to pass them out? Can they email them out? Can they go over short wave radio and speak their message? Where is the arbitrary line you are drawing between when something is okay and when it is not? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/65 "2015-05-17T00:08:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > How? Discussing that gets into what freedom of speech actually is. Some people think it is the ability to say what you want when you want. Well, that level of freedom of speech is never limited as long as you aren’t censored. Restricting money or not restricting wouldn’t change anything at all. But that obviously is not the definition used on either side, or else freedom of speech wouldn’t be brought up. I can only speak for my side. You have to go back into what freedom of speech was created for. It was designed to prevent those in power from limiting the influence of those who are not in power. It is designed to create a level playing field, where your influence is proportional only to the number of people who agree with you. And even if they don’t call it freedom of speech, this is an idea that most people agree with, because it’s also essentially the definition of democracy. So any definition of free speech that would frustrate this cannot be what freedom of speech means. Anything that would give one rich guy with a lot of money more influence in politics than someone without money cannot be freedom of speech. That’s why I really liked what **elucidator** said. People want to pervert freedom of speech into something that can be used to advocate for political inequality, when that’s the exact opposite of why it exists. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/66 "2015-05-17T00:39:51Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Discussing that gets into what freedom of speech actually is. Some people think it is the ability to say what you want when you want. Well, that level of freedom of speech is never limited as long as you aren’t censored. Restricting money or not restricting wouldn’t change anything at all. > > But that obviously is not the definition used on either side, or else freedom of speech wouldn’t be brought up. I can only speak for my side. You have to go back into what freedom of speech was created for. It was designed to prevent those in power from limiting the influence of those who are not in power. It is designed to create a level playing field, where your influence is proportional only to the number of people who agree with you. BigT, how many people owned printing presses in Philadelphia or Boston in 1775-1776 or 1787-1789? I have no love for Murdoch or the brothers Koch, but until you can provide a bright line definition of “too much” that would have been true then, is true now, and will be true in the future, your arguments appear to be crafted to oppose those particular persons and their influence rather than defining an actual principle from which rules can be constructed. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/67 "2015-05-17T00:43:19Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > A truism (one that the German-American Bund, the Communist Party, etc would have heartily agreed with, but a truism nonetheless). Ooooh! “the German-American Bund, the Communist Party.” Also the Republican Party, the John Birch Society, the various Koch-funded shadow organizations, and others, including the Democratic party. Why don’t you stick to trying to argue the points of your belief and stop waving bloody shirts around. They do nothing to make your point and they simply inflame emotions, needlessly. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/68 "2015-05-17T00:47:19Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > What specific laws do you wish to see enacted, and what specific measurements of “having the exact same speech power” would constitute the test of those laws’ success? You’re just repeating platitudes. No, I’m trying to get across the fundamental block on your side. You have to discus ideas before you can discuss implementations. You keep on misstating the position of those of us who want campaign finance reform. The practical solutions are beyond my pay grade. Those are what the various campaign reform ideas are about. It’s a hard problem to solve, and I don’t know what will fix it. But someone going around completely misstating the purpose only serves to stop any reforms or discussion about them before they start. > [@](#): > > Ruling that you cannot treat speech as money is the exact-- and only – thing that Citizens United did. Read my description above. Yes, one of those places where you seem to be living in a completely different world from the rest of us. The entire method of “restricting speech” being decided was based on monetary restrictions. The main result was the creation of political advertizing entities with no monetary restrictions. Is Citizens United the sole problem? But it is part of it. It equated the speech of organizations with the money they spend to make said speech. > [@](#): > > What do you believe is being misrepresented? Where you have repeatedly said that finance reform is about restricting speech we don’t like, when we’ve told you multiple times it isn’t? Where you said I admitted it was about restricting speech I didn’t like, when I said nothing about liking anything? Everything we’ve been saying applies equally to all speech, but you repeatedly characterize it as people trying to stop the speech they don’t agree with. You are trying to take our desire to remove corruption from politics, and change it into us creating corruption in politics. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/69 "2015-05-17T00:55:38Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Discussing that gets into what freedom of speech actually is. Some people think it is the ability to say what you want when you want. Well, that level of freedom of speech is never limited as long as you aren’t censored. Restricting money or not restricting wouldn’t change anything at all. > > But that obviously is not the definition used on either side, or else freedom of speech wouldn’t be brought up. I can only speak for my side. You have to go back into what freedom of speech was created for. It was designed to prevent those in power from limiting the influence of those who are not in power. I don’t agree with that, but even if I did that would certainly mean that people like the Koch Brothers needed protection when Democrats controlled the Presidency, the House and the Senate. > [@](#): > > It is designed to create a level playing field, where your influence is proportional only to the number of people who agree with you. I’m going to need one them cite thingies for that. Also, you’re shifting to “influence” instead “speech”. But that kind of equality has never existed and I dread the types of controls that would have to be put in place to accomplish that. > [@](#): > > And even if they don’t call it freedom of speech, this is an idea that most people agree with, because it’s also essentially the definition of democracy. No, it’s not. Democracy is rule by the people. You can have democracy without free speech and you can have free speech without democracy. > [@](#): > > So any definition of free speech that would frustrate this cannot be what freedom of speech means. Anything that would give one rich guy with a lot of money more influence in politics than someone without money cannot be freedom of speech. > > That’s why I really liked what **elucidator** said. People want to pervert freedom of speech into something that can be used to advocate for political inequality, when that’s the exact opposite of why it exists. One key aspect of free speech is to not censor speech for content. I can’t imagine anyone being disallowed to speak out in favor of inequality in the US, even if most of us would disagree with him. At any rate, that was a lot of words, but it didn’t answer the question. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/70 "2015-05-17T01:50:42Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You can limit money without limiting speech. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > How? As described in post #61. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/71 "2015-05-17T01:54:50Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > A truism (one that the German-American Bund, the Communist Party, etc would have heartily agreed with, but a truism nonetheless). Likewise a truism with which the Abolitionist Society and the Suffragettes and the Grange and the AFL-CIO and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Students for a Democratic Society and the National Organization for Women and United Farmworkers would have heartily agreed. Just because something is a truism does not mean it is unimportant, nor not worth saying. “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” – [George Orwell](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/72 "2015-05-17T02:18:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > As described in post #61. “Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office.” Outlawing speech is limiting speech. Not sure why that is a difficult concept to understand. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/73 "2015-05-17T02:27:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > “Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office.” > > Outlawing speech is limiting speech. Not sure why that is a difficult concept to understand. And outlawing paid political advertising is not outlawing speech. Not sure why that is a difficult concept to understand. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/74 "2015-05-17T03:54:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And outlawing paid political advertising is not outlawing speech. It outlaws paid political advertising, which is a limit on speech. The claim was you could limit money spent without limiting speech. You seem to be thinking that as long as you don’t limit all speech you haven’t limited speech. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/75 "2015-05-17T04:01:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It outlaws paid political advertising, which is a limit on speech. The claim was you could limit money spent without limiting speech. You seem to be thinking that as long as you don’t limit all speech you haven’t limited speech. I don’t believe that most are against the _content_ of the speech. They are against the _volume_. This is where Haber is having his trouble. He repeatedly innacurately says that people want to outlaw speech they don’t like. That’s not true (at least in general, I’m sure some do). They want to outlaw the intensity with which that speech can be spread via spending duckets. Limiting the ability to say a message isn’t the same thing as limiting the ability to broadcast it at some cap. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/76 "2015-05-17T04:05:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > As described in post #61. What, this: “Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office.” John Mace asked how you would limit money without limiting speech. The above does not answer that question. You ARE limiting speech - is “paid political advertising” somehow not “speech”? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/77 "2015-05-17T04:05:33Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Limiting the ability to say a message isn’t the same thing as limiting the ability to broadcast it at some cap. Upon what principle is your arbitrary cap established? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > “Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office.” > > Outlawing speech is limiting speech. Not sure why that is a difficult concept to understand. You got further than I did - I have Michael Lind on ignore. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/78 "2015-05-17T04:06:34Z")
dp ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/79 "2015-05-17T04:07:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It outlaws paid political advertising, which is a limit on speech. The claim was you could limit money spent without limiting speech. You seem to be thinking that as long as you don’t limit all speech you haven’t limited speech. It’s a perfect solution. All you have to do is redefine what “speech” is to exclude the speech we don’t like. Then we ban it. What should we call this new concept of redefining language to fit political goals? I suggest Newspeak. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156/80 "2015-05-17T04:32:50Z")
Let’s say I’ve amassed $50B over the years and now would like to devote my life and my billions to advocate for Same Sex Marriage, Raising the Minimum Wage and cutting back the Defense Budget, redirecting the money to Aid to Families with Dependent Children. How much of my money should I be allowed to spend in that advocacy? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fec-throws-up-its-hands-and-surrenders/719156.md?page=5)