For the most part, gifts to legislators from lobbyists are illegal.
Lobbyists can give donations to campaigns, subject to the same limits as anyone else - but those donations don’t go to “personal profit.” They go to their campaigns.
Since nothing prevents a politician from using his personal funds to finance his campaign, that’s often a fine distinction.
:rolleyes: You could just as easily compare it to paying jurors a stipend. Just saying “it’s like bribery” is not a valid reason to ban it, which is why I asked Ravenman for his underlying reasoning.
That’s fine, it just seems pretty self-evident to me. But carry on.
Of course, a third party couldn’t stand outside a courthouse and pay jurors for their service either. That’s the better comparison.
How? He can use personal money to finance a campaign, but that’s still not money going from someone else’s pocket into his - it’s money going OUT of his pocket.
Now, if he spent campaign money on a yacht, that might be different. And there aren’t many legal restrictions on him doing that, though he would likely take a political hit since all expenditures are disclosed to the public.
Sounds like one of those differences that makes no difference to me.
You have one vote for Mayor and I have one vote for Mayor. You have one vote for who your State’s representatives will cast their vote for POTUS and I have one vote for who my State’s representatives will cast their vote for POTUS.
Seems pretty equal to me.
Buying the vote of the individual voter is not the same issue as buying an elected representative.
*Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist’s playbook Or How To Buy Your Own Congressperson
CBS 60 Minutes - November 07, 2011 – Jack Abramoff, the notorious former lobbyist at the center of Washington’s biggest corruption scandal in decades, spent more than three years in prison for his crimes. Now a free man, he reveals how he was able to influence politicians and their staffers through generous gifts and job offers. He tells Lesley Stahl the reforms instituted in the wake of his scandal have had little effect.*
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29647.htm
While many of our elected representatives have sold their votes to lobbyists like Abramoff, that doesn’t mean that my vote is for sale or should be for sale. Every politician who chose a lobbyist over their constituants should be replaced - by a vote of their constituants.
There’s an enormous difference.
Sure, the vote PLUS the whole “expulsion from the House followed by conviction in Federal courts and a lengthy stay in prison” thing.
If you give him X, that’s X less of his personal funds he has to spend on his campaign.
Except that if you live in Iowa, you will get to vote for one of as many as a dozen plausible presidential primary candidates; if you live in California, you might have a choice of two.
If you live in North Dakota, your Senate vote will be worth twenty times more than that of a voter in Texas.
If he has those funds to begin with.
It’s a stretch of an argument. Personal funds aren’t a big factor in most campaigns, except those who are rich anyway and don’t need other people to buy them yachts.
True, but that’s not due to money.
Again, not due to money.
Yes, there are funny quirks in our system that make voting power uneven.
Nobody said it was due to money. Did you read the first page of the thread?
The comment started with this one:
“You really want moderate voters to feel cheated by the electoral process because their neighbors two blocks over get $20 each for just going to the polls, but Mr. and Mrs. Rational Moderate Voter get nothing?”
Perhaps you should clue me in. Cause it sounds like you’re pleading a special case. You have conceded that money is not speech, hence you cannot use it to simply buy votes. But Somehow, restricting its use to buy media is a terrible thing, a total violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. How is it that money used to buy media is speech, but money used to buy votes is not speech?
I think his case is pretty clear. Actual speech is protected by the First Amendment. The use of money, in general, is not necessarily protected by the First Amendment: one cannot buy cocaine, hookers, and politicians and say drug trafficking, pimping, and bribery are “free speech”. It follows that just because money is used to bribe someone for their vote, it does not mean that votes are speech because money is used.
However, certain laws that regulate the use of money also end up regulating speech, and that may not be permissible under the First Amendment.
How about a company making an offer like ‘If Joe Smith wins the congressional 2nd district we’ll send all registered voters a check for $100’ Should that be allowed? They aren’t paying for your vote as you could still vote however you want. You just have more incentive to vote for Mr. Smith.
Even better when after Mr Smith wins and they refuse to pay out and instead tell you to write to your congressman.
Good analysis.
The regulation of money for the sole purpose of regulating speech, such as limits on how much money one can spend on speech, are clearly one of those impermissible laws.
Simple - money used to buy media is speech, but money used to buy votes is not speech. That shouldn’t require explanation.
Spending money on a right is part of that right. Just like the government couldn’t restrict other related activities. For instance, suppose the government wanted to stop a protest march. It knows it can’t just ban it, so instead it bans the rental of buses used to bring protesters to marches. Obviously that’s a restriction only on speech. It has no other purpose. Suppose it banned all walking on weekends in front of government buildings. That would also be clearly aimed at protests, even though it doesn’t technically ban speech.
It’s not hard to think of other rights that involve spending money as part of them. The government couldn’t ban sales of bibles, or paying doctors for abortions, or paying lawyers to represent accused criminals, for example. Sometimes spending money on a right is a right.
It’d go over a lot better if you wouldn’t use the pithy political quotes and actually say “Speech cannot be restricted by limiting the amount of money spent on it.” Because, as I read what you are saying, I don’t see why you need to say any type of money actually equals speech. The money funds speech, but it’s not speech in and of itself.
And I still don’t think it’s the right decision, because more money does not equal more speech.
Wow, that came out wrong. I mean that more money is not equivalent to more speech: everyone can make more speech, but not everyone can make more money