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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: More US Campaign Finance Limits Struck Down
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Thanks to today's Supreme Court decision, individual donors to US federal election campaigns can donate an unlimited amount of money in aggregate to all federal campaigns, although they are still limited in how much money they can donate to an individual campaign (I guess you could argue the total amount they can donate is the limit for one campaign times the total number of candidates - but what limit is there to the number of candidates?).
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-contributions.html?hp&_r=0
Corporations and unions are still banned from direct contributions to federal election campaigns, but thanks to the earlier Citizens United case can make unlimited contributions to non-campaign entities called SuperPACs. Individuals' contributions to SuperPACs. I believe, are still limited (this is because the court struck down banning all corporate/union contributions to SuperPACs and Congress being gridlocked did nothing to replace that law with limits on corporate contributions.
In the last presidential election, the biggest spenders on campaign advertising were not actual campaigns, political parties, Political Action Committees, or SuperPACs, but were "social welfare groups" that are allowed to air "issue ads" that are not supposed to be overtly political but in reality are overtly political. This is because donations to campaigns and SuperPACs can be revealed to the public, but donations to social welfare groups are strictly confidential. The Republican party used to support making all campaign-related donations public, including to social welfare groups, if campaign finance limits could be repealed. But now that the Supreme Court has struck down many of those limits, the Republican Party believes that the confidentiality of those donations that are secret is sacred and essential to a functioning democracy where supporters of controversial causes are not persecuted (some liberal groups like the ACLU and pro-choice groups also support confidentiality for this reason).
Even if there were some set of campaign finance rules that would make elections less purchase-able that would satisfy this Supreme Court, Republicans would prevent them from passing Congress - plus some Democrats would be reluctant to lose their sources of donations. I'm pretty pessimistic right now, since I'm disgusted with the influence that wealthy, corporate, interest group and union donors have on elections.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I'm pretty discouraged as well. However I'm not sure that the pig hasn't already left the barn so to speak. This changes some of the flow of cash from independent dummy organizations funded by wealthy donors to the two incumbent parties instead of more extreme groups. The corruption was there already.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Just one more step on our inexorable slide to plutocracy. Some Republicans are already calling for limiting the vote to real-estate owners or people making a certain amount per year. I am having a hard time seeing what would prevent them from doing so. Certainly not the Roberts court.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
It is not the donations to the presidential or even congressional campaigns that concern me as much as the donations to state legislative districts. It is the state legislators that draw up the congressional districts, making more and more of them Republican and making it almost impossible for any other party to win them.
It takes millions of dollars to influence a presidential candidate. People like the Koch brothers, though, have learned they can get more bang for their buck at at the state level legislative districts.
It looks like it will take another generation before we will see any campaign reforem
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
It is not the donations to the presidential or even congressional campaigns that concern me as much as the donations to state legislative districts. It is the state legislators that draw up the congressional districts, making more and more of them Republican and making it almost impossible for any other party to win them.
Gerrymandering is not, of course, an exclusively Republican pastime. It's just that, in and following 2010, Republicans did it more effectively.
Both sides are weasels, but the Republicans are better weasels.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
The Federal budget itself is campaign finance.
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
The Federal budget itself is campaign finance.
Are you talking about public funding for presidential campaigns? Since both candidates have tended to refuse it recently since they can raise so much more without it, I don't really think it means much.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
The discussion in the media about this seems to predict that the main winners from this will be the organizers of joint fundraising efforts - who are usually legislative leaders like Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Reid, and Minority Leaders Pelosi and McConnell. Since they will be able to raise huge amounts of money for their joint campaigns, they will be able to influence other candidates from their party by their ability to give or withhold contributions to them. So if Boehner and McConnell are more powerful, the Tea Party might be less so. The Republican party might be more like it was under the G. W. Bush years (not that that was a great time for them) and less like the psychosis that we have seen since the Tea Party insurgency started in 2009. A lot of Tea Party politicians are as extreme as they are because they rely on money from outside the Republican establishment. If the establishment becomes more powerful in terms of controlling the doling out of campaign funds, then these congress members can afford to take more "establishment" positions.
The rise in power of the leaders of these joint fundraising efforts does not seem to raise the influence of the National Party committees, though - so the personality, connections, etc., of the legislators who head these efforts, like Boehner, will have more influence rather than the Party itself - at least that is the chatter I have heard. Who knows if it will turn out to be true!
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
The Federal budget itself is campaign finance.
Are you talking about public funding for presidential campaigns? Since both candidates have tended to refuse it recently since they can raise so much more without it, I don't really think it means much.
No, I'm talking about the federal budget.
I'm a decent man with strong moral fiber. That's why the candidates I vote for tend to be prostitutes. However, I get the impression that a lot of folks here on the ship vote for whores.
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Some Republicans are already calling for limiting the vote to real-estate owners or people making a certain amount per year. I am having a hard time seeing what would prevent them from doing so. Certainly not the Roberts court.
I presume you are referring to voter ID laws here? ( Just want to make sure I didn't miss something else.)
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Some Republicans are already calling for limiting the vote to real-estate owners or people making a certain amount per year. I am having a hard time seeing what would prevent them from doing so. Certainly not the Roberts court.
I presume you are referring to voter ID laws here? ( Just want to make sure I didn't miss something else.)
No, the voices I heard wanted to go far beyond that. I don't think any of the majors have come out for this yet. But I don't see what could stop them if they did. States are doing things now to restrict people's rights that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Some Republicans are already calling for limiting the vote to real-estate owners or people making a certain amount per year. I am having a hard time seeing what would prevent them from doing so. Certainly not the Roberts court.
I presume you are referring to voter ID laws here? ( Just want to make sure I didn't miss something else.)
No, the voices I heard wanted to go far beyond that. I don't think any of the majors have come out for this yet. But I don't see what could stop them if they did. States are doing things now to restrict people's rights that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Some Republicans are already calling for limiting the vote to real-estate owners or people making a certain amount per year. I am having a hard time seeing what would prevent them from doing so. Certainly not the Roberts court.
I presume you are referring to voter ID laws here? ( Just want to make sure I didn't miss something else.)
No, the voices I heard wanted to go far beyond that. I don't think any of the majors have come out for this yet. But I don't see what could stop them if they did. States are doing things now to restrict people's rights that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.
There is a strain of Tea Party activism that is so enamored of the way things were when the U.S. Constitution first took effect that they think that everything the founding fathers (with the exception of Thomas Paine and a few others) supported (or did not oppose), such as restricting the franchise to property owners, should be brought back because everything was so perfect back then. Of course they don't publicly support bringing slavery back or taking the vote away from women and non-whites, but this is just how silly the whole thing has gotten.
There are other radical libertarians who support letting people literally "bribe" other people to vote for whom they want because the free market is beautiful and wonderful and government should stay out of the free market.
These are really fringe ideas but the shifting of the whole center of this country to the right has made them a bit closer to the center than they were before. Also, the internet gives fringe activists and intellectuals (anarcho-capitalists, objectivists, etc.) more voice than before. Left-wing activists also have their fringe elements, but to be heard in the current climate they tend to have to hide their radical ideas in more moderate "99% vs 1%" talk.
Anyway, I'm more interested in discussing the influence of money on politics in the current system (and not even let myself have nightmares about things getting worse). The majority of Americans support the kinds of campaign finance limits that the Supreme Court keeps saying are unconstitutional. I think the only way that the Republican party will stop standing in the way of campaign finance reform is if they see that moderate republicans can consistently be elected by a majority of the electorate. That way, election-buying, vote-suppressing, etc., will stop seeming to them as the only way to win elections in a climate where demographics are shifting against them. As a Democrat voter (most of the time), I don't want Republicans to win in general. But as long as they feel like they are making the last stand on a sinking ship they will use every tool the minority has at its disposal (and in the US that means that they can grind government to a halt whenever they want). They also have a majority on the Supreme Court, at least when it comes to economic issues.
We really need to have term limits or mandatory retirement ages for the Supreme Court. It's just wrong for liberals to hope that Scalia will die or get sick enough to retire in Obama's presidency, just like it was wrong for conservatives to hope the the same would happen to Ginsburg during the Bush years.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I think the only way that the Republican party will stop standing in the way of campaign finance reform is if they see that moderate republicans can consistently be elected by a majority of the electorate.
That would require three things.
1. Existence of moderate Republicans. They are dying off faster than most critically endangered species. Considering that the entire spectrum has lurched so far to the right that today's Democrats are aligned with or to the right of Eisenhower, the very idea of a moderate Republican (or as the GOP calls them, RINOs), is becoming absurd.
2. Willingness of the RNC to allow moderate Republicans to win primaries.
3. The moderate Republicans having something to offer the majority of the electorate that the majority of the electorate are willing to vote for. The GOP, by its recent severe gerrymandering, has pretty much admitted this isn't likely to be the case in the next 10 years.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
Yeah, it took very little googling to find a guy. What worries me is that the kind of person who allows politics to become an all-consuming passion is the kind of person who drives the debate, and is also the kind of person who is willing to espouse the out-there view. What's a relative moderate with friends on both sides and interests outside of politics supposed to do?
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
One of the best features of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is right in Article 1:
quote:
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
In contrast, the USA Bill of Rights (plus 5 justices) allows any right to be exercised to its utmost degree, regardless of the harm it may do to a free and democratic society, the 2nd Amendment being the deadliest example. Even though it is an obvious no-brainer that campaign money must be limited and regulated, the Bill of Rights and 5 Justices say otherwise. And since it is practically impossible to amend the USA constitution, that's that.
Of course, there's also no explicit right to a vote in the USA constitution. Some Republicans are even floating the notion that only property owners should be able to vote, or that corporations should also be able to vote. The agenda is pretty clear: government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Of course, there's also no explicit right to a vote in the USA constitution. Some Republicans are even floating the notion that only property owners should be able to vote
I suspect that one would get thrown out on the grounds that it disproportionately disenfranchises black people, and so, like all the various attempts at literacy tests and the like, will run afoul of the 15th amendment.
In fact, I'd say that the 26th amendment makes it practically impossible to introduce any kind of property qualification, even in a hypothetical post-racial USA.
(Of course, in practice, the constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
The (very limited) bright side is that contributions to parties and candidates are not anonymous, so this may at least mean that more of the money will be traceable to its source (unlike that going to phony social welfare groups). At least, until the next SCOTUS decision that anonymity is a form of free speech...
The bottom line is that democracy is incompatible with conservatism, because the fundamental principle of conservatism is simple: The rich are different from you and me--they're better, smarter, and more deserving of everything they have, and there should be no impediment to them using their wealth, status, and power to gain more wealth, status, and power. If you don't like the feel of that boot on your neck, just get rich and pay someone to remove it. That's what the Roberts court is all about.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
(Of course, in practice, the constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means.)
That's just it. I wouldn't put it past those five fascists to take the vote away from non-home-owners.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
1. Existence of moderate Republicans. They are dying off faster than most critically endangered species.
Your keyboard to God's ears!
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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