Campaign Finance and Upcoming Elections
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-24/campaign-finance-and-upcoming-elections
Money from outside political groups has poured in to today’s special election in Upstate New York. One of the biggest donors has been the Republican-backed American Crossroads. In South Carolina, the pro-Democratic group Priorities U.S.A. has begun running ads against Mitt Romney. In the year following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, dozens of groups known as “super PACs” have sprung up. The groups can raise and spend unlimited sums of money. Non-profit groups have also gotten more involved in politics, and they don’t have to disclose donors. Advocates for campaign finance reform say the influence of these outside groups could be dangerous. Fundraisers say they’re perfectly legal. A look at the changing rules of campaign finance.
Guests
Trevor Potter
former chair of the Federal Election Commission, president and general counsel of The Campaign Legal Center, and a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale
Stan Brand
is partner with the Brand Law Group, former counsel to the House of Representatives, and a law professor at Penn State University
Dan Eggen
reporter, Washington Post
Comments
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All motivated voters for a cause are worried the other side has some kind of unfair advantage and seek to stifle contributions or speech in someway for the agenda they do not agree with. The thinking goes those other stupid voters will be swayed by the enemy and they are not as enlightened as I am to make the right choice and see through the deceptive propaganda of the opposition. This assumes your political goals are superior and you feel justified to use government force to give you the edge in elections. While I will agree most voters need to better educate themselves on the issues it is to everyone's advantage that everyone have a voice in the elections of our officials even corporations. Giving the people the burden of a responsible vote is our only hope for long term prosperity of our country. If the voter is too lazy or stupid to educate themselves then there is no law or restriction that can save us from the inevitable downfall.
It appears that someone is close to being the product of self education, or the product of a puppeteer using hidden money from sales of products and services to pull the strings of unconscious voters. AH FREEDOM!
An election is both a diversion from the actual workings of economic power and a minor way of dividing the spoils and influence. Viable candidates in U.S. elections come from a tiny pool of persons approved by the wielders of power. Both major political parties are funded by the same business interests, increasingly financial interests. The run-up to the procedural, but not substantive, event is characterized by the dispensing of selected information by media (also owned or controlled by oligarchial business interests) and resembles fan behavior preceding a heavily promoted sports event. Message overkill alienates and insults the intelligence of most people so that they are made more cynical and alienated. Most policy results following installation of new office holders are a done deal with campaign promises being essentially carefully crafted lies and teasings. Social and economic mobility in the United States is a myth, and is used mostly as a sales tool for education and accoutrements. How could this not be so when so few (400 families) own more than half of everything there is to own and every resource is mobilized to enhance their obscene income stream. There is a panicked and co-opted minority serving this doomed and corrupt system, and they are the bosses, the media hacks, and the educators. By using our ruthless military power and coercion we attempt to impose this "way of life" on the entire world, assuring a cascade failure of civilization in the moderately near future. Campaign finance reform, more higher education and economic and environmental regulation are myths that pay lip service to a hopeless cause. Global corporate capitalism assures democracy cannot function and that people are kept intimidated and misinformed. The recent combination of big business with government, and the gradual erosion of government service and accountability to the populace is the ultimate fascism.
Before the "message" of 9/11 and the Meltdown sank in people of good will used to repeat incessantly: "The measure of a society is how well it cares for its most vulnerable citizens." With the current austerity mania the adage has been inverted to: "The efficiency of a society is measured by how readily it disposes of its useless eaters." Voters are now slimed with the message of threatening deficit and debt, even though the same few wealthy people are the creditors of the USA, Greece, Italy, England and many other nations. When you become conscious you realize this couldn't occur except in a rigged system, and that taxes now amount to a tribute to the rich. Bill Moyers was on TOTN with Neil yesterday thumping his new book. I rank Bill right up there with Tommy Smothers who also had a great show canceled at its height of popularity. I opened BMJ and reviewed the blogs. One philosopher there said in 2008:"It is difficult or impossible to become or remain extremely wealthy (and mentor Moyers added "or extremely poor") in a fair and just society." Our elections have carried us farther from justice and fairness for the longest while, and I cannot see them ever carrying us back until (as Grady has said) there are caps on income and wealth. All lesser reforms are a sham.
Any person or entity that does not have a right to vote in an election has no right to spend money on that election.
Bort: An exceptional understatement! If the Internet is "free media" then why should one penny be spent for political campaigning? (It's not "free media", is it?)
The Republican Party is the party of the rich minority. They naturally want to shift our system from "one person, one vote" to "one dollar, one vote". It's their only way to political power.
C'mon Bort! Democrats don't get their power from the children's television workshop. They do what the system will allow for their personal advancement. Next segment: Goldman Sachs. Why not ask the "expert guy" where Barack gets his money. Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama: Is that a choice?
Please ask your guests to remind us when corporations gained citizen status in the US. This seems to me to be the biggest problem with our country. While citizens are expected to pledge allegiance, corporations have no such requirement. They happily ship jobs overseas, accummulate wealth for real people, and argue against the interests of individuals for profit. How did this get started? Most people seem quite willing to throw our government under the bus, but few are even aware of how much we as real citizens have abdicated our power to corporations who more and more control our lives.
We didn't abdicate dremillard. They ripped the baby from our arms and now are threatening to stomp it on the sidewalk. And the cops sit in the doughnut shop.
One of your guests stated that studies show that more money does not necessarily result in winning elections. This misses the point, which is this: when more money does result in a win, those elected are beholden to the big donors.
Even if big money is only batting .250, a quarter of our legislators are in someone's pocket!
By the people, for the people, has been changed to for the economy.
Recent Campaign laws have been passed showing government has put the economy before the people; we have been led to believe that a good profit benefits the people. Corporate profit does not benefit me. My grandchildren inherit debt and corporate grandchildren inherit what.
This election season is going to be a joke.
John Bull
The sophistry on this topic is stunning! Any person giving more than a few hundred dollars to any candidate KNOWS that money DOES buy elections!
Where is the SHAME? Where is the SHAME among the politicians who ASK for this money? The SHAME among the CEOs, Boards, and billionaires who GIVE this money? The SHAME among the organizations who ACCEPT this money?
Everyone involved in requesting, donating, or accepting more than a few hundred dollars for any political candidate or election cause deserves to be publicly outed as a DEMON feasting on the living flesh of the body politic.
A pox on all your houses. No wonder America is a disaster.
Unfortunately the representatives who are elected in the states are not representative of the people. Most are rich and know very little of what it's like to struggle to make ends meet. We here in Canada have 10% of the pop. of the states yet we have 5 political parties without the corruption. I feel bad for the fine American people because most deserve much better.
If the People rise up the first thing We must do is demand the disbanding of the Supreme Court which is the most backward institution in government. Once those toadies are gone any legislature can represent the People by capping wealth and income and then reforming election law. I don't see democrat appointees as being much better than republican ones. All corporate charters must be made temporary and conditional.
It makes me sick to see the millions of dollars raised just to elect politicians and when they get into office they preach to the people about how high our deficit is and how much we borrow from other countries. Also, shame on these corporations for donating these large sums of money but when it comes to employing the average American they don't have the money or they take their business overseas.
You should only be able to give money to a campaign if you are eligible to vote.
At a public hearing a citizen has a time limit on the time they are allotted to speak. This is not an infringement on free speech. Contributions should limited in the same way.
Fort Worth, TX
The voter is the problem! Bush got elected by the group who thought he would be good to have a beer with. Obama was elected by the group that thought it was a great accomplishment to have the first black president, and of course the group that votes by skin color cannot be dismissed. The superficial nature of the candidates is just what the typical voter is looking for at the national level.
Corporations and secret organizations can outspend me, a regular citizen, in every election I may vote in.
Is there any mechanism for an individual citizen to challenge this ruling?
Thanks.
When monte blames victims (who had no choices and no money to contribute) he sides with the Oligarchy. "Might makes right, especially in the dark of night. " I would turn down a beer with any office holder I can think of. In monte's case it may be the beer and not the candidate influencing his choices. Maybe as long as beer is in the fridge the political system is thought to be working. Economic power reaches far beyond politics, per se, and fashions the perceptions of children in kindergarden, right on up. This economic system tends to reduce life to whoredom as much and as fast as it can.
There is a difference between public life and private life. We have completely blurred the lines between these worlds in American society. I understand why who I vote for is considered a private matter. Everyone has a right to vote their conscious without coercion, and my one vote doesn't count anymore than anyone else's one vote. The playing field is level. I think it should be illegal for states to insist that people choose a political party when registering to vote. When, however, you want to contribute to PUBLIC campaigns or organizations that seek to effect PUBLIC policy, you are acting in the PUBLIC realm. In this case, you are seeking to INCREASE your influence beyond the power of your one vote. The playing field is no longer level. It makes no sense to me that people who make these contributions expect privacy in these circumstances. If I am having a conversation on a public street, I don't expect that conversation to be considered private. Why are political contributions any different? People who want to maintain their privacy, should stay out of public life.
At the risk of seeming naive, I have always been proud of the fact that anyone can participate in the governing of this nation from loval govt. to the White House. NO MORE. It's no wonder that the turnout for elections is so poor.
My solution is fiarly simple: Only those affected by an election should donate to the race. If you cannot vote in the election, you can't donate. This would keep local elections local and would guarantee that candiates would realize that they represent their constituents and not an organition or group of persons who will not have to live with the decisions made in office.
Probably naive and down right illegal, but it's the principle I use when making personal donations.
I agree completely. If you don't live here don't buy a candidate here.
The liberal philosophy that everyone is a victim of some sort of the rich just gets us nowhere. Last time I checked individual votes made by the free choice of the people put candidates into office. I for one only feel victimized by our government that with the blessing of the people have taken many of our freedoms in the name of the greater good. Wealth redistribution for the most part takes from the middle class. Money is freedom and the notion you can subsidize irresponsible behavior and eliminate it by wealth redistribution is just plain wrong, you will only get more irresponsible behavior. The masses need to get their heads out of the boob tube and all the other unnecessary gadgets people feel they cannot live without and get real. Pancake, the more I read your stuff the more I understand your a communist, Joseph Stalin style.
I find it very hard to believe that anyone would have not realized things were running amuck. My Mom asked me about an investment her advisor suggested in GMAC. I told her, "No, Mom! They gave me a loan for a car and I have no credit whatsoever. That can't possibly be a very well run financial institution." She didn't invest that day, but she was caught by her investor again later by phone and she gave in. She invested $30,000.00 and lost ever bit of it.
In our data-saturated age contributing to political candidates is a significant and undeniable risk to personal privacy. Your name, contribution amount and the candidate or cause you support is a PUBLIC RECORD available for the media, data aggregators and government agencies to gather, correlate and data-mine.
This permits these entities to make very strong inferences about your political and social views and your income level as well. Do you think Homeland Security does not review the political contribution records of airline passengers for the "no-fly list"? Guess again!
This is a particular risk for those with a unique name, like mine. Jim and Mary Smith don't need to worry as much ;=0 As a supporter of non-mainstream candidates, I long ago decided that contributing using my real name was just too risky--so I don't.
All polls show large majorities of Republicans as well as Democrats are opposed to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowing unlimited campaign donations. Since most agree that money is the big problem in politics it's telling that 7 of 8 states with publicly-funded elections got them by ballot initiative, not by legislative action. See "clean elections" on Wikipedia. If you go to original sources or the National Conference of State Legislature's database at http://ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/elect/dbintro.htm instead of the media, you'll see that most reforms, from women's suffrage to sunshine laws to medical marijuana, started as ballot initiatives. http://Vote.org/initiatives will give you a good place to start.
Problematic ballot initiatives are easily exposed with Oregon's new Citizen Initiative Review. See http://HealthyDemocracyOregon.org.
Famed former Senator Mike Gravel has the best project for better and NATIONAL ballot initiatives. See http://Vote.org. Let's try more actual government BY the people instead of rendering unto Caesar what's left of our planet and our children's future! As four-term Ny Governor Al Smith said, "All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy."
Ignoring for the moment whether corporations really should be allowed to anonymously inject enormous sums of money into politics. How do corporations decide where to put there money? Who makes this decision?
If a corporation is the people who work at the company and much of the money may be donated to causes counter to their interests why don't they have a voice as to where it should go?
Conversely, if a corporation is the shareholders why don't they have more of a voice as to where the money should be donated?
It is all about the money, and most people know it. Do away with corporate personhood and the ridiculous idea that money equals free speech. Everybody looks at the supreme court like that's our only hope. Congress, change the law!
A guy named McCarthy tried that in the 50s, monte. He had a brain tumor that killed him (after Ed Murrow whipped his butt).
Are you now having or have you ever had a brain scan?
I'm kind of like Ed Murrow except I don't smoke, lick up to celebrities or work for big media. How could a seminary trained, farm-owning, trust-funded, Prius-driving, community-volunteering lesbian like me be Stalinist? Did you want me to purge you? If I had a party affiliation I would be a progressive Republican, kind of like glass manufacturing heir Teddy Roosevelt. Like Roosevelt I tailor my solution to the magnitude of the problem. WE need to have caps. WE have a Big Facudie on our hands.