The Edwards Trial and Campaign Finance Laws
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-05-17/edwards-trial-and-campaign-finance-laws
The criminal trial against former presidential candidate and senator, John Edwards, is nearing an end. Today in a Greensboro, North Carolina, courtroom, the prosecution and defense are presenting closing arguments. Edwards has been charged with six felony counts for violated campaign finance rules concerning nearly $1 million dollars from two wealthy supporters, spent to hide his pregnant mistress during the 2008 election. The case is full of melodrama. It is also one of the first to test the uncertainty of campaign finance rules. A panel of legal and campaign experts join guest host Tom Gjelten to discuss what the verdict could mean for money and politics in an election year.
Guests
Ruth Marcus
columnist and editorial writer, The Washington Post.
Jan Baran
head of the election law group at Wiley Rein LLP; former general counsel to the Republican National Committee; author, "The Election Law Primer for Corporations."
Meredith McGehee
policy director at the Campaign Legal Center and principal of McGehee Strategies.
Steven Friedland
professor of law, Elon University School of Law; former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Comments
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How can anyone argue against taking money out of our election system? Except those who want to manipulate our elections to benefit a few?
Can your guest please discuss the many organizations including MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan efforts to add a constitutional amendment to take money out?
Question for the panel: John Edwards is fabulously wealthy in his own right. Why not just take care of the mistress problem on his own? Why involve the donors at all, unless it was related to the campaign?
The U.S. is a very peculiar nation. The Supremes have allowed the political system to be totally corrupted so that their candidates will have the better chance of being elected and yet the justice department is going after this guy. Your whole political system is a corrupt joke and makes the U.S. look like a banana republic.
Wish you'd discussed Halting legalized bribery as one caller called it.
There is a form of law that can halt the underlying problem Campaign Finance laws try, and generally fail, to address.
In California several cities have adopted Civil Bribery laws that prohibit an elected official from voting on a project where campaign contributors would benefit more than the general public.
One town adopted that and a "mirror" version that prohibits a campaign contribution if the elected official voted on a project where campaign contributors benefits more than the general public.
Here is some information about it --
http://1hope.org/cfr.htm
If this were a federal law - Congress would run a lot cleaner (there would be dramatically less reason to be on appropriations committees); would not be voting for such outrageous pork and we'd get more attention to solving genuine problems.
Removed.