Campaign Finance Rules ChangedFollow

Conservatives have fought for decades for campaign finance reform which would prevent this. Liberals have worked hard to build a system in which the institutions and organizations that benefit most from their agenda are less restricted than those that benefit from the conservative agenda. Hey. You're talking to the guy who once proposed that we eliminate all campaign donations entirely, providing all qualifying candidates a set amount of money to campaign with.

The problem is with the soft money stuff. You can't limit free speech, and it's become increasingly hard to tell where an individuals free speech ends and a larger entity begins. If I and a million other people all pool our money together for the purposes of expressing our opinion, does that cease to be free speech? Where do you draw that line?




Here's the problem though. If I put money into a business which makes a product and has a direct vested interest in economic policies, that business cannot involve itself directly in politics. However, if you put your money into a group like moveon.org, which produces *nothing* at all, and which exists purely for the purpose of political speech, that money can be used in cases where mine cannot.


While that may seem reasonable at first glance, what we're really doing is penalizing people for putting their money into things which are productive, while rewarding them for putting their money into things which produce nothing but political influence. If we agree that said influence can lead to corruption, which is worse? I'd much rather have an organization with a monetary stake in the game using some of that money to influence things so that it does not get screwed over, than an organization with no stake at all doing so.


If we were to go the other way, I'd go with some sort of rule that no organization of any type which receives money in any form from the government at any level may engaged in political speech. And many conservatives have tried to get this sort of rule imposed. But of course, that prevents a whole slew of liberal non-profit groups and unions, which rely on government grants and or direct government paychecks from being able to involves themselves in politics, so it's always been blocked. In the absence of one, we kinda have to go the other direction.


What we're really talking about here is soft money influence. And IMO it's very very hard to try to limit that without limiting free speech as well.

Pretty much. I think the only solution would be to have a culture of not doing this, but money and interests have worked very hard to make the opposite culture. You can't regulate all the bloggers and other people who have something to say and a place to say it.

Since someone mentioned unions, did they not have more or less the same limits that companies did?

Edited, Jan 21st 2010 4:16pm by Xsarus

From my reading of the article, it sounds as though they broadly did although about half the states allowed exemptions for varying levels of union/corporation spending.

Of course, even the AFL-CIO or SEIU at full capacity is dwarfed by the spending potential of Exxon or Shell Oil.

As far as I know, unions were prohibited from contributing dues money to any candidate. They were allowed to create PACs and raise money to finance them. So could corporations. The playing field has not been leveled, its been drastically tilted in favor of corporations.

But they're corporations. Corporations are all good.

This is funny in many ways.

The study you cited says that almost twice as many people get their news from television rather than the internet, which was my point (and why did the percentages add up to 145%?)

Obviously a major corporation who can pay millions of dollars for prime-time television advertisements will influence and exponentially greater amount of people than a targeted $50 web advertisement or email chain. People are also much more likely to believe something they hear on television rather than something the read on the internet because it has been around longer and they feel it has been "vetted" whereas anyone can "broadcast" anything they want on the internet.

Large corporations will have a much larger influence on elections now due to prime-time television advertisements. That's what this is about.

You're more amusing than upsetting. I think the worst you bring out is us is "exasperating", which is usually what people feel towards young children who throw a fit and bang their head on the floor.

This would be so much simpler if we'd just legalize bribery and then require that all bribes be reported (amount and source) for the public to see as desired.

Don't like the group(s) buying your Congresscritter's vote? Vote for someone else instead.

If memory serves, political contributions are not tracked in this way, which is slightly disturbing.

Nah, much more. There's not an analyst out there who thinks that union/celebrity spending will be even a significant fraction of what the corporations will spend.

Newfound? Corporations have been determined to have the rights of living citizens since 1886.