On September 23, the U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee will hold a vote on HR 1826, the bill to provide for public funding for candidates for Congress. See here.
On September 23, the U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee will hold a vote on HR 1826, the bill to provide for public funding for candidates for Congress. See here.
Even more money, eh? Isn’t it enough that they can dip their hands into the pockets of American corporations and pull out unlimited gobs of money to bankroll their campaigns?
Oh wait…as Richard tells us, a dispassionate and well-reasoned analysis of the issue tells us that’s “free speech” at work.
Corporations can’t legally donate to candidates for federal office.
2 –
You’re a Senator’s campaign manager. You have two pockets in your pants. You decide to use the money that is in the left pocket to pay ONLY for political advertising – radio, TV ads, etc. You decide to use the right pocket ONLY for all other campaign expenses. You split legal donations your campaign receives between the two pockets. And you NEVER, EVER, EVER…allow corporations to put money into either pocket. That would be illegal, after all.
After a few months you discover the right pocket is just about empty, but…sunofagum…the left pocket is just brimming with cash. After a bit of investigation you determine that you have all the money in the left pocket because some friendly corporations are making the media buys you need, and you haven’t had to spend a dime on an advert.
So – what are you going to do? Are you going to spend that left pocket money on right pocket expenses? Or are you just going to throw away the money?
And Richard – are you really this naive?
Richard,
Where does it say anything about “public funding” in this article? Do you have a link to the text of the proposed bill?
In order to be constitutional, any public funding would have to be by voluntary check-off on the IRS form. Otherwise, it would be coercion forcing people to fund candidates of whose ideology they may oppose.
“The legislation is being supported by a six-figure TV ad campaign that features testimony from Tea Party activists interviewed at last month’s Glenn Beck rally and progressives interviewed across the country.”
WHO IS PAYING THE SIX-FIGURES? Taxpayers?!? Soros?
Just remember that these are the same progressives who brought us the Australian ballot, 16th and 17th Amendments.
OLD SAYING: “Be careful what you wish for.”
RE: 1st paragraph of #4 above – I found the text of this bill, HR 1826. Here it is, but I haven’t read through it yet: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1826:
The rightmost colon IS a necessary part of the above URL.
Upon further investigation of this bill, I have found that the sponsor and 161 of the 164 co-sponsors are all democrats. Notable among these is Eleanor Holmes Norton (non-voting member from DC) who last week begged a lobbyist for a contribution. Also on the Dem list is Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel of recent ethics investigations.
The three Republicans are Mike Castle (defeated by Tea Party candidate in DE), Walter Jones (NC), and Todd Platts (PA).
Thus, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck reference in the article makes no sense other than the fact that it is well known that some Tea Parties (re: Michigan) are organized by Democrat operatives.
Jeff: Under that theory, every state public funding measure would be unconstitutional. None of them has yet been found unconstitutional on those grounds, and those grounds have been raised.
Considering the amount of money that can be saved by eliminating kickbacks to contributors, public funding can end up saving taxpayers money in an indirect way. It also promotes the public interest in having elections free from corruption. Seems like an excellent use of tax money to me.
Read the following section of this bill and ask yourself if this will actually help any minor party candidates:
SEC. 512. QUALIFYING CONTRIBUTION REQUIREMENT.
`(a) In General- A candidate for the office of Representative in, or Delegate or Resident Commissioner to, the Congress meets the requirement of this section if, during the Fair Elections qualifying period, the candidate obtains–
`(1) a number of qualifying contributions equal to or greater than 1,500; and
`(2) a total dollar amount of qualifying contributions equal to or greater than $50,000.
THIS IS JUST ANOTHER INCUMBENCY PROTECTION BILL !!
THE BIG PICTURE: Democrats are losing their base and thus their funding, so 162 of them plus three RINOs sponsored this legislation to ensure them campaign funds from the public trough. Minor party candidates will have difficulty finding 1500 contributors to donate over $50,000 (average $33.33 donation), so candidates who might siphon off their votes will be effectively silenced.
Public funiding should be in the hands of the US citizens! Let them decide who they want to fund, whether its candidates and/or parties!
Baron Scarpia, the US Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law abridging Freedom of Speech.” How can a law that tells a corporation (whether it is a non-profit-making corporation like the ACLU, or a profit-making corporation like the New York Times) that it can’t speak possibly be squared with the First Amendment? None of your comments ever discuss the wording of the free speech provision of the U.S. Constitution.
#9:
I’ve been raising some of the same issues with this bill for a while now.
#12:
Well, there is the viewpoint that corporations — created to have limited liability, limited responsibility for their actions — also have limited rights compared to natural persons . . . and some (or all) partisan or otherwise preferential political speech is outside those limits.
Then, too, even if money must be regarded as speech, it is still at least theoretically possible to regulate the time, place, and manner of speech so that the “volume” from some speakers doesn’t drown out other voices.
12 – First things first – at least acknowledge that basic math still works, even in this country. If corporations can relieve a campaign for federal office of the necessity of paying for adverts – a major component of the campaign’s expenditures – they are in effect contributing to the campaign. That is the primary effect of United v. FEC.
It’s simple math which you choose to ignore.
Why?
12 – Next things next.
OK, Congress shall make no laws abridging Freedom of Speech. This is evidently an absolute in your view. So how far shall we take this? Shall we allow foreign governments to bankroll campaigns? Shall we take all the caps off of individual contributions to campaigns? Can a Bill Gates disgorge his bank accounts to get a president elected?
If a candidate has a winning message and gets into debates, he or she doesn’t need to outspend all opponents to win. Jesse Ventura only had one-tenth as much money as either of his major party opponents in the 1998 gubernatorial race, but he still won. Most multi-millionaires who spend lavishly on their own campaigns lose. Meg Whitman in California is actually hurting herself, because the thing most voters know about her is that she has spent $115,000,000 on her own campaign so far.
People always think they have a good reason to override free speech, from putting Eugene Debs in prison during World War I because he spoke against U.S. involvement in the War, to putting Communist Party leaders in prison for long terms because they taught that the violent overthrow of the U.S. government would be good, to laws banning certain books because they were obscene, to the U.S. government’s admission in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v FEC that the government had the right to stop a corporation from printing and distributing a book.
When for-profit corporations spend money telling voters to vote for or against a candidate, they are forbidden from coordinating their message with the candidate. So this talk about “bankrolling campaigns” is misleading. Corporations can’t bankroll a candidate’s campaign. They can merely run their own campaign. And people will notice which corporations are speaking in favor or, or against, certain politicians, and they can factor that into their decision on whom to vote. People who are upset by the Citizens United decision seem to have little faith in their fellow human beings to figure things out on their own.
12 –
And why do you always throw the ACLU, the NYT and labor unions at me in your arguments? Do you presume that the only people who think that the Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific was the worst decision in the history of the USSC are “Lllllllllllllliberals?” Is it not possible that I might be an originalist who thinks that the FF’s never for a second imagined giving corporations the same freedom of speech that individuals should be given? And isn’t is just possible that I might think that unions should be barred from contributing to campaigns too?
And please, stop equating the right of the NYT to exercise the right of a free press with the “right” of a Microsoft Corp. to buy commercials to support political candidates. It’s an entirely specious argument.
16 –
Since you can’t figure out the practical effect of the Citizens United, which is all too obvious, I have prima facie evidence that their fellow human beings “can’t figure things out on their own.”
I have to say, you really surprise me. You create a blog to advance the causes of free and equal ballot access, minority parties, and you happily endorse actions which cede more and more power to entities which every interest in assuring that minority parties remain on the fringes of political power. Free and equal individual ballot access means nothing in a political environment controlled by faceless non-person “persons.”
It’s really sad, and I mean this, Richard…it’s really sad…that you buy, eagerly apparently, into the flagrant purchase of American politics by the rich and powerful. The most flattering conclusion I can draw from this is that you’re an unwitting dupe.
Before the Citizens United opinion, it was already legal for corporations to make comments about candidates for state office in 25 states, including California. If it is such a calamity to allow corporations to speak about candidates for state office, why didn’t anyone in those 25 states ever bother to pass a law against it?
What state are you in, Baron? Are you any relation to Prince Baron from Flash Gordon?
19 –
You’re such a tool. You really are. You think that reluctance of ELECTED officials to pass laws to constrain the ability of moneyed corporations to indirectly subsidize campaigns is evidence that there’s nothing about that which is threatens the democratic process?
But please humor me and answer at least ONE of my questions. Do you think the Congress-imposed limit on direct contributions to individual campaigns is constitutional? Isn’t that a constraint on “free speech?” Are you content with constraints on free speech only when the “speaker” walks around on two human legs?
23 states have the initiative, including California.
I will answer your other question if you answer mine, what state do you live in? I want to see if it is one of the states in which there has never been a law restricting the ability of corporations to make comments about candidates for state office.
1. One of the major principles of the LAW –
Can do Direct = Can do Indirect
Can NOT do Direct = Can NOT do Indirect
— totally screwed up by the party hack SCOTUS MORONS for decades in the various campaign finance JUNK cases.
2. Corporations are FICTIONS — TOTALLY dependent on the laws permitting them to exist.
See Blackstone’s Commentaries (late 1760s) regarding corporations (private and public) — NOT brought up by ANY of the SCOTUS morons in the CU case — due to the lazy MORON lawyers and super-worse amicus profs in the CU case.
The U.S.A. is almost totally brain dead due to the armies of New Age MORONS in governments and the universities.
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/
Book I – Rights of Persons
Chap. 18 – Of Corporations
B.C. was THE major legal work up to the 1850s — about 80 (?) updated U.K. and U.S.A. editions.
Obviously used to write the Bills of Rights in the early States — and the U.S.A. Bill of Rights – Amdts 1 to 8.
Unlike the New Age SCOTUS morons, the 1776-1791 folks had some brains — NO TV, NO radio, NO internet, and other distractions.
21 –
No…no you won’t answer my questions. That’s clear. And it’s to be expected, because the answers wouldn’t square with your position on the purchase of American elections by corporations.
But just for the record, my personal opinions have no relationship to the state in which I reside, and your query on that matter is just more obfuscation from you, Richard, my little tool.