Money in politics.

[BigRedBuster]

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/5/5868371/california-calls-for-constitutional-convention-to-limit-money-in

 

What are your thoughts?

 

What unintended consequences are the supporters of this not thinking of?

[Creighton Duke]

I actually think that there are some good ideas from both sides here. As worthless as The Young Turks are, I commend Uygur for drawing attention to the campaign finance issue and rallying to get states on board. The weak nature of campaign finance creates more of an arms race environment than anything else. On the other side, in theory, I don't like the idea of a balanced budget requirement for the federal government as deficit spending/investing can be useful and successful if carried out in a responsible manner. However, I am not confident that the feds will ever be able to handle this in a constructive manner so maybe instituting some kind of limit/requirement may be a good thing.

[BigRedBuster]

Would this amendment outlaw donations from all organizations or just businesses? All I remember being discussed in the article is money from businesses. What about unions, AARP, NAACP, churches....etc?

 

It would be interesting to see the dynamic if only individuals could donate directly from themselves and a limit was put on how much each person could donate.

 

However, both sides have become good at using outside organizations in campaigns which are extremely difficult to put limits on.

[LukeinNE]

Would this amendment outlaw donations from all organizations or just businesses? All I remember being discussed in the article is money from businesses. What about unions, AARP, NAACP, churches....etc?

 

It would be interesting to see the dynamic if only individuals could donate directly from themselves and a limit was put on how much each person could donate.

 

However, both sides have become good at using outside organizations in campaigns which are extremely difficult to put limits on.

 

There's the rub. The language I've seen just talks about "reasonable limits" that Congress can place on campaign money. "Reasonable" means whatever an ideologically driven Congress can ram through at an opportune moment. I hated the out of state flooding of our airwaves this spring as much as anyone, but on something like this, the winners make the rules, which will inevitably help the winners remain the winners.

 

I'm more than willing to look at a proposal to curb election buying by third parties, but I'd need assurances that I wouldn't be assisting in, say, shutting down Republican-friendly Wall Street money (which, by the way, is far more bipartisan than most realize) while leaving unions unchecked.

[carlfense]

 

Would this amendment outlaw donations from all organizations or just businesses? All I remember being discussed in the article is money from businesses. What about unions, AARP, NAACP, churches....etc?

 

It would be interesting to see the dynamic if only individuals could donate directly from themselves and a limit was put on how much each person could donate.

 

However, both sides have become good at using outside organizations in campaigns which are extremely difficult to put limits on.

 

There's the rub. The language I've seen just talks about "reasonable limits" that Congress can place on campaign money. "Reasonable" means whatever an ideologically driven Congress can ram through at an opportune moment. I hated the out of state flooding of our airwaves this spring as much as anyone, but on something like this, the winners make the rules, which will inevitably help the winners remain the winners.

 

I'm more than willing to look at a proposal to curb election buying by third parties, but I'd need assurances that I wouldn't be assisting in, say, shutting down Republican-friendly Wall Street money (which, by the way, is far more bipartisan than most realize) while leaving unions unchecked.

 

We should ignore limits for the morning and focus on mandatory disclosure laws. That used to be an area of agreement . . .

[BigRedBuster]

 

 

Would this amendment outlaw donations from all organizations or just businesses? All I remember being discussed in the article is money from businesses. What about unions, AARP, NAACP, churches....etc?

 

It would be interesting to see the dynamic if only individuals could donate directly from themselves and a limit was put on how much each person could donate.

 

However, both sides have become good at using outside organizations in campaigns which are extremely difficult to put limits on.

 

There's the rub. The language I've seen just talks about "reasonable limits" that Congress can place on campaign money. "Reasonable" means whatever an ideologically driven Congress can ram through at an opportune moment. I hated the out of state flooding of our airwaves this spring as much as anyone, but on something like this, the winners make the rules, which will inevitably help the winners remain the winners.

 

I'm more than willing to look at a proposal to curb election buying by third parties, but I'd need assurances that I wouldn't be assisting in, say, shutting down Republican-friendly Wall Street money (which, by the way, is far more bipartisan than most realize) while leaving unions unchecked.

 

We should ignore limits for the morning and focus on mandatory disclosure laws. That used to be an area of agreement . . .

 

 

I am all for anything that takes the power that money has out of politics as long as it is fair and across the board.

 

What exactly would you propose as far as mandatory disclosure? I know we discussed it briefly a while back but don't remember the specifics.

[LukeinNE]

 

 

Would this amendment outlaw donations from all organizations or just businesses? All I remember being discussed in the article is money from businesses. What about unions, AARP, NAACP, churches....etc?

 

It would be interesting to see the dynamic if only individuals could donate directly from themselves and a limit was put on how much each person could donate.

 

However, both sides have become good at using outside organizations in campaigns which are extremely difficult to put limits on.

 

There's the rub. The language I've seen just talks about "reasonable limits" that Congress can place on campaign money. "Reasonable" means whatever an ideologically driven Congress can ram through at an opportune moment. I hated the out of state flooding of our airwaves this spring as much as anyone, but on something like this, the winners make the rules, which will inevitably help the winners remain the winners.

 

I'm more than willing to look at a proposal to curb election buying by third parties, but I'd need assurances that I wouldn't be assisting in, say, shutting down Republican-friendly Wall Street money (which, by the way, is far more bipartisan than most realize) while leaving unions unchecked.

 

We should ignore limits for the morning and focus on mandatory disclosure laws. That used to be an area of agreement . . .

 

 

I can agree to that provided there's a fairly high ceiling (maybe $5000 or so) under which individuals and businesses don't have to be disclosed. The post-Prop 8 experience soured a lot of conservatives on disclosure laws. While I don't agree with them on the substance of Prop 8, for small, individual donors, I don't think political preferences should be organized into a spreadsheet-form political hit list because of campaign finance laws.

[carlfense]

I can agree to that provided there's a fairly high ceiling (maybe $5000 or so) under which individuals and businesses don't have to be disclosed. The post-Prop 8 experience soured a lot of conservatives on disclosure laws. While I don't agree with them on the substance of Prop 8, for small, individual donors, I don't think political preferences should be organized into a spreadsheet-form political hit list because of campaign finance laws.

I think every single dollar should be accounted for and disclosed. Many/most of the complaints in your Heritage link spring from actions that are illegal anyways.

 

Freedom of speech (or in this case, freedom to influence politics with money, I happen to disagree about whether that constitutes speech) does not mean freedom from criticism. Those donors need to have the courage of their convictions.

[LukeinNE]

 

I can agree to that provided there's a fairly high ceiling (maybe $5000 or so) under which individuals and businesses don't have to be disclosed. The post-Prop 8 experience soured a lot of conservatives on disclosure laws. While I don't agree with them on the substance of Prop 8, for small, individual donors, I don't think political preferences should be organized into a spreadsheet-form political hit list because of campaign finance laws.

I think every single dollar should be accounted for and disclosed. Many/most of the complaints in your Heritage link spring from actions that are illegal anyways.

 

Freedom of speech (or in this case, freedom to influence politics with money, I happen to disagree about whether that constitutes speech) does not mean freedom from criticism. Those donors need to have the courage of their convictions.

 

 

That criminal activity took place is the point. The availability of that financial information made the commission of many of those crimes possible. On those grounds, we restrict all sorts of information(varies by state): the identity of jurors, trade secrets, gun registration, voter registration, and so on. On balance, I think the public's interest in knowing what political cause their neighbor gave $500 to is outweighed by the possibility that citizen John Smith might be motivated to poison his neighbor's dog because his neighbor gave money to the wrong cause.

[carlfense]

The availability of that financial information made the commission of many of those crimes possible.

The crimes weren't possible without that information?

 

On balance, I think the public's interest in knowing what political cause their neighbor gave $500 to is outweighed by the possibility that citizen John Smith might be motivated to poison his neighbor's dog because his neighbor gave money to the wrong cause.

You're moving the goalposts a bit with your figures.

 

That said, the sort of neighbor who would poison a dog wouldn't need to peruse a donor roll to find a reason to commit a crime.

[BigRedBuster]

For the record, I really don't think you could have limits without mandatory reporting of donors.

[LukeinNE]

 

The availability of that financial information made the commission of many of those crimes possible.

The crimes weren't possible without that information?

 

On balance, I think the public's interest in knowing what political cause their neighbor gave $500 to is outweighed by the possibility that citizen John Smith might be motivated to poison his neighbor's dog because his neighbor gave money to the wrong cause.

You're moving the goalposts a bit with your figures.

 

That said, the sort of neighbor who would poison a dog wouldn't need to peruse a donor roll to find a reason to commit a crime.

 

 

Putting aside the hate crimes against churches, and targeting of people with yard signs and the like, how else would Prop 8 supporters know who to target? As for the money goalposts, I'll add the zero and make the same point: I think the public's interest in knowing whether their neighbor was responsible for .001% ($5,000/ the est $40m Prop 8 raised), of a political campaign is outweighed by the possibility of somebody doing something bad to that neighbor in retaliation. I don't disagree about the character of people who do such things, and that again is my point: there are a lot of nasty people out there, and I don't think it's wise to give them an excuse to do something stupid.

[carlfense]

Putting aside the hate crimes against churches, and targeting of people with yard signs and the like, how else would Prop 8 supporters know who to target? As for the money goalposts, I'll add the zero and make the same point: I think the public's interest in knowing whether their neighbor was responsible for .001% ($5,000/ the est $40m Prop 8 raised), of a political campaign is outweighed by the possibility of somebody doing something bad to that neighbor in retaliation. I don't disagree about the character of people who do such things, and that again is my point: there are a lot of nasty people out there, and I don't think it's wise to give them an excuse to do something stupid.

They aren't being given an excuse to do something stupid . . . and in fact it looked like many or most of those actions were criminal acts.

 

This whole thing seems like quite the red herring. Some against disclosure might like the focus to be on a neighbor who gave $500 and was later the victim of a crime but the actual goal of those against disclosure is protecting the big financiers.

 

That neighbor is a seemingly more compelling argument than noting that approximately 1 in 4 dark money dollars in 2012 was linked to Koch groups but it'd take some awfully convincing evidence to change my mind that those who seek to hide campaign funding are more concerned about protecting the average joe and not enormous corporate (or union, if you prefer) donations.

[LukeinNE]

 

That neighbor is a seemingly more compelling argument than noting that approximately 1 in 4 dark money dollars in 2012 was linked to Koch groups but it'd take some awfully convincing evidence to change my mind that those who seek to hide campaign funding are more concerned about protecting the average joe and not enormous corporate (or union, if you prefer) donations.

 

 

If I understand you correctly, this is the same point I made earlier: the bigger concern are the corporate/union political action committees and nonprofit political groups flooding the airwaves with millions in political ad spending. Where we differ is that you want "every single dollar accounted for and disclosed" and I think exemptions should be granted to lower donation levels.

[carlfense]

If I understand you correctly, this is the same point I made earlier: the bigger concern are the corporate/union political action committees and nonprofit political groups flooding the airwaves with millions in political ad spending. Where we differ is that you want "every single dollar accounted for and disclosed" and I think exemptions should be granted to lower donation levels.

I think that's correct.