Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
First, there was Citizens United. Now, we have the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the McCutcheon case. It does appear that our country’s campaign finance laws may have been “eviscerated”—as noted by Justice Breyer when he wrote that, taken together with Citizens United, McCutcheon “eviscerates our Nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.”
Corporations are people…money is speech. The more money one has to spend…the more “speech” one can afford to buy—especially where political campaigns are concerned.
Dahlia Lithwick (Slate), in writing about Chief Justice John Roberts after the court’s ruling in the McCutcheon case, said that it seemed weird: “The man takes the Metro to work, and yet he handily dismisses what every human American knows to be true: That if dollars are speech, and billions are more speech, then billionaires who spend money don’t do so for the mere joy of making themselves heard, but because it offers them a return on their investment.”
Amy Davidson (The New Yorker) said that Roberts relied on a very narrow measure of corruption in the McCutcheon ruling: “Ingratiation and access … are not corruption.” She added that the argument, in effect, is that political parties themselves cannot be corrupted: “There is a clear, administrable line between money beyond the base limits funneled in an identifiable way to a candidate—for which the candidate feels obligated—and money within the base limits given widely to a candidate’s party—for which the candidate, like all other members of the party, feels grateful.”
Roberts wrote, “Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—‘quid pro quo’ corruption.” Roberts explains what isn’t “quid pro quo” with regard to spending large sums of money on elections:
Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder’s official duties, does not give rise to such quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner “influence over or access to” elected officials or political parties. And because the Government’s interest in preventing the appearance of corruption is equally confined to the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, the Government may not seek to limit the appearance of mere influence or access.
SOURCES
Justice Roberts Hearts Billionaires: The chief either doesn’t believe, or doesn’t care, that money corrupts politics. (Slate)
A Blistering Dissent in ‘McCutcheon’: Conservatives Substituted Opinion for Fact (Moyers & Company)
Justice Roberts Defends the Embattled Rich in McCutcheon (The New Yorker)
The John Roberts Project (The New Yorker)
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/12/1-in-4-dark-money-dollars-in-2012-c.html
Paul, not so. Consider Koch “dark money”. That was back in 2012, with this ruling it will be even worse.
some= someone
AY – Just because some calls someone a thief, does not make them one. Innocent until proven guilty under our Constitution.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/16/bloomberg-to-spend-50-million-to-outmuscle-the-nra/
Yes, those poor benighted rich folks have to level the playing field by buying the government they feel they deserve. One person-one vote was just too much of a threat to them.
When the likes of Corzine and Bloomberg can no longer buy public office society should seriously reconsider campaign finance reform. Until such time those who debate the issue engage in a circle jerk.
Paul,
I am not limited in my ablity to read and comprehend….. A thief is a thief regardless of source….
Annie – Talk to George Soros and Mike Bloomberg, they spend more money individually on politics than the Koch Bros combined. Bloomberg bought the office of mayor on NYC.
History tends to repeat itself. So you want to pay to play?
What could possibly go wrong? Year 2000.
Phil and Wendy Gramm
Summers, Rubin and Greenspan weren’t the only people who thought it was a good idea to let banks gamble in the derivatives casinos. In 2000, Republican Senator from Texas Phil Gramm pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which not only banned federal regulation of these toxic poker chips, it also banned states from enforcing anti-gambling laws against derivatives trading. The bill was lobbied for heavily by energy/finance hybrid Enron, which would later implode under fraudulent derivatives trades. In 2000, when Phil Gramm pushed the bill through, his wife Wendy Gramm was serving on Enron’s board of directors, where she made millions before the company went belly-up.
When Phil Gramm left the Senate, he took a job peddling political influence at Swiss banking giant UBS as vice chairman. Since Gramm’s arrival, UBS has been embroiled in just about every scandal you can think of, from securities fraud to tax fraud to diamond smuggling. Interestingly, both UBS shareholders and their executives have gotten off rather lightly for these acts. The only person jailed thus far has been the tax fraud whistleblower. Looks like Phil’s earning his keep.
The latest on Paul Krugman
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-five/article/2014/04/17/paul-krugman-set-cash
AY – if I cannot use the NT Post as a source, you cannot use the LA Times. It is a social justice issue.
Paul, I see Dems teach their children @ an early age to deface and steal political signs. The Carville School of Gutter Politics. I’m sure you’re proud. You would be SCREAMING and calling CPS if the roles were reversed.
“Remember, unions and moveon.org are corporations, and should therefore be banned from discussion politics or making political contributions.”
Who is calling for a banning of discussion? Taking out the money simply means a different group of people will be interested enough to show up for the debate. Perhaps it will allow government to return to being a boring administrative affair, one which we can give much of to computers.
The people that show up will likely want to, you know, govern. Because that is what is sorely lacking in this era of sickening wealth that causes otherwise nice people to lose all track of the word “enough.”
The finite surface area enclosed by a sphere will assure “enough” is learned, one way or t’other. The 60 million genx/y folks will soon be supporting the 140 million baby boomers. Wealth will be furthest thing from their grasp, and their policies when they soon take the reigns of power, are going to be quite different.
Hence the scurry to take everything in sight before that happens. “By drowning in the bathtub,” as Old Norquist would whine.
Uninformed people, do not know the difference between a Corporation and the people perhaps should read more before opening their mouth.
Guess Paul has nothing to respond to….. I said it before the Koch brothers are thieves in the same line as the father….
At least Dart Corporation did it the old fashioned way….
The solution to this is easy.
What if there was a political party that said:
We will never ask you for a campaign contribution, we only ask that if you agree with our platform you use social media to send our messages to your friends and co-workers with your personal endorsement.
The cynics will say wall to wall ads on TV are better, but every expert on advertising will tell you word of mouth and personal references beat paid advertising hands down.
And if one of the messages that was sent was “political parties that have lots of money are obviously working for people with lots of money – not you” then all these rulings of “Money is Speech” would actually work AGAINST the existing parties. Everyone already knows that big money corrupts, they just don’t currently have another alternative.
Of course our 2-party sham democracy has brilliantly protected itself from new parties with the “spoiler effect” (would make Orwell’s head spin) and Nader really seemed to enjoy reinforcing it in 2000. But again the solution is simple, just make a pledge that you won’t be a spoiler, that if your candidate is not polling within 10% of a win, that you will throw your votes to the best viable candidate.
Democracy works. The solution to corrupt government is not getting rid of government and leaving the oligarchy who corrupted it with ALL the power. But eve though we have amazing technology/productive potential to end global poverty and save the environment, I don’t see much hope for real change, people would rather complain and argue than actually do anything new.
We have yard signs around here which say: Fire Hagan. Kay Hagan is a Democrat and U.S. Senator. The signs are funded by some Koch Bro group. Kids in the neighborhood altered the sign. The word Fire was at the top and Kagan was underneath. On some signs the kids taped over the word Fire with RE-ELECT and on some signs they put a paper taped over the bottom word which says: McCrory. That Mick is the RepubliCon Governor. I urge all kids to get out the vote. If a corporation can be called a person the I can be called a kid.
Krugman looks bulimic of late.
selfhelp, LOL and great point.
“Krugman and Moyers, gee what free thinkers!!” They aren’t- YOU are paying for them.
“If you can’t vote, you can’t contribute. ” I wholeheartedly agree. Contributions from outside the jurisdiction of the vote should also be banned, which ties into this. Groups or people in Maine should not be sending money to influence a vote in California.This alone would significantly cut down on political advertising and weaken the influence of wealthy individuals and groups not subject to the matter of the vote. When it comes to elected offices, there is no good reason for money to come from non-constituents.