Mega-Donors and Elections

[Jimmy Higgins]

Let me know when the SCOTUS overturns their law introducing proportional representation.

PR (at a national level at least) would require a Constitutional Amendment...

... which would require the Democrats to write one.

I figure they will if they think it will pass.

The average Congress introduces about a hundred Constitutional Amendments.

That's bullshit! *goes to look it up*

Okay... ummm... not bullshit.

Averages 200 hundred proposed amendments per 2-yr Legislative session?! But that is since our founding, so it might not be quite that high now. In the last 25 years, there have been full House or Senate votes on only 20. Which is still much higher than I would have thought.

Thinking their ideas won't pass evidently doesn't stop Congressthings from writing them.

Personally, I think part of it is inertia, the other part is, they want to test it out first. Yes, the Democrats don't want to open things up for a third party to swoop in, but if anyone is to gain from a preferred choice, the Democrats would because the more votes, the better they usually do.

Regardless, redistricting is our biggest issue. We have a huge election coming up... and maybe about 1 in 10 House seats up for grabs. Nationally, fixing that could (I emphasize the italics that it is only a could) help, because if 150 seats are open, the money would, in theory, need to stay more local.

 

[Bomb#20]

Thinking their ideas won't pass evidently doesn't stop Congressthings from writing them.

Personally, I think part of it is inertia, the other part is, they want to test it out first.

Right. States are supposed to be laboratories of democracy. Some state should try PR internally; if it works out well then more states will copy it, and eventually there will be pressure on Congress to adopt it nationally.

Regardless, redistricting is our biggest issue. We have a huge election coming up... and maybe about 1 in 10 House seats up for grabs.

It's a ludicrous situation. What, are only 1 in 10 voters dissatisfied with their "representatives"? Comes of letting lawmakers choose their voters instead of voters choosing their lawmakers.

Nationally, fixing that could (I emphasize the italics that it is only a could) help, because if 150 seats are open, the money would, in theory, need to stay more local.

Yup. There's no justification for having districts at all in this day and age -- they're an 18th-century solution to an 18th-century communication problem. When my neighbor and I disagree about everything, by artificially requiring us to both have the same so-called "representative" for no better reason than that we're neighbors, districts guarantee that at least one of us will not be actually represented in the legislature at all.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Districting makes plenty of sense today. There is statewide representation in the US Senate. Districting, in states with population, allows money to be directed for local means. A person in Athens, Ohio isn't going to know about large stormwater storage projects in Cleveland, Ohio. Of course, redistricting has made that a bit harder within states like Ohio where districts are intentionally designed to water down Democrat population and representation. Where Toledo and Cleveland had the same person representing them, and these days someone in Elyria is represented by a person who also represents Mercer County which has less people living in it than Elyria... and is also bordering Central Indiana!

 

[Bomb#20]

Districting makes plenty of sense today. There is statewide representation in the US Senate. Districting, in states with population, allows money to be directed for local means. A person in Athens, Ohio isn't going to know about large stormwater storage projects in Cleveland, Ohio.

Seems to me that's a bug, not a feature -- on the whole it would be better if large stormwater projects in Cleveland were paid for by Cleveland rather than making Athens pay for them. If voters could elect representatives based on common concerns rather than on geography, then, say, union members could elect a legislator to fight for union rights throughout Ohio. But instead, you have a legislator who's supposed to serve all the people in Athens whether they're pro- or anti- union, who knows anything he does for unions will annoy his anti-union constituents and vice-versa. The only thing he can do that will well serve all his constituents regardless of their views is stop one of those Cleveland stormwater projects and get Columbus instead to spend the state tax revenue in Athens. So the system of geographical districts creates a massive incentive for the entire legislature to put most of its efforts into pork-barrel politics, which is to say, into the zero-sum game of cities parasitizing other cities' taxpayers, instead of into making Ohio more prosperous. The most successful legislators are the ones most skilled at bringing home the bacon; the ones who make Ohio richer overall don't get reelected.

Of course, redistricting has made that a bit harder within states like Ohio where districts are intentionally designed to water down Democrat population and representation. Where Toledo and Cleveland had the same person representing them, and these days someone in Elyria is represented by a person who also represents Mercer County which has less people living in it than Elyria... and is also bordering Central Indiana!

And I thought the Snake on the Lake was impressive.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

OPRAH and GEORGE SOROS are BOTH COLLUDING to STEAL THE ELECTION from TRUMP!!!

 

[Bomb#20]

The party does not desperately want free and fair elections. It desperately wants to continue to exist;

Duh. That’s each party’s JOB.

And that's why each party will happily game the system to its own advantage, whatever the system is.

it desperately wants to be a permanent ruling dominant party without any functional opposition where it can; and where it can't, it desperately wants to maintain the two-party system that guarantees it will continue to frequently get a turn in power, every time the other tolerated party wears out its welcome with the voters.

I had to correct the “permanent ruling” part, as I think the current Republican presidential candidate is the only one seriously questing for that, and only for his personal benefit.

He's doing it only for his personal advantage, yes; the evil he does will be interred with his bones. Harris and Walz have long histories of anti-free-speech positions, and they do it for their party and their ideology, not for a cause that will go away when they do.

Most political professionals, however impure, power hungry and greedy, have a sense patriotism, public service and legacy (or at least the appearance thereof) that drives them to want to win by the rules. The malevolent faction wants to destroy the rules.
The degradation of our collective ethic has been accelerated out of control by Citizens United, and there’s probably no turning back, now that our system is officially rigged to do the bidding of whoever has the most money, no exceptions, and to lavish riches upon anyone who can win and toe their line.

Oh for the love of god. Both factions are malevolent; both factions want to destroy the rules and replace them with new rules designed to benefit themselves. You're bringing up a case in point and siding with malevolence. Citizens United was* the rules; the BCRA it overturned was blatantly unconstitutional; the faction that has ever since been screaming about C.U. malevolently tried to shut down piddling electioneering expenditures by shoestring outfits like Citizens United while at the same time explicitly permitting unlimited electioneering expenditures by its preferred corporations: ABC, NBC and CBS.

(* No, C.U. v FEC did not declare money to be speech; quite the reverse. No, C.U. v FEC did not declare corporations to be people; "corporate personhood" is a centuries-old common-law judicial technicality that makes it possible to sue a corporation without tracking down every shareholder and serving writs on them all personally. C.U. v FEC held that individual humans do not lose their First Amendment rights just because they make use of "corporation" legal machinery. That was already settled law -- see New York Times Co. v. United States. By wishing it away, you are wishing away the right of the New York Times to ignore the court order not to publish. If C.U. had no right to advertise Hillary: the Movie, because it's a corporation, then The New York Times had no right to publish the Pentagon Papers, because it too is a corporation. Is that really what you want? When you condemn C.U. you are de facto siding with Richard Nixon. Can we at least agree that Richard Nixon was malevolent?)

 

[Elixir]

Yawn. Not exactly “the reverse”. It has been a long winding road, but the last major fork in it was 2010.

So yeah - nobody ever officially declared money to be speech or Corps to be people.
Saying these things is shorthand for what did happen, that has practically the same effect.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yawn. Not exactly “the reverse”. It has been a long winding road, but the last major fork in it was 2010.

[unsourced proof-by-bold-giant-font-blatant-assertion snipped]

So yeah - nobody ever officially declared money to be speech or Corps to be people.
Saying these things is shorthand for what did happen, that has practically the same effect.

Yes, exactly "the reverse". I take it from your post, and the dozen-odd others to the same effect, that it's safe to assume I am the only one in the thread who actually read the C.U. v FEC decision. The SCOTUS upheld the BCRA's disclosure requirements. Dark money organizations that can contribute without disclosing donors are Congress's fault, not the SCOTUS's.

According to the SCOTUS, you have a right to speak anonymously, but you do not have a right to donate anonymously. How the hell more clear could they be that money is not speech?

 

[Elixir]

According to the SCOTUS, you have a right to speak anonymously, but you do not have a right to donate anonymously. How the hell more clear could they be that money is not speech?

Are you saying there’s no such thing as “dark money”, or just shifting the blame to Congress? I am aware that it is Congress that makes laws. They do so supposedly within constraints imposed by SCOTUS, in furtherance of (excused by) supposed compliance with the Constitution.

 

[Bomb#20]

According to the SCOTUS, you have a right to speak anonymously, but you do not have a right to donate anonymously. How the hell more clear could they be that money is not speech?

Are you saying there’s no such thing as “dark money”, or just shifting the blame to Congress? I am aware that it is Congress that makes laws. They do so supposedly within constraints imposed by SCOTUS, in furtherance of (excused by) supposed compliance with the Constitution.

The SCOTUS did not constrain Congress from outlawing dark money. Dark money is legal because Congress has chosen not to ban it. I'm sure there are plenty of people in Congress who like dark money just fine and are pleased as punch not to be blamed for it because the public mostly buys into the lie that Congress can't do anything about it because C.U. v FEC. The SCOTUS told Congress they don't get to suppress movies. They never told Congress they don't get to make movie producers reveal who paid for movies.

Not sure why you'd call that "shifting the blame to Congress" -- looks to me like leaving the blame where it always belonged. It's the "SCOTUS Says Money Is Speech" folks who are trying to shift the blame.

"The majority ruled for the disclosure of the sources of campaign contributions, saying that:

...prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are "in the pocket" of so-called moneyed interests ... This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."​

(Source: Wikipedia)

 

[Elixir]

The SCOTUS did not constrain Congress from outlawing dark money.

IMHO it was their duty to do so. I’m far from alone in that opinion.
Our system is (more) broken because of the Court’s regressive ideologues.

"The majority ruled for the disclosure

But not against non disclosure?
B’cuz there’s a damn lot of non disclosure going on.

 

[Bomb#20]

The SCOTUS did not constrain Congress from outlawing dark money.

IMHO it was their duty to do so. I’m far from alone in that opinion.

I don't believe that's your opinion. That's Clarence Thomas's opinion -- he's the one who wrote the dissenting opinion against the majority upholding disclosure requirements. I think you just miscounted the inversions. Let me rephrase, changing my triple-negative to a single negative. The SCOTUS authorized Congress to outlaw dark money.

Our system is (more) broken because of the Court’s regressive ideologues.

No doubt; but that's a subsequent development, shown by cases like Dobbs. Back in 2010 the ideologues were still tied 4-against-4, so Anthony Kennedy got to make all the decisions. Good times.

"The majority ruled for the disclosure

But not against non disclosure?

Yes, 8-to-1 against non-disclosure.

 

[Elixir]

The SCOTUS did not constrain Congress from outlawing dark money.

IMHO it was their duty to do so. I’m far from alone in that opinion.

I don't believe that's your opinion. That's Clarence Thomas's opinion -- he's the one who wrote the dissenting opinion against the majority upholding disclosure requirements. I think you just miscounted the inversions. Let me rephrase, changing my triple-negative to a single negative. The SCOTUS authorized Congress to outlaw dark money.

Our system is (more) broken because of the Court’s regressive ideologues.

No doubt; but that's a subsequent development, shown by cases like Dobbs. Back in 2010 the ideologues were still tied 4-against-4, so Anthony Kennedy got to make all the decisions. Good times.

"The majority ruled for the disclosure

But not against non disclosure?

Yes, 8-to-1 against non-disclosure.

Semantics are one thing, the reality on the ground is another.
In effect, SCOTUS booted the question, failing to find that Dark Money - letting unknown rich entities, even foreign entities, fund our elections, was unconstitutional.

 

[Bomb#20]

Semantics are one thing, the reality on the ground is another.
In effect, SCOTUS booted the question, failing to find that Dark Money - letting unknown rich entities, even foreign entities, fund our elections, was unconstitutional.

On what grounds could they find that? Why would it be unconstitutional? What is there in the Constitution that says anything about any nongovernmental entity not getting to do anything? The Constitution prohibits government from doing a bazillion things, but as far as I know there's only one thing it says an ordinary person can't do: ignore a subpoena. The SCOTUS is only supposed to apply the Constitution and apply laws Congress already passed. Do you really want them to just make stuff up, to legislate whatever they think is a good idea? Then they'd really be a House of Lords.

 

[Elixir]

Do you really want them to just make stuff up

That’s what they do!
Have you been asleep?
Their job is to INTERPRET the constitution. They pretend to be literalists when it benefits their sponsor, and revisionist when he requires it.
Did you ever notice how Presidential immunity was never a question, let alone an issue, until a criminal was elected President? They didn’t imvent the need for that “interpretation” because lack of it posed a problem for other presidents being effective. No president ever was ever in need of it, until their party nominated a convicted criminal under dozens of pending indictments that begged an argument over what is an “official act”.

“Sorry Donald, we’d like to do more, but we’re pushing the envelope as it is. Do you want Seal Team Six at your door? We can’t give you powers and deny them to Sleepy Joe at the same time. Would if we could, because we love you. Heil Trump!”


SCOTUS could have let stand the laws restricting corporate and individual donations to PACs. That’s what they could and should have done.
But instead they chose to declare that such laws violated Corporations’ and billionaires’ 1st amendment rights.

If you’re going to stick to the story that they had no choice, I concede. There are lots of reasons they may have had no choice, most all of them very unsettling and related to the Justices’ personal sponsors.

PACs are independent groups created to raise money to support a particular candidate. Any individual or group can form a PAC. Traditional PACs can donate directly to a candidate’s campaign fund. PACs also generate their own ‘electioneering media’ – like those ubiquitous TV ads promoting or attacking a candidate.

Before Citizens United there were limits on how much money individuals could contribute to PACs, and corporations, unions, and certain types of nonprofits weren’t allowed to give to PACs at all.

I’d love to hear an actual argument over the harm done by restricting donations and the harm done by allowing unrestricted donation by any entity whatsoever.
Of course if your goal is to destroy American democracy, as it currently is for what’s left of the Republican Party, it’s all good, helps your failing electoral chances while eating away at representative government!
With enough $eredipity they might be able to do away with elections altogether. They’re probably unconstitutional, or The President can probably override them by proclamation. It’s just a matter of interpretation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's the "democracy" you deserve.

This is a mentality I always felt was weird. How is any change supposed to happen at all if the current state is "what we deserve"?

You voted for this, hence you deserve what comes out as a result.

Actually no, we didn't. Citizens United was a Supreme Court decision that stupidly claimed corporations are people with the same free speech and donation rights as people.

Where is the justification for restricting their free speech rights? The First doesn't restrict who it applies to. The only acceptable way to regulate political speech is via an Amendment. And at this point I believe the internet has made practical regulation impossible, anyway.

 

[Bomb#20]

Do you really want them to just make stuff up

That’s what they do!
Have you been asleep?

That's what they do sometimes, yes -- "Presidential immunity", "Qualified immunity", "Florida has to stop counting ballots and just say Bush won", and so forth. The point is, that's a bad thing. It would be better if the SCOTUS had a reason in the Constitution for what they do.

SCOTUS could have let stand the laws restricting corporate and individual donations to PACs. That’s what they could and should have done.
But instead they chose to declare that such laws violated Corporations’ and billionaires’ 1st amendment rights.

What case are you talking about? CU v FEC wasn't about donations to PACs. It was about whether the FEC could legally suppress a movie by banning the producers from buying TV ads to let people know the movie existed. What can you point to in the Constitution that supports the theory that suppressing movies doesn't violate the producers' 1st amendment rights?

If you’re going to stick to the story that they had no choice, I concede. There are lots of reasons they may have had no choice, most all of them very unsettling and related to the Justices’ personal sponsors.

Huh? Of course they had a choice. They always have a choice -- that's what comes of there being no higher court to overturn their rulings. Stevens was exercising his choice when he wrote a dissenting opinion that pretty much amounted to "The BCRA is constitutional because it's good public policy, what the Constitution actually says be damned.", thereby repudiating everything he'd written nine years earlier in his spot-on dissent from Bush v Gore.

PACs are independent groups created to raise money to support a particular candidate. Any individual or group can form a PAC. Traditional PACs can donate directly to a candidate’s campaign fund. PACs also generate their own ‘electioneering media’ – like those ubiquitous TV ads promoting or attacking a candidate.

Before Citizens United there were limits on how much money individuals could contribute to PACs, and corporations, unions, and certain types of nonprofits weren’t allowed to give to PACs at all.

I’d love to hear an actual argument over the harm done by restricting donations and the harm done by allowing unrestricted donation by any entity whatsoever.

Donations are restricted -- giving to candidates is limited; pooling your money with other like-minded people to produce a movie saying why you don't like a candidate isn't limited. If you want to debate the merits of allowing or forbidding people to spend their money saying "Hillary sucks" in terms of the harm done, that's not really a legal argument. It's a public policy argument that belongs in Congress, not in the SCOTUS.

If you're arguing that the SCOTUS ought to make its rulings by calculation of harm done instead of by legal reasoning, are you taking into account the harm that will be done by making that the usual practice? Do you want the Trump-appointed justices calculating whether criticism of Trump-appointed justices harms the nation?

Trump Proposes Making It a Crime to Criticize Pro-Trump Judges

He is not a big free-speech guy.

nymag.com

"Over the weekend, Donald Trump expressed in a speech his belief that public criticism of judges and Supreme Court justices who rule in Trump’s favor should be illegal."

 

[Elixir]

Do you want the Trump-appointed justices calculating whether criticism of Trump-appointed justices harms the nation?

That’s the only point I see as valid in the above screed. Of course I’d like SCOTUs to do their jobs instead of operating as the executive and legislative branches of Trumpistan.

But even THAT general compelling (to me) interest doesn’t address the travesty of allowing the force of an individual voice to be correlated 1:1 with the money they can spend on amplifying it. Were it not for that correlation I don’t believe that a rotten apricot would currently own the Court.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

SCOTUS could have let stand the laws restricting corporate and individual donations to PACs. That’s what they could and should have done.
But instead they chose to declare that such laws violated Corporations’ and billionaires’ 1st amendment rights.

What case are you talking about? CU v FEC wasn't about donations to PACs. It was about whether the FEC could legally suppress a movie by banning the producers from buying TV ads to let people know the movie existed. What can you point to in the Constitution that supports the theory that suppressing movies doesn't violate the producers' 1st amendment rights?

Exactly. CU is simply a recognition that the FEC was trying to prevent speech. It is the right reading of the Constitution.

Donations are restricted -- giving to candidates is limited; pooling your money with other like-minded people to produce a movie saying why you don't like a candidate isn't limited. If you want to debate the merits of allowing or forbidding people to spend their money saying "Hillary sucks" in terms of the harm done, that's not really a legal argument. It's a public policy argument that belongs in Congress, not in the SCOTUS.

If you're arguing that the SCOTUS ought to make its rulings by calculation of harm done instead of by legal reasoning, are you taking into account the harm that will be done by making that the usual practice? Do you want the Trump-appointed justices calculating whether criticism of Trump-appointed justices harms the nation?

Trump Proposes Making It a Crime to Criticize Pro-Trump Judges

He is not a big free-speech guy.

nymag.com

"Over the weekend, Donald Trump expressed in a speech his belief that public criticism of judges and Supreme Court justices who rule in Trump’s favor should be illegal."

Exactly. It's a power that the government shouldn't have. Sure, CU permits some things that probably aren't in the best interest of society but the flip side is far worse. Freedom of speech is inherently about unpopular speech because nobody tries to ban popular speech.