General News Supreme Court Strikes Down Political Donor Limits

Yeah, just a slight exaggeration.

The holding the Court made really doesn't change all that much, particularly for Congressional elections because of the insane built in incumbency advantage already in place.

Not to mention corporations and wealthy donors really don't have that much of an influence as I said earlier. So if they want to throw around even more money and continue to get little results, then have at it, I guess.

And I can name a few pretty strange holdings the Court has made and illogical opinions written thanks to liberal activist Justices. Goes both ways.

 

Dozens upon dozens of wonderful programs, not enough money to pay for them all. It boils down to that. Jacking up the tax rate, while not something I particularly oppose, isn't enough of an income generator.

That, and the position of giving Puerto Rico independence instead of letting them choose between independence, statehood, and the status quo struck my as less than correct.

 

98% of the 2012 house election, senate election, and the presidency was won by the candidate who had the most money donated to them.

 

I largely agree with you here. I think we've already reached a "maximum amount of influence" for the wealthy, save perhaps for the uber rich billionaires who can pump tens of millions of dollars in races. The real danger at this point is having the majority of Americans shut out of the possibility of running for elected office. If you don't have the right friends, aren't a member of the right cliques, don't express the right values - then you could find yourself shut out completely.

It's not a matter of not being able to run legally, it's a matter of your voice being drowned out by those who are already well connected not only politically, but to the moneyed class as well.

The greater issue I see isn't on the federal level. It's on state and local races which get less media attention. In those races big money can really flow into those elections and completely swamp a less well funded candidate. That's where money has it's most influence and power. It's also where we'll see the most corruption.

At this point thanks to these rulings we are in a world where money is equal to free speech. I think it's time we really have to re-evaluate how we're going to operate in the Brave New World. I'm personally leaning toward opening things up even more and creating radical transparency. It's obvious the Robert's Court is slow walking us toward a system without campaign finance restrictions (at least when it comes to donations). We might as well save him the time, and knock down the rest of the walls. Let it be possible for people to donate however much they want to individual campaigns, parties, or PAC's.

However, create a system with radical transparency. Make it so that every dollar donated has to be tracked back to who sent it and how it was spent. Anyone who donates more than $10,000 to a campaign has to be called out during all advertising and made public. This means if you give $10,000 to Hillary Clinton, and she spends even a penny of that money on a TV Commercial, she'll have to say: "This was paid for by Hillary Clinton for President, and sponsored by <Name>, <Name>, <Name>, etc." Same in print and radio. Money will have to be tracked throughout the entire political process, and donations can only be bundled in $10,000 increments.

This means if you give $130,000 to the Republican Party, and the Party wants to funnel that money to the individual candidate's campaign they have to give at least $10,000 as a minimum. They will also be required to keep track of the money they receive in increments, to prevent someone from circumventing this law (example: giving $9,999 one month and then $9,999 another month. Or giving $9,999 to the Republican Party, then giving the same amount to another group which they know will funnel it to the Republican Party).

Campaigns and Political Parties will have to post the names, a recent face picture, job description, place of employment, the city, and the state of each person who contributes more than $10,000 on their website before they spend a penny of it.

Basically, in short - you're free to give as much as you like, but you don't get to hide it at all. Everybody is going to know.

Finally, PAC's will be re-imagined as non-partisan entities that advocate for an issue or a broad cause. They can't contribute money to political parties, but they can give money to specific campaigns. They will operate under the same rules as political parties.

If I thought it were possible, I'd throw in some matching funds for small donations to help dilute the influence of larger donations. (Example: For every dollar up to $3,000 donated to a campaign is matched by $5 dollars. That would make a $3,000 campaign contribution a $15,000 campaign contribution, and it would help people who collected a lot of money from very small donations.) However, I can't imagine that passing. If it did, though, it'd help really dilute the influence of big money.

The real benefit of this reform is two fold. First, it's transparent which is essential for democracy. Every penny must be tracked. For those who donate a great deal of money ($10,000 or more) - we will know who they are by name. Second, it attempts to direct the flow of money to candidates and their campaigns directly. This is hugely important, because out of ALL these other groups only the candidates themselves are held directly responsible to the people.

We've seen situations in the past where candidates have taken money from questionable individuals, it became public, and they quickly gave the money back. With everything being transparent, we will know who is giving money, who is getting it, and how that money is being spent. This allows us to hold candidates responsible via the voting process if they start aligning with questionable individuals.

Republicans, for example, love to make George Soros (an insanely wealthy funder of Democrats) a campaign issue. Well, now they can, and they can see exactly how the candidate spent George's money. Likewise, the Democrats could do the same thing for the Koch brothers.

This means those who shell out the big bucks have the potential to become campaign issues. A lot of them aren't going to like that, as a great many of them like to publicly stay apolitical. They still have that opportunity, so long as they don't give $10,000 or more. That puts them more in line with the rest of America and those who contribute in smaller amounts. It also makes those who DO want to be politically (such as the Koch brothers) really stand out.

IMO, this is the best way to handle a bad situation.

 

You're absolutely right; the congressional research (and common sense) are wrong in pointing out that wealthy donors, corporations, and interest groups do not have as large of an influence as some believe. Clearly, your blind assertion is correct.

As for Bryan's statistic, while that is true, it's also accurate that the vast majority of Congressional campaigns are won by incumbents (particularly House races) because of huge "incumbency advantages" such as Congressional allowance, staff, communications, name recognition, franking privileges, casework, district dynamics for House races, and more. The largest advantage, and biggest factor by far is name recognition, and it goes hand-and-hand with donations. If you don't have name recognition to your constituents, it shows to potential large donors that you are not a serious candidate; thus, they will not donate as much money. This is also a big reason why incumbents often get more large donations than challengers (especially in House elections) because they're seen by donors as serious candidates.

It's so easy to just say "ZOMMGGGGG THE RICH ARE FUCKING US OVER AND DESTROYING DEMOCRACY OMGGG!"

But if you actually study campaigns and elections, voter behavior/responsiveness to those campaigns, and how Congress works, you'll find that America's political problems are a little more complex than just blaming it on large donations.

 

To me that says it all, the candidate with the most donations (money) is the one who wins. With money you get name recognition with the public.

How can you not see the problem with this?

 

No, it does not start that way.

At risk of sounding like a huge campaign nerd, this is how campaigns begin: Many potential congressional candidates are successful in the private sector, and are then often recruited by state parties to run for Congress. When this happens, the candidate starts his campaign by doing grassroots campaigning (going door-to-door themselves, or having volunteers do it). By doing this, they start to gain name recognition with people and, with enough, they can attract talented staffers to help in their campaigns. When wealthy donors see that the candidate has some name recognition and is gaining staffers, they start to see that s/he is making a serious run at Congress, and they start to donate money. If they survive through a primary and general election, their next campaign is often easier because they've been in Congress and gain more name recognition with constituents/connections (and they also receive money from the RCC or DCC as as a result). In other words, once you get through the first big hurdle of winning your first election, it's far easier to raise money and stay in office because of the incumbency advantages I listed earlier. The district itself is also a big factor. For example, a big Republican donor isn't going to donate a huge sum of money to a candidate if the district is gerrymandered to favor Democrats. Outside dynamics also play a role (popularity of the president in the district, the unemployment rate in the district, etc).

A clear example of this is in the congressional campaign I'm working in right now. Our opponent is only 26-years-old and a Democrat running in a red district. He's got graduate degrees and has been pretty successful in the private sector, so Democrats recruited him to run for office. However, he's going to really struggle with raising money because he has to pretty much try to catch up to the incumbent in terms of name recognition and raising money, not to mention he has zero political experience. Thus, he's going to have a hard time recruiting talented campaign staffers to match up with ours. There's a ton of other details that go into congressional elections, but it'd take be about six paragraphs to explain.

Anyway, to say that wealthy donors are a huge problem/have a huge influence just isn't completely true. Our whole system is set up to make it very difficult for challengers to beat incumbents; it's not just wealthy donors.

 

You sound like you have a lot of personal experience in this and I don't really know how it works too be honest. :icon_redf

 

Mike92 more or less has the right of it. The vast majority of victories are primarily due to incumbency, and have very little to do with money. However, this is only really discussing the House, Senate, and Presidency. Once you start drilling down to local and state elections, things become a different story. There usually isn't a lot of money flowing around in these races, and so dropping a huge wad of cash in a race on one side can really unbalance the scales.

We see a similar effect in primaries, mostly on the Republican side. This is how the Tea Party has been so successful in killing off Republican incumbents. Traditionally speaking, if an incumbent was hit with a primary there wouldn't be much of a fight due to the incumbent advantage. The challenger would have no name recognition, no ability to raise money, and would essentially have zero chance in the election. However, through outside groups the Tea Party has managed to funnel a lot of money into primary races helping energize the crazies and get the name recognition of their preferred candidate out.

In general elections - all other things being equal - there is only so much money that's going to make a difference. At some point you start to see diminishing returns on the amount you spend - at least in terms of advertising and getting your message out. For campaigns that sank like a rock despite the huge sums spent, I'd point to the failed campaign of Meg Whitman for California Governor, and Linda McMahon's two failed campaigns for Senate in Connecticut. They are good examples of the diminishing returns on money.

There are also certain points in a campaign that having a lot of money can make a difference. For example, having a lot of money to spend in the beginning of a campaign is very useful as it allows you to define your opponent before they even have a chance to introduce themselves to a general election audience. That can easily set the tone and stage for the remainder of the campaign.

...but again, the real problem with money in politics shows up in state and local races.

 

Yeah, that's definitely the biggest advantage, especially for MC's.

For example, the representative I'm working for right now has a couple hundred thousand in campaign cash on hand already, and that's not even including the money he's going to raise (plus the RCC). Our opponent has to start from scratch and kiss a ton of ass at parades, canvassing neighborhoods, gatherings, and other events to even come close to being competitive. Our last opponent two years ago only raised around $100,000 because she wasn't considered anywhere close to being a serious candidate due to poor name recognition (and she was a professor at Penn State with a Ph.D).

As for state and local elections, big money can have an influence. But you don't see millions being spent on local elections because people couldn't care less about them, even though they should. You need to really have a good grassroots plan for local elections.

 

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus celebrated the ruling.

 

Because people with more money have more speech to be free with.