When Does it Cross the Line?

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sigcurious

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This article is about Bloomberg and his organization's recent efforts to sway state politics. Some of his recent efforts came here to my home state of Nevada, which fortunately seem to have failed for the time being.

So the question is, when does it cross the line of someone participating in the system, to someone gaming the system? From active participation to oligarchy of the ultra-wealthy?

From the other side it is often cried that the NRA spends so much to promote the gun lobby, yet on that side we have a single person who can outspend the millions of donors to the NRA and similar organizations claiming to represent the will of the people?
 
That line was crossed a long time ago with the Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), and it's been stomped on ever since, most recently with the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). The trend has been to privilege the speech of a few people and corporations with unlimited money over that of the many who have far less.
 
That line was crossed a long time ago with the Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), and it's been stomped on ever since, most recently with the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). The trend has been to privilege the speech of a few people and corporations with unlimited money over that of the many who have far less.
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I strongly disagree with that. Citizens United helps those with less money to exercise their First Amendment rights collectively to give weight to their viewpoints rather than leaving the arena free for the likes of George Soros and NYC Mayor Bloomberg.
 
While I totally disagree with Mr. Bloomberg’s position and many of his tactics I feel he has just as much right to free speech as any other American. Just because a person is successful doesn’t somehow mean they can’t be engaged in public debate.
 
We have crossed almost every line imaginable. If we don't start doing more to stop this we are going to cross several more very soon.
 
KyJim said:
Vanya said:
That line was crossed a long time ago with the Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), and it's been stomped on ever since, most recently with the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). The trend has been to privilege the speech of a few people and corporations with unlimited money over that of the many who have far less.
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I strongly disagree with that. Citizens United helps those with less money to exercise their First Amendment rights collectively to give weight to their viewpoints rather than leaving the arena free for the likes of George Soros and NYC Mayor Bloomberg.
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Not so. Citizens United specifically addressed the rights of corporations to engage in political speech, and ruled that their right to do so was effectively unlimited. The argument that the decision would allow the "little people" to band together and exert more influence was disingenuous, and put forward by people who were essentially corporate shills.

The net effect of these and similar decisions has been a vast increase in the total amount of money poured into electioneering. There are several major consequences of this: first, the amount of outside money (that is, money not raised directly by political candidates) spent on political ads has risen sharply. The amount spent in federal elections increased by a factor of at least 2.5 from 2008 to 2012*. The amount spent in the runup to the 2014 elections already nearly equals that spent on the 2012 cycle.**

Second, because of this increase, elected officials are forced to spend between 30 and 50 percent of their time on fundraising rather than governing, so it should come as no surprise that to the extent that they do govern, they pay the most attention to the supporters with the most money.***

A related trend is that the proportion of money from undisclosed donors has risen sharply, while that from known sources has decreased; there is now far less transparency in the political process.****

None of this benefits the majority of human-type citizens.

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* http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...n_explosion_of_campaign_spending_.single.html
** http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/24/super-pac-spending-2012-election
***http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/02/experts-assess-impact-of-citizens-united/
****http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/index.php?cycle=2012&view=Y&chart=N#viewpt
 
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My first instinct is that no one (person or company) should be able to contribute to any election outside their state, except the Presidential Election.
 
If we had such a restriction, the problem posed by this surge in outside money wouldn't go away. It's not being contributed directly to candidates, but ostensibly for "issue" advertising, and the majority of it is used that way for negative ads. "Here's a HORRIBLE PROBLEM! Did you know that Senator Whoever supports this assault on our (children/environment/freedom/safety/right to...)."

And even if 501(c)(4)s, for example, had to be incorporated in the states where they advertise, given that their donors' names don't have to be disclosed, such a restriction would be unenforceable.
 
Not so. Citizens United specifically addressed the rights of corporations to engage in political speech, and ruled that their right to do so was effectively unlimited. The argument that the decision would allow the "little people" to band together and exert more influence was disingenuous, and put forward by people who were essentially corporate shills.
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But a corporation is a group of people banded together for a reason, sometimes commercial and sometimes not. In its broad sense, the term corporate means "of, relating to, or formed into a unified body of individuals." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corporate.

The net effect of these and similar decisions has been a vast increase in the total amount of money poured into electioneering. There are several major consequences of this: first, the amount of outside money (that is, money not raised directly by political candidates) spent on political ads has risen sharply. The amount spent in federal elections increased by a factor of at least 2.5 from 2008 to 2012*. The amount spent in the runup to the 2014 elections already nearly equals that spent on the 2012 cycle.**
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So it is a bad thing for people to exercise their power of speech? In your view, you would limit who could identify, define, and debate the issues to the candidates and the mainstream media. For example, Swift Vets and POWs for Truth was a Section 527 corporation. Whether you agree or disagree with their stance toward presidential candidate John Kerry, their Swiftboad ads no doubt focused debate on a topic neither candidate would have raised.

Second, because of this increase, elected officials are forced to spend between 30 and 50 percent of their time on fundraising rather than governing, so it should come as no surprise that to the extent that they do govern, they pay the most attention to the supporters with the most money.***
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This was the case even before Citizens United. Actually that's an argument for supporting corporate free speech because they cannot coordinate their speech with the candidate. If they give directly to the candidate, which you propose, then it makes the candidate more beholden to the giver.
 
But a corporation is a group of people banded together for a reason, sometimes commercial and sometimes not. In its broad sense, the term corporate means "of, relating to, or formed into a unified body of individuals." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corporate.
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In practice, for over 100 years the courts have defined corporations as persons in their own right. This was originally intended to allow them to do things like make contracts, but the doctrine of "corporate personhood," which was at the heart of the Citizens United decision, has now expanded to give corporations, as separate entities from the people who "band together," free speech rights equal to those of human citizens. When you add that to the money-equals-speech ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, the free speech rights of a corporation have a great deal of muscle.

Wealth is unequally distributed in this country: the top 20% of the population owns over 80% of the wealth, and the top 1% owns almost 40%. Given those numbers, it doesn't matter how many little guys band together; if the wealthy are allowed to put unlimited amounts of money into the political process, whether it's their personal wealth or the collective wealth of the corporations they control, they will control the outcome of that process, and it will always be to their benefit.

What benefits JPMorgan Chase is, to put it mildly, not what benefits me.

This was the case even before Citizens United. Actually that's an argument for supporting corporate free speech because they cannot coordinate their speech with the candidate. If they give directly to the candidate, which you propose, then it makes the candidate more beholden to the giver.
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In the first place, that's not what I'm proposing. Secondly, if you believe that the speech of corporations (and those who control them) isn't coordinated with the interests of candidates, you haven't been paying attention to the way so-called Super PACS work: to take just one example, Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that spent the most money on the 2012 presidential election, was created by some of Gov. Romney's former aides; do you seriously think they didn't talk to the people running his campaign? Do you really think that the donors to that PAC weren't expecting a return on their investment in terms of favorable treatment by a Romney administration?
 
do you seriously think they didn't talk to the people running his campaign? Do you really think that the donors to that PAC weren't expecting a return on their investment in terms of favorable treatment by a Romney administration?
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Perhaps some do but the smarter ones don't have to talk directly. They can figure it out without direct communication. Some surely do expect favorable treatment. However, that existed before Citizens United. For example, presidential candidates were (and still are) limited in how much they can receive from each donor if they want public matching funds. The way to get around this was to give directly and without limit to the political party. The party then doled out the money as the party bosses thought best. Thus, money took just a short side trip to reach a candidate's pocket. And the candidate would know who was giving big bucks to the party. So, on balance, I still prefer post-Citizens United.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this.
 
The party then doled out the money as the party bosses thought best. Thus, money took just a short side trip to reach a candidate's pocket. And the candidate would know who was giving big bucks to the party. So, on balance, I still prefer post-Citizens United.
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Jim, I think the flaw in your argument is this: while Citizens United permits 501(c)(4)s to accept donations without making the names of the donors public, there's nothing in the current law that prohibits those organizations from providing donors' names to anyone, including the candidates or parties they support. The ruling makes the system less transparent to the public, while permitting such information to be passed around privately as donors and organizations see fit.

"Anonymity" applies to public disclosure, not to private use of the information.

And the reporting requirement does apply to Super PACS; if you check out Restore Our Future, or any of the other Super PACS, at OpenSecrets.org, you'll find comprehensive lists of donors and amounts.

So it's not the case that these laws prevent the candidates themselves from knowing who is contributing to their campaigns.
 
there are others that contribute to both sides, that way, in the outcome is irrelevant, they have the ear of the powers that be, whomever those powers may be.
 
Vanya - after McCain-Feingold, the FEC was authorized to put increasing (ever-increasing) restrictions on political speech. The exception was speech by an individual. Speech restrictions on individuals would not survive the 1st ammendment challenges, so McCain and Feingold did not include them in their law. Actually, I think the original law DID include this, but some other court decision gutted the restrictions on individuals.

The result was that very wealthy people were empowered by the effective silencing of people like me... I can't afford a 30 second TV commercial to voice my views. But if I join together with a dozen others, perhaps I can... but under McCain Feingold, I would have to hire a law firm to make sure I stayed on the right side of the huge stack of FEC regulations and rulings.

Why should an individual enjoy full 1st ammendment protection (and a low level of FEC regulation), but a group of individuals banding together be restricted in their 1st ammendment rights, and subject to highly intrusive and chilling oversight by the FEC?

The citizens united ruling IMO restores the balance. It allows grass-roots organizations to form and come together without having to spend 2/3 of their time and budget on lawyers. And yes, it does allow large corporations to have a greater voice, but no more so than individuals like George Soros.

And by the way, as a shareholder, employee, and customer of a very large coorporation, I want them to have a political voice. GE, Ford, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Intel, Boeing, Amazon, John Deere, Cisco, Raytheon, AT&T, ... These organizations represent millions of employees and hundreds of millions of shareholders.
 
btmj, as I said, I'm aware that the Citizens' United ruling was "sold" in those terms. (It's an example of the clout of the "big money" folks that they were able to convince people of that.) But that hasn't been the effect of the ruling, which, among other things, has further empowered large corporations at the expense of independent businesses. The latter could, and do, band together in the way you suggest levels the playing field, but are still unable to muster the same kind of political clout now wielded by large corporations with, um, more money. Here's a good discussion of this, which makes several points about the ways that the Citizens' United decision is harmful to small businesses.

btmj said:
And by the way, as a shareholder, employee, and customer of a very large coorporation, I want them to have a political voice. GE, Ford, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Intel, Boeing, Amazon, John Deere, Cisco, Raytheon, AT&T, ... These organizations represent millions of employees and hundreds of millions of shareholders.
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Are you aware that under Citizens' United, these (and other) corporations don't have to reveal their political spending even to shareholders?

I could go on, but life is short. I'll just repeat what I wrote above:

Wealth is unequally distributed in this country: the top 20% of the population owns over 80% of the wealth, and the top 1% owns almost 40%. Given those numbers, it doesn't matter how many little guys band together; if the wealthy are allowed to put unlimited amounts of money into the political process, whether it's their personal wealth or the collective wealth of the corporations they control, they will control the outcome of that process, and it will always be to their benefit.
 
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Well, Vanya, I think we will have to just agree to disagree on this one. I looked up the Buckley v Valeo decision, and I think the court was right to strike down the limits. IMO, the first ammendment protection on freedom of speech is nearly an absolute protection. The fact that free speech may mean that some organizations have a louder voice than others, is of no consequence. Freedom of political speech should be protected on the basis of principal, not on the basis of what may or may not come to pass.

It is analogous to the RKBA. It is a right of citizens, regardless of whether it creates a net benefit. I should not have to show that my 30 round AR-15 magazine has a net societal benefit. It is my right to own it, use it, and sell it to someone else.

In political campaigns, money is speech, but only one kind of speech. Attempts to limit money simply limit one kind of political activity. I work 12 hours a day, and I have more money than time. I can't volunteer my time (because I have used all of it up being a productive member of society), but I can provide money to issues I believe in and candidates of my choice. If the FEC limits how much money I can contribute, will they also limit how much time my neighbor can volunteer for his political causes? If he spends hundreds of hours a year volunteering for a cause, and travelling to various cities to march and demonstrate, why is his speech not restricted? What is the dollar value of his time and travel?

Wealth is unequally distributed in this country: the top 20% of the population owns over 80% of the wealth, and the top 1% owns almost 40%.
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And if that top 20% actually exerted a vast political power, Obama would not be president, 2008 would not have been the year that liberal democrats took control of the house, the senate, and the presidency, and taxes on the upper 20% would be moderate.

Besides I am not sure what point you are making about wealth distribution. I could probably make an argument that 20% of the population represents 80% of the intellect and motivation in this country. In which case the distribution in wealth makes complete sense. But I don't want to offend anyone with overly thin skin... :) so I won't try to make that argument.

As I said, I think we will have to agree to disagree. Your opinion was well stated, and you have obviously put some time into thinking about it. I am sure my writings here won't change your mind.
 
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