Unlimited Polictical Contributions on Supreme Court Docket

This is an important article about everything the Supreme court will be covering this week, and buried in the middle is the Republicans trying to get rid of personal political campaign contribution limits. This is hugely important, especially since now companies are allowed to give unlimited funds to political advertising. Even though republicans are only 40% of the population, a few of them have a lot of money due to their heavy involvement in heavy industry (oil). This could have a big impact on our electoral process.

seattletimes.com...

reply to post by CB328


Is there something in this that will check party affiliation before allowing the contribution? Is there a litmus test for R or D for how the law will benefit or hurt? I'm kinda missing that....

BTW... 40% huh? That's interesting...


(Source)

Looks like a pretty even split to me. Some years a bit more to one side than the other. Looks like both sides have pretty equal interest in seeing funding laws eased too..... After all, money issues in 2012 were not one sided or even uneven by the end of things. That part came out a bit of a shock for some people, I know.

reply to post by CB328


This could literally validate the phrase; "Politics, bought and paid for".

I know it costs lots of money to run a campaign, but that should be part of the vetting process to being the commander in chief.

Being creative, intelligent and efficient with limited funding is a great way to ensure the quality assurance is maintained, because the last few have certainly been some defective duds.

MDDoxs
reply to post by CB328

 

This could literally validate the phrase; "Politics, bought and paid for".

I know it costs lots of money to run a campaign, but that should be part of the vetting process to being the commander in chief.

Being creative, intelligent and efficient with limited funding is a great way to ensure the quality assurance is maintained, because the last few have certainly been some defective duds.

Citizen united already did that, all this means is one more of the minor hurdles they faced is removed...

At a time when our country is the most f-ed its been in a good long while we need More restrictions on campaign finance not less.

I hold little hope from a Court that passed Citizen untied, to not further weaken the constitutional republic, right into the hands of corporate interest.

CB328
This is an important article about everything the Supreme court will be covering this week, and buried in the middle is the Republicans trying to get rid of personal political campaign contribution limits. This is hugely important, especially since now companies are allowed to give unlimited funds to political advertising. Even though republicans are only 40% of the population, a few of them have a lot of money due to their heavy involvement in heavy industry (oil). This could have a big impact on our electoral process.

seattletimes.com...

The congressional whores are in a hurry to stuff their pockets before the system collapses under the weight of their combined stupidity and greed. SCOTUS will solve this tiny dilemma with the proper authoritative language, needed to hold back, us; the red meat munching, obese, slobbering, ignorant, head-burried-deeply in-the-sand sheeple.

40% huh? That's interesting

Yes, 40% conservative, 30% liberal, 30% independent. They do these surveys all the time.

reply to post by CB328


Regardless of the split....America has the best damn government, money can buy.

imo it's not about political contributions but the unchecked money flowing from the lobbyists with special interest like starting and maintaining wars.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The problem with unlimited spending in terms of voting outcome is due to the relationship of familiarity and vote. Basically, the more money and advertisement that a candidate has access to, the more "familiar" they become to the voting public. The more familiar, the more likely that people will vote. Repetition is a powerful thing.

While the votes seem to be about evening in the elections, what it is not showing is the other candidates for presidential election. In the 2012 election, there were 14 presidential candidates--not just two.

Other candidates included:

Dr. Jill Stein (Green Party)
Randy Johnson (Libertarian)
Rocky Anderson (Justice Party)
Roseanne Barr (Peace and Freedom Party)
Virgil Goode (Constitution Party)
Stewart Alexander (Socialist Party)
Tom Hoefling (America's Party)
Andre Barnett (Reform Party)
Merlin Miller (American Third Position)
Ed Noonan (American Independent Party)
James Harris (Socialist Workers Party)
Jerry White (Socialist Equality Party)

Each one of these candidates had far less campaign contributions and were not given equal air time by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I'd hazard that the majority of the US weren't even aware that they existed. They were not "invited" to the presidential debate. In fact, Dr. Jill Stein was arrested after attempting to make entry as a presidential candidate.

These candidates may have well not even existed because, when you are competing with two parties, who have established power and connections within the government and within the media in addition to massive amounts of money (hundreds of millions), they never even had a chance to be heard really.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I understand what you mean about candidates but what has money got to do with basic visibility on the Presidential run? After Perot, they made sure it was 1 step from totally impossible to even get on a majority of state ballots, let alone all of them to make a serious and honest stand for the White House. Given that, they could be Donald Trump and spending every last dollar, and the law will still insure they get nowhere near even placing for the general ballot in a way to win.

That's where the argument over money and the obsession with it for law and reform drives me off. Money is a problem, no question. Is it the only and even main problem? Nope.... Regulation for control of access irregardless of financial ability...is the problem before we even get to the stage of going dollar for dollar spending on TV and print ads as well as campaign events.

It is like the Citizen's United issue that so many got worked up about. Well, they decided the right way as far as I'm concerned and the left can just deal with it. If they want the restrictions to cover both Union AND Corporation equally? I'll stand for seeing that decision reversed someday with regulations to ban BOTH areas from any form of political funding.

If it's Unions with free purse and business with none? It's a one sided rout to buy the system outright. In this case, Personal contributions? Okay.. Lets ban them ... then what? That's one hell of a powerful favor to every Democrat organizer in this nation, as they Bundle contributions far more effectively than Republicans who go for the single donations of value.

End result, as 2012 showed? Romney and Obama weren't far off at all on total in hand and total spent. It balanced as much as it ever can. Some people want to see major IMBALANCE though ...to one side OR the other. That's what I think is flat wrong.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


You're quite right in that money isn't the only problem with our democracy. The institutionalization of the two party system, issues with equal representation at the actual voting booths (not every state recognizes every candidate as legitimate), lack of voter participation, voter disenfranchisement, and a few others also come into play. However, money is a really big part of this.

I guess the best analogy as how money can influence a presidential candidacy would be Kraft Mac & Cheese. Everybody knows what Kraft Mac & Cheese is and a lot of people buy it because, well, they are familiar with Kraft Mac and Cheese. They know what it's going to taste like and they are familiar with the brand name. Trying a different brand of Mac & Cheese can be scary because it may taste different or pretty yucky. They don't know a whole lot about that "other" brand and often it's because that other brand may not advertise or may not have as much advertising on tv like Kraft Mac and Cheese does. However, if this small different Mac and Cheese were able to have the same kind of marketing expenditures as Kraft, then, in marketing terms, they would be able to build what is called brand familiarity. Brand familiarity is incredibly important in trying to get potential customers to give your little Mac and Cheese a shot.

In the 2012 elections, both Obama ($483.8 million in expenditures for media) and Romney ($240 million in expenditures for media) were Kraft Mac and Cheese. All those other guys with smaller campaign finances? They were the non-Kraft brands that didn't have the financial support for a national advertising campaign. (That stuff is expensive.) Gary Johnson ($1 million) and Stein (231.6k) were the 3rd and 4th runner ups for media expenditures. Barely a blip on the airwaves. In the world of marketing, they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of competing with Kraft.

All media expenditures are from OpenSecrets.org: www.opensecrets.org...