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Who Does the US Government Serve?

Texsox

By Texsox,
in The Filibuster

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24 members have voted

  1. 1. Who *SHOULD* the US government serve?

    • Citizens
      20
    • Business
      0
    • Government
      0
    • Human Race
      4
    • Pizza and Beer
      0

  2. 2. Who *DOES* the US government serve?

    • Citizens
      3
    • Business
      8
    • Government
      12
    • Human Race
      0
    • Pizza and Beer
      1

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Balta1701 Grand Master

Balta1701

Posted
Posted
QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 25, 2009 -> 01:48 PM)
Explain?

I've been covering this in the Dem thread. Basically, the logic is this; In the 1880's, the Supreme Court declared that Corporations have all the same rights as people. In the 1960's, the Court ruled that money = speech, and thus buying ads and giving to politicians was a form of free speech. The logic of those decisions suggests that corporations should be able to spend whatever they want on political campaigns.

 

And it sure looks like the Court is going to do exactly that; there is a case before them where a corporate-funded entity wanted to release an anti-Hillary movie before teh 2008 primaries, the FEC said no, and that case is now before the Court. Based on the oral arguments, it seems like the court is apt to overturn ALL campaign finance regulations for corporations. Basically, a corporation will be able to literally sponsor a candidate. Stephen Colbert's Doritos funded campaign in 2008 would be perfectly legal. The Obama Campaign, sponsored by Citigroup. Raytheon presents the Sarah Palin super-happy funtime hour. Literally.

 

Furthermore, until someone brings a similar case regarding individual campaign contribution limits...it's also fairly likely that for a time, the individual contribution limits may exist while the corporate limits may be gone. So, therefore, corporations will actually count more than individual people.

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NorthSideSox72 Grand Master

NorthSideSox72

Posted
Posted
QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 25, 2009 -> 03:55 PM)
I've been covering this in the Dem thread. Basically, the logic is this; In the 1880's, the Supreme Court declared that Corporations have all the same rights as people. In the 1960's, the Court ruled that money = speech, and thus buying ads and giving to politicians was a form of free speech. The logic of those decisions suggests that corporations should be able to spend whatever they want on political campaigns.

 

And it sure looks like the Court is going to do exactly that; there is a case before them where a corporate-funded entity wanted to release an anti-Hillary movie before teh 2008 primaries, the FEC said no, and that case is now before the Court. Based on the oral arguments, it seems like the court is apt to overturn ALL campaign finance regulations for corporations. Basically, a corporation will be able to literally sponsor a candidate. Stephen Colbert's Doritos funded campaign in 2008 would be perfectly legal. The Obama Campaign, sponsored by Citigroup. Raytheon presents the Sarah Palin super-happy funtime hour. Literally.

 

Furthermore, until someone brings a similar case regarding individual campaign contribution limits...it's also fairly likely that for a time, the individual contribution limits may exist while the corporate limits may be gone. So, therefore, corporations will actually count more than individual people.

Well that is not good. But I understand why those decisions were made, I think.

 

I guess my take is, the best way to address this is to legislate election reform so that businesses and citizens are on an even playing field - but take money out of the equation entirely. If a max contribution amount per person and per business at some flat rate won't work for that legally, then the only alternative is to go fully publically financed. This is one of those cases where I am 100% OK with the government taxing more - funding elections. Make people achieve bar levels by signatures and other non-financial methods to get on ballots, do layered run-offs if necessary, etc.

 

 

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Balta1701 Grand Master

Balta1701

Posted
Posted
QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 25, 2009 -> 01:59 PM)
Well that is not good. But I understand why those decisions were made, I think.

 

I guess my take is, the best way to address this is to legislate election reform so that businesses and citizens are on an even playing field - but take money out of the equation entirely. If a max contribution amount per person and per business at some flat rate won't work for that legally, then the only alternative is to go fully publically financed. This is one of those cases where I am 100% OK with the government taxing more - funding elections. Make people achieve bar levels by signatures and other non-financial methods to get on ballots, do layered run-offs if necessary, etc.

For even more fun, a fully public financed campaign could be plausible, but you also couldn't ban anyone from going the other way, just like candidates nowadays who are well funded will drop out of the partially-public financed system during the actual election. Thus, if Goldman Sachs wanted to run a candidate for an office, even in a publicly financed system, they could spend as much as they wanted on that race. So imagine...Henry Paulson versus some candidate...Paulson funded by Goldman Sachs...Using the bailout money they convinced the government to give them to pay for that candidate.

 

The only way to legitimately do anything about that would be to amend the constitution to say that money does not equal speech and corporations do not equal people.

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