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Subject: SCOTUS pokes a big hole in campaign finance laws
Posted by: Perm Dude
- [5510572522] Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:19
SCOTUS rules that campaign finance laws are a violation of free speech rights when applied to corporations. They overturned two of their own rulings in doing so.
Wish I had time right now to drill down into this issue again. Big news. My top-of-the-head response is:
-it won't be long before individuals are excepted for the same reasons, thereby trashing campaign finance laws (for good or ill).
-the Administration will propose to disallow corporate political spending from being tax deductible.
More to come, I'm sure. |
| 1 | Razor
ID: 57854118
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:21
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I haven't thought about this case since it was first brought up and haven't read through any articles today, but my first thought is since when do corporations enjoy the same civil protections that citizens do?
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| 2 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:26
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You beat me to this thread by all of five minutes.
It's worse than that, Razor, now corporations enjoy MORE protections in this area that citizens do. We've now managed to get to the exact opposite of where we should be, which is:
Individuals, with proper disclosure, should be able to spend whatever the hell they want.
Corporations should be able to do nothing, or very close to nothing. (If you let the corporations do it, you're basically endorsing COMMUNISM!!!!!!!! because you're forcing people to spend money on candidates they don't want).
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| 3 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:28
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Also, I can't wait to hear the outraged cries of judicial activism from the right-wingers on this one.
Oh, wait, it benefits their corporate constituents. Never mind.
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| 4 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:29
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Link to the decision, if you really like actually reading through those things
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| 5 | Boldwin
ID: 26451820
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:29
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Landmark stuff. You can count the number of times they reverse themselves on one hand, I'd wager. On top of which they followed the constitution, which is not to be taken for granted anymore.
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| 6 | Boldwin
ID: 26451820
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:34
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Dems should be cheering btw, not just Reps. This gives the party aparatus control of their party back and strips it away from Soros. I wonder how many Dems will get that?
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| 7 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:36
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Washington Post blogger EJ Dionne's comment
(bolded emphasis mine)
The Supreme Court's 5-to-4 ruling today to open our political system to unlimited sums of corporate money is a reckless and dangerous piece of judicial activism. It will create havoc in our political system and greatly undermine the legitimacy of the Court that Chief Justice John Roberts leads. I argued last Septmeber that if Roberts led a ruling in this direction, he would be directly contradicting his promises at his confirmation hearings to judicial modesty. Remember Roberts saying judges were like umpires calling the balls and strikes? In this case, he and his colleagues canceled the game altogether and decided on their own what the final score would be. Substantively, supporters of this decision say it is about free speech. It's not. Corporations are not individuals, as Congress recognized when it first limited the role of corporate money in politics back in 1907. Corporations are created by law, and they should not be treated the same as we treat live human beings. "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote said in his dissent. He's right. Congress should try to as quickly as possible to limit the damage this ruling does to our political system
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| 8 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:41
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"This gives the party aparatus control of their party back and strips it away from Soros. "
I don't see how you get to this. It gives the corporations more control, not the parties. If anything the parties have even less control than before.
At least if they require disclosure (I'm pretty sure that's still OK), we can actually see the first House or Representatives member wearing corporate sponsorship directly on their suits, like a Wednesday night softball league, so we'll get some comedy value from that.
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| 9 | Tree, on lunch
ID: 140472012
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:50
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On top of which they followed the constitution, which is not to be taken for granted anymore.
I suppose that part is refreshing, after Bush and anyone affliated with it basically acted like the document didn't exist between 2000 and 2008.
As for this particular decision, i'll have to read more, but on the surface, it seems like a really questionable one.
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| 10 | Boldwin
ID: 26451820
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 13:59
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Schumer calls for hearings on 'un-American' court decision. One of the most dangerous men in America. No respect for the checks and balances there.
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| 11 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 14:09
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Simultaneously with Rush, congratulations: I guess the bat-signal went out fast.
I think "un-American" is over the top, but if he wants to have hearings to find out what the impact is, in order to draft a new "constitutionally compliant" law, that's well within his rights and responsibilities under the system of checks and balances.
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| 12 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 14:11
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Really, I'm waiting for someone to make a large individual donation and take THAT one to the Supreme Court. You'd think that would be a slam-dunk given this decision.
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| 13 | Boldwin
ID: 26451820
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 14:27
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What did the McCain-Feingold Act do for George Soros? Why did he spend seven years and millions of dollars pursuing it? It now appears to have been a power play, whose purpose was to gain control of the Democratic Party.The McCain-Feingold Act barred political parties from collecting "soft money" — that is, donations which are earmarked for no particular candidate, and which are therefore exempt from federal limits on their size. Under McCain-Feingold, the parties could only accept heavily regulated "hard money" donations limited to $2,000 per donor, per candidate. This rule put the Democratic Party in peril. Republicans had long enjoyed a three-to-one advantage over Democrats in raising hard money. Consequently, Democrats depended for their survival on huge donations from unions, corporations and wealthy individuals — that is, they depended on soft money. Now Soros had cut off the Democrats’ soft-money supply. The Party seemed doomed. But Soros showed them a way out. He offered Democrats an alternate money source — one which he personally controlled. That source was the Shadow Party. The Shadow Party Journalists first started using the term "shadow party" in 2003 to describe the network of leftwing NGOs, activist Web sites, Section 527 "stealth PACs," public employee unions and radical foundations which Democrat activists used to circumvent McCain-Feingold in the 2004 campaign. Working independently of the Democratic Party, these private groups managed to raise a record $300 million in political contributions for Democrats running in 2004. The Shadow Party has gotten a fair amount of press. However, most reporters failed to describe it accurately. They characterized the Shadow Party as a loose network of private groups that arose more or less spontaneously from grassroots America. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The Shadow Party is a top-down creation. George Soros founded it, organized it and runs it to this day, through a tightly-integrated, corporate-style command structure. Soros fulfills a role in the Shadow Party comparable to that of chairman of the board, while former Clinton deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes serves as de facto CEO. Soros administers his network through a core group of seven non-profit organizations, which we named the Seven Sisters. They are, in alphabetical order: America Coming Together; America Votes; Center for American Progress; Joint Victory Campaign 2004; The Media Fund; MoveOn.org; and the Thunder Road Group. Through these Seven Sisters, Soros and his team convey money, information and marching orders down the line to a much larger network encompassing radical public employee unions, leftwing foundations and street-level activist groups. The network has emerged as a veritable shadow government, wielding the power to make or break politicians at the highest level. Regarding the Democratic Party, MoveOn PAC director and Soros operative Eli Pariser boasted, "Now it’s our party. We bought it, we own it." - Believe it or don't
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| 14 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 14:39
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(Brought to you bah the guy who's made a nice business out of tearing down anyone to the left of his 1% of the population.)
It's laughable that someone whose David Horowitz Freedom Center claims to uphold individual freedoms ("The DHFC’s mission is to defend the principles of individual freedom, the rule of law, private property, and limited government" link would be so stridently against an individual setting up a number of businesses to advance his own personal agenda.
If that isn't an individual freedom, what is?
You don't get to decide what is a good freedom and what isn't solely based on whether the person using it agrees with you or not. Unless you're a raving hypocrite like Horowitz.
But he's all in favor of Exxon Mobil or Nike or Goldman Sachs (or, presumably, ACORN! OMFGWTFBBQ!!!!111!!!1!!) spending whatever they want?
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| 15 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 14:49
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Baldwin, if you are worried about Soros then this decision should make you more worried. It is only a matter of time before the logic of this decision gets applied to individual donations as well.
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| 16 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:02
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It's also insanely easy for an individual to set up a corporation, thus eliminating the individual donation limit.
It's relatively harder for corporations to set up individuals to make large donations on their behalf, were the laws reversed. (I'm sure it could still be done, but there'd be all sorts of interesting problems that would pop up for both corporations and individuals trying that.)
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| 17 | Boldwin
ID: 26451820
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:04
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Frankly I would like the spectacle of Soros owning polititians more obvious, not cloaked and dispersed thru a dozen entities which keep changing their names. I would like every Republican who McCain has recruited and promoted for the upcoming primaries, with Soros money, to have to explain that to their constituencies what they are willing to do for Soros..
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| 18 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:10
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Stop the presses! I agree with Boldwin on something!
Disclosure can't possibly be a bad thing. As long as we're applying the same disclosure rules to everyone.
(Which is why corporate donations are such a pain in the ass--who authorizes the campaign donations on behalf of a large corporation? Did all the people who actually own part of that company agree to divest themselves of corporate money through a "donation"?)
Donations by individuals are much cleaner than donations by corporations, assuming proper disclosures. Soros (or, equally, a right-wing version of Soros) doesn't have a choice under the current patchwork of campaign laws. I'd much prefer he be able to hand out one of those golf prize checks directly to a Senator.
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| 19 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:26
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I must have misread the article but this is not the end of democracy all it seems to say is that if a corporation wants to put out 10,000 vote for fred signs it can and honestly that is way it should be.
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| 20 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:29
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It also allows a corporation to make an unlimited campaign donation, at any time. And as part of the decision it actually states that there is no impropriety, or even appearance of impropriety, in this.
You want General Motors to be able to make a $10,000,000 campaign donation to a senator right before a crucial vote on emission caps?
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| 21 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:31
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I would welcome donations to my next campaign from any corporations who think they can get their hooks in me...
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| 22 | Razor
ID: 57854118
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 15:35
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It's simple, boikin. Corporations have virtually unlimited coffers while ordinary citizens do not. Who should be influencing election funding more, citizens or corporations? How can anyone be more pro-corporation than they are pro-citizen?
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| 23 | Boldwin
ID: 26451820
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 16:00
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Mccain Feingold was so poorly conceived that they actually could have come after Dave Hall for facilitating political speech too close to an election. It was only cautious prosecutors and commissions unwilling to use their full power that was holding them back because the language was there in the bill. That is not individual friendly. Now it would seem that Mccain has backtracked and introduced an internet freedom bill to stop the FEC from censoring the internet, but considering that McCain is in Soros' pocket and considering his role in the McCain Feingold bill I am very very leery of counting on him in this area.
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| 24 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 16:01
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It also allows a corporation to make an unlimited campaign donation, at any time. as long as it goes to advertisement. this is not the same unlimited donations.
Who should be influencing election funding more, citizens or corporations?
i guess i must have missed the part where corporations are allowed to vote and citizens are not.
How can anyone be more pro-corporation than they are pro-citizen?
what you really saying is that law favors the rich citizens, because they control corporations. Corporations are not actually free thinking beings.
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| 25 | Building 7
ID: 471052128
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 16:14
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I would welcome donations to my next campaign from any corporations who think they can get their hooks in me...
I think Weyerhauser may give you a donation considering all the yard signs you had.
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| 26 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 16:16
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Got them all saved up, B7!
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| 27 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 16:18
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BTW, this ruling allows unlimited spending by unions as well.
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| 28 | Razor
ID: 57854118
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 17:38
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what you really saying is that law favors the rich citizens, because they control corporations. Corporations are not actually free thinking beings.
Corporations are their own free-thinking entities, who act on the best interests of themselves. Citizens in charge of corporations act on behalf of their own financial interests, which is tied to short-term corporate performance. Corporations and private citizens do not have the same motivations. A private citizen does not care a great deal about the thing that affect corporations, like corporate taxes, for example. However, corporate officers do have a financial incentive to ensure that the companies objectives are met, but don't confuse them with their own. Steve Balmer the private citizen is invested in Microsoft's success because he is paid by the corporation to do so. That is not the same as him advocating for advancing Microsoft's agenda independently.
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| 29 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 17:48
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Corporations are their own free-thinking entities, who act on the best interests of themselves.
interesting good to see AI has been created in corporations.
A private citizen does not care a great deal about the thing that affect corporations, like corporate taxes.
Of coarse they care if the private citizen prospers from the performance of said corporation.
However, corporate officers do have a financial incentive to ensure that the companies objectives are met, but don't confuse them with their own.
this makes no sense, do you even understand how motivation works?
i think a some else said it best:
This shaped up as a battle of the 1st Amendment vs. Real Democracy. It doesn’t surprise me that the 1st Amendment won because we don’t live in a real democracy. The government in America has long been structured to benefit those with more power over those with less. Money=power. Not a big upset here.
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| 30 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 17:53
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Citizens in charge of corporations act on behalf of their own financial interests, which is tied to short-term corporate performance.
Not always tied to short-term corporate performance. Often it's tied to stock price - which may or may not reflect short term performance.
A private citizen does not care a great deal about the thing that affect corporations, like corporate taxes, for example.
Again, too broad a generalization. A lot of private citizens care about (lowering) corporate taxes, since this could have all sorts of economic ramifications - on their investment returns, and on the economy in general.
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| 31 | Razor
ID: 571022618
Thu, Jan 21, 2010, 20:22
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You're right, that was a too broad of a generalization. A more appropriate example would be that a corporation might support obtaining a zoning permit for a certain property. Or perhaps gaining permission to dump in a river. The point is that corporate interests do not necessarily align with those of its employees, and in almost all cases, they do not.
boikin - corporate officers acting on behalf of the corporation are, in fact, the corporation.
Let's not stray from the main topic, though. I think many Americans are already, at the very least, wary of the influences of powerful lobbyists. And now we've given entities far richer than lobbies the ability to throw their weight around. Can't you see it now? Support prop 999, and I'll donate to you reelection campaign. I believe corporations should have the ability of corporations to donate to campaigns, but without limits, they'll have the ability to influence elections across the United States in significant and potentially unsavory ways. I don't want politicians to be beholden to corporate interests; I want them to be beholden to its citizens.
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| 32 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Fri, Jan 22, 2010, 09:58
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Razor, then do not vote for the person. If lobbyist have to much control do not reelect that person. If you do not like Ford puting up a billboard to reelect Joe Smith, don't vote for Joe Smith and don't buy a Ford. Where is the problem? Oh wait elections are like popularity contests who ever has the most flare wins, that is failure of democracy not of the election process.
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| 33 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Fri, Jan 22, 2010, 11:30
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Money has a huge decision in who gets on the ballot in the first place, as well as getting people elected. That's the root of the debate, I think.
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| 34 | Khahan
ID: 391582715
Fri, Jan 22, 2010, 12:02
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I'm just going to pull this out of Razors post to hilight it, because to me this is the point that this decision boils down to.
I don't want politicians to be beholden to corporate interests; I want them to be beholden to its citizens.
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| 35 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Fri, Jan 22, 2010, 13:51
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RE 33: It also helps if you are a democrat or a republican, the travesty in America is not that corporations have the ability to buy advertisement but that two parties control everything.
I don't want politicians to be beholden to corporate interests; I want them to be beholden to its citizens.
and this is not true now?
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| 36 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Fri, Jan 22, 2010, 13:59
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There are a lot of factors, but the fact remains that, no matter your party, the person with the most money will almost always win. It is, by far, the largest factor.
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| 37 | Khahan
ID: 391582715
Fri, Jan 22, 2010, 15:39
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Boikin, I think its debatable if its true now (that politicians are beholden to the public over corporations). This ruling will most likely moving to a very obvious - no - its not true.
Though I found this article interesting:
CEO's to congress
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