Solution To Federal Campaign Financing
Jan 25th, 2010 | 15 responses
The Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited funds in elections may have opened the door finally to revamp our campaign financing laws.
President Barack Obama in his weekly Saturday address said he will be working with Congress to forge a “forceful bipartisan” counterattack in what amounted to a rare but firm rebuke of the court’s decision.
“We have begun that work, and it will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done,” Obama said, adding “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest.”
It is no secret that the campaign financing rules enacted by McCain-Feingold and many of its predecessors, some of which were overturned in the court ruling, have not been effective. Smart lawyers always find loopholes and siphon money wherever they please.
Perhaps the approach to curb corruption has been misplaced.
Perhaps a better way is to allow unfettered contributions by individual, corporate and all special interest groups including lobbyists for not only issue ads but also directly to the candidates themselves. Let’s call them donors since the court has decreed they are all one and the same.
The control mechanism would be complete transparency rigidly enforced. The framework for this model already exists in many financial disclosure laws. But they require some tweaking.
For example, donors who contribute less than $1,000 per calendar year for federal political purposes need not be reported. Those who contribute as well as those who receive more than $1,000 must file with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.
A donor tax of 0.5% would be assessed on contributions from $1,000 to $10,000. A graduated tax beginning with 5% on $10,000 to a maximum of 25% for $1 million or greater would be levied.
The tax would be deposited in a special fund to help cities, counties, special districts and states defray up to 100% of the cost of federal elections. Such a fund already exists with The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (H.R. 3295). The law authorized the appropriation of approximately $3.9 billion to the states to replace punch card and lever voting machines, clean up voter rolls, and improve the administration of elections nationally.
The constitutionality of such a donor tax most certainly would be challenged. A non-legal argument is quite simple. It would equal the playing field between those who cannot afford to contribute and those who can. No one can claim money doesn’t influence elections.
The late Jesse Unruh, Speaker of the California state assembly, said it correctly: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”
The anti-tax advocates will admonish me as a bloody liberal. My defense is that if money equals influence than those with influence should pay a greater share of the election process.
Under this law, disclosures by both the donors and recipients can be cross-checked by the FEC as well as watchdog groups. The names must be listed on the major donors and recipients web site pages.
For media political ads, groups would be required to disclose the names of donors kicking in at least 10% of the organization’s total budget for the ad campaign at the time the ads are aired. Television and radio ads would require a voice-over naming the donors meeting that 10% requirement.
People are accustomed to this practice required by the Federal Drug Administration to announce side effects of medicines.
Donors of in-kind services also must report if the value exceeds $1,000 for that function. For example, if a union provides volunteers to man phone banks and transport voters to polls, that service must be reported if the volunteer is paid by his union, employer or any outside source. If not paid, it goes unreported.
Harsh penalties for those convicted of violating the disclosure law would be at the discretion of the judge following these parameters: Automatic jail time ranging from 15 to 45 days, paying federal court costs and per diem prison costs. People convicted of white collar crimes are not comfortable with the prospects of incarceration.
That in itself would compel voluntary compliance, especially with the IRS looking over their shoulders.
As for the millions of citizens who contribute less than $1,000 in a calendar year. The Obama campaign beginning in 2007 tapped these people brilliantly through the use of the Internet and raised hundreds of millions of dollars as a result. The practice of bundling these donations drew criticism from his opponents.
Under this disclosure law, a citizen’s 1040 income tax form would include a line item reporting any money donated to a federal election campaign.
Bundling still would be legal but the donor name, address, occupation, telephone and email would be kept on file by the receiving group, the FEC and IRS. On political ads, only their total number would be reported as designated contributors of less than $1,000.
Such a federal law could be used as a model for cities, counties, special districts and states to follow.
Personally, I am not convinced as some critics fear that corporations will flood the election process with truckloads of money to influence campaigns. The disclosures will turn the spotlight on them in which their buying public will read into it whatever they care to believe.
It’s keeping them honest.
15 Responses to “Solution To Federal Campaign Financing”
It is no secret that the campaign financing rules enacted by McCain-Feingold and many of its predecessors, some of which were overturned in the court ruling, have not been effective. Smart lawyers always find loopholes and siphon money wherever they please.
Perhaps the approach to curb corruption has been misplaced.
Perhaps a better way is to allow unfettered contributions by individual, corporate and all special interest groups including lobbyists for not only issue ads but also directly to the candidates themselves. Let’s call them donors since the court has decreed they are all one and the same.
The control mechanism would be complete transparency rigidly enforced. The framework for this model already exists in many financial disclosure laws. But they require some tweaking”
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No, SCOTUS had the big cajones to try to steal our democracy away, no matter what cloak of “freedom” they tried to shroud this act of pure treason and malignancy under..
So the remedy for big-cajoned audacity is big-cajoned countermaneuvers to show would-be usurpers that there is a BIG penalty to pay for attempting to strip our citizens of the ability to govern themselves. That's the same as defecating on the Constitution and then burning it when you're done. The punishment should fit the crime…
There is no way for us to know which member of “body-corporation” is a real or naturalized citizen and which are foreigners with our best interests in mind or those with our worst interests in mind. Or those who are proxies for foreigners with our worst interest in mind.. Ergo the potential for terrorist infiltration into our very political system is a door now burst wide open…a freeforall.
In this time of war and on the heels of Bin Laden's latest announcement to “do anything” he can to topple us, our Commander In Chief needs to close this loophole, this backdoor to our destruction. We cannot have Bin Laden's influence propel any one person into office. Or any other foreign interest who doesn't have our good and decent democracy in mind..
now even bin ladin can buy politicians………….the one thing this does is assure that ALL politicians are corporate whores……no other way to get elected
I like it.
Here was a clone-retort to what I offered as the remedy for the SCOTUS ruling just as alaskan1st warned;
“he [Bin Laden/Al qaida] doesnt need to spend anything, the media are happy to deliver any message he cares to send. you up for censoring the media because thats what you are calling for”
*****
My response:
“Well, I understand your objections to censorship of free speech. Just as you then must surely understand my objections to Bushco. circumventing my 4th Amendment rights when they were wiretapping private citizens last administration under the rationale that it was necessary for national security…
Are you saying it's OK for one administration to circumvent constitutional rights under the rationale of keeping us safe in time of war but not for another to do so? That would be hypocritical of you. The 9th Amendment tells us that no one Amendment is more important than another either fundamentally or by the order of its ennumeration.
I'm sure Congress can put language into their decree empowering the Executive branch to act that still allows for reasonable free speech within media while banning any undue influence that might allow terrorists like Bin Laden to access our political system via proxies. After all, the FCC bans and sets limits on profanity and rebellious “free speech” as it is. Let the companies who want to sway the public go to town hall meetings and supermarkets and stand on stumps. They're still free to speak freely there as long as they don't incite riots like Palin tried to do during the 2008 campaign. Remember the rally where she presided smiling over the clearly audible “KILL HIM!” from the crowd to her mention of candidate Barack Obama? I do. A friend saved it on TIVO. Might come in handy some day..”
1. Unconstitutional infringement of speech is unconstitutional, as it should be. Grow up, kids.
2. I've already noted that government financing of campaigns (whose?), or interference with lefty groups like the PIRGs, obviously is not the “solution.”
3. How interesting, but not surprising, that state and local government campaigns and governments are ignored here.
Well, DLS, I don't equate money with speech. I don't think that is what the founders intended, and I think it is a wrongly decided perversion of our constitution. Corporations are not citizens, and they have no place in a document guaranteeing the rights of citizens. I think the same should be the case in local and state government elections, though those elections are often governed by state and local laws. I am personally disgusted by this ruling.
“Corporations are not citizens, and they have no place in a document guaranteeing the rights of citizens”
Corporations are typically groups of citizens, just like political parties and groups like Greenpeace, all of whom are no different in any way than corporations if you want to exclude everyone and everything but lone individuals, natural persons, from politics. In which case, that would put you and similar extremists (overreacting to the ruling and hating corporations abnormally) in a position demanding to be more atomistic than “purist” libertarians.
The difference here is coercion. People work for corporations because they need to pay their bills, not because they want to make a political statement or work on a political issue. In fact, it isn't that unusual for the executives of corporations to actively work against the best interests of their employees. This isn't just a problem with corporations. It isn't that unusual for unions to meddle in issues that have no relationship to labor issues, either. That, again, is an example of the fruit of peoples labor or their dues being used for purposes that run contrary to the expressed interests of those people. That is a world apart from people joining together in common cause to influence a political issue. This ruling gives the entity more power than the people that make up that entity. It dillutes the rights of some individuals, while giving extra rights to others. It is wrong.
Your Item 3 interests me. Does SCOTUS's FEC ruling overturn state and local finance laws as applied to the plaintiff's case? — Jer
“Does SCOTUS's FEC ruling overturn state and local finance laws as applied to the plaintiff's case?”
That's a good question. Note the essence of the ruling:
“Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity.”
“No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”
We often are confronted with misuse by lefties of the Fourteenth Amendment in the expression of radical egalitarianism, income redistribution, etc. (“Equal” applied to everything, including income and wealth, outcomes of events rather than opportunity, and so on.)
A valid use of the Fourteenth Amendment, on the other hand, would be to invalidate state or local laws that infringe on any political speech, since this right cannot be abridged by the states.
Jer,
“Does SCOTUS's FEC ruling overturn state and local finance laws”
More here (see below). Yes, state governments already are wondering.
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?con…
“This ruling gives the entity more power than the people that make up that entity. It dillutes the rights of some individuals, while giving extra rights to others.”
This ruling doesn't give anybody anything. (The fact is, it removes the wrongful taking of rights from some but not from others.) That some with more money can be thought of having more power than others is true in the real world, but not limited only to political speech, and certainly doesn't justify an unconstitutional wrong to correct an imperfection in this world. That power of money is not absolute, either.
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The fact is, it removes the wrongful taking of rights from some but not from others
That is BS. No one has had their right removed to contribute to campaigns and to use their money to influence political speech AS individual citizens. NO ONE. No one has had their rights removed to join POLITICAL organizations to lobby in common cause. What this ruling allows is people to contribute up to the limit as private citizens, and then contribute up to the limit as FAKE citizens using the fruits of other people's labor, in some cases, to work against other members of that organizations best interests. Those people have no power to stop them from the misappropriation of their resources. This ruling does give the heads of unions and corporation EXTRA speech, because they do not have the same limits on political speech that private citizens do. It also saves these bosses the trouble of having to bother to educate the little people (aka their members or employees) about how a given set of laws will effect their jobs. Educating people who are affected by polical processes and encouraging them to donate, coalition, or vote in their best interests AS PRIVATE CITIZENS is the proper and constitutional way that a corporation or union can influence the political debate. Instead, the supreme court has made a horrible decision that undermines the intent of the founders. I think it delights you, however, that the 'right' kind of people will have more power to influence elections.
“> The fact is, it removes the wrongful taking of rights from some but not from others
That is BS.”
What I wrote is absolutely correct. It's regrettable if you're unable or unwilling to face the truth.