McCutcheon: Unlimited Bribery

by jval • 13 years ago

51 15 13 years ago

shitlord• 13 years ago

Haha, this is hilarious, but also kind of a sad reminder of the world we live in.

rob05c2• 13 years ago

SCOTUS takes their existing prejudices and filters them through the Constitution like a sieve, refusing to consider consequences in a mad form of Rule Deontology.

I don't care what the Constitution says. The constitutional provisions for petitioning and free speech have turned into bribery. Bribery is wrong. If the Constitution says otherwise, the Constitution is wrong.

Amadou• 13 years ago

I really like Lawrence Lessig's proposal. It is a "hack" of the Citizen's United ruling along the lines of how copyleft is a hack of copyright law.

In essence, he proposes that all campaign donations go into a "black box" and are secretly reversible. So you can write a check to your politician's PAC, hand it directly to him but he must deposit the funds into the black box. Then you can secretly get some or all of your money back - the politician can't tell who reneged on their donation.

Lessig's approach does not in any way restrict how much you can give to a politician - there is no "censorship" in mandating that political donations go into a black box - the campaign can still see that you made the donation - they still "hear" your speech. Nor are you forced to keep it a secret if you reneg, you are free to tell the politician you took back your money if you really want him to know that.

Reportedly something like the above was tried on a small scale, an election for Miami or south Florida, judges. Apparently the result was that all of the campaigns netted exactly zero dollars in donations when all was said and done.

hosay123• 13 years ago

What's sad is for a moment I thought this really might be some kind of Kickstarter for political influence

rob05c2• 13 years ago

A great idea, but the biggest kickstarters have only raised a small fraction of what the wealthy and corporations spend on lobbying and elections.

Unfortunately, the money simply isn't there.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance

http://graphics.latimes.com/2012-election-superpac-spending/

http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/most-funded

DuskStar• 13 years ago

My first thought was "Man, this would have made a nice hackathon project..." And now that I know it's not actually real, I'm wondering how hard it would be to set up a mobile app that allowed credit card donations to various political groups/campaigns, with included position list and search function... (but obviously not the "text a law" or similar functionality)

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

"text a law"

While trying to be a parody, the page basically describes ALEC.

tokenizer• 13 years ago

If only this was real... Seriously, 123,000$ could leverage you much from contracts, tax relief, or military might. People may think this is bad, but usually with the government, bribes take a long time, and are usually geared towards everyone, so while cheap, are time sinks. This would solve my problems with bribing.

wintersFright• 13 years ago

This is the backstory http://www.businessinsider.com.au/whats-at-stake-in-mccutche...

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear a campaign finance case that could do away with the contribution limits that limit rich people’s influence over politics.Currently, federal law only lets individuals give $2,600 to any one candidate during a single election.

On top of that limit, people can only give $123,000 to candidates, political action committees, and parties over a two-year period.

jjoonathan2• 13 years ago

Great concept, great execution. A lovely parody! Definitely earned my clickthrough.

Here are the details of the law they are pushing for: http://anticorruptionact.org/

I'm very happy to know that campaign finance is getting this sort of attention. I've always been incredulous that in our system, bribery isn't just legal, it's literally mandatory -- you can't get elected if you're too clean to accept shady campaign contributions.

I love the $100 tax-rebate-for-campaign-contributions idea. I have long thought that we needed to publicly fund campaigns but despaired at the power of entrenched interests: existing campaign finance reform laws came with loopholes that ultimately revealed them as PR stunts rather than legitimate efforts to curb bribery. The tax rebate is exciting because it sneaks a backdoor into what would appear to be another bogus reform law.

"Naming and shaming" lobbyists, muzzling the latest contribution-funneling-device-du-jour, and calling for more regular rule enforcement aren't strategies that strike me as particularly promising, since they simply call for more of what we're already doing (if x gets us nothing, no reason to expect 2x will get us more). But they serve as the perfect vehicle to deliver #7, the tax rebate, which silently activates once public interest reaches a certain threshold (enough to outspend current election financiers) and gives the bill teeth. A brilliant design!

I really hope this works. I doubt it will, but I really, really want to be wrong.

ewoodrich• 13 years ago

Oregon has a 50 dollar (or $100 for married filers) tax credit for direct campaign contributions to political candidates or certain classes of organizations (I tend to just donate to a candidate though, for confidence/simplicity.)

It's definitely incentivized me to redirect this portion of my Oregon taxes to a candidate (on local/state/national level) I support.

EDIT: link with info.

http://www.oregonfamilycouncil.org/sites/default/files/under...

jjoonathan2• 13 years ago

Thanks for linking, I hadn't heard of this program before. It's even better that this sort of plan has precedent inside the US!

I'm fairly certain no other form of campaign finance can work. You can require lobbyists and politicians to jump through higher and higher hoops but at the end of the day politicians will still need to fund their campaigns, most people still won't want to spend their money on politics, and lobbyists will still be willing to do what is necessary to net a few 100-1000x ROI wins for their employers. The hoops will be jumped and the asymmetric bribery will continue until regular people get in on the game, and the only way to get regular people in on the game is to pay them to do so since, unlike their wealthier counterparts, they can't count on the occasional 100-1000x ROI win to incentivize their donations.

jmduke• 13 years ago

This is the type of clever advertisement that won't change the opinion of anyone, because its target audience is already on its side.

(Also, and I'm saying this as a nerdy Democrat, calling out the lobbying efforts of Bloomberg, Koch, et al is easier but significantly less educational than, say, the lobbying efforts of Google and Amazon.)

hawkharris• 13 years ago

For a long time, I assumed that lobbyists pressured legislators to take certain positions in exchange for money or other forms of influence.

After watching a few documentaries about campaign finance reform, I realized this is only partially true. In reality, it's just as common for legislators to solicit money from lobbyists.

In one case I heard of a policymaker leaving a voicemail for a corporate lobbyist that went something along the lines of, "I hear you represent [x liquor company]. I sit on a committee charged with reviewing alcohol-related ads. I was just wondering why I haven't received any contributions from you."

gojomo• 13 years ago

Apparently in Sweden, political donations to the parties are unlimited and anonymous. That must be why Sweden is well-known the world over as a brutal hypercapitalist kleptocratic dystopia. Right?

McCutcheon: Unlimited Bribery

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