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Campaign finance and the need for serious reform

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WFFaithful

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Deacon923 said:
Campaign finance probably deserves its own thread, but for now this thread will suffice. This piece is about how Scott Walker raised millions in dark money with no disclosure, then used his office to give big favors back to the secret donors, and then the 4 conservative justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court who also benefited from millions in spending by those same dark money sources ruled that not only is all this perfectly legal in Wisconsin, it's constitutionally protected! http://billmoyers.com/story/confronting-citizens-united/ I mean this is some straight up Banana Republic shit. Brazil's president is getting impeached for less than this.
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...
 
I'm not sure most Americans truly realize the extent to which politics is big business and how many people make a living off of it in numerous ways.
 
But electability though. Electability.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
politics has always been big business and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. bernie sanders ain't gonna change that, sorry.
 
I don't think anyone is pretending otherwise, I think (some) people want to reel it in as much as possible
 
I think if one candidate ran SOLELY on campaign finance and serious reform he would have a good chance to win. Sadly we will never see that.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I think if one candidate ran SOLELY on campaign finance and serious reform he would have a good chance to win. Sadly we will never see that.
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didn't that Lessig dude basically do that?

EQUAL RIGHT TO VOTE

All citizens deserve equal access to the ballot.

The Citizen Equality Act will guarantee the equal freedom to vote by passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 and the Voter Empowerment Act of 2015. In addition, we will enact automatic voter registration and turn election day into a national holiday.


EQUAL REPRESENTATION

All citizens deserve equal representation in Congress.

The Citizen Equality Act will give each voter as close to equal political influence as possible by redrawing districts and restructuring election systems. It will use FairVote’s “Ranked Choice Voting Act” to end political gerrymandering and create multi-member districts with ranked-choice voting for Congress.


CITIZEN FUNDED ELECTIONS

All citizens deserve an equal ability to choose our leaders.

The Citizen Equality Act will end pay-to-play politics by changing the way we fund campaigns by taking the best of Rep. Sarbanes’ Government by the People Act, and Represent.US’s “American Anti-Corruption Act.” That hybrid would give every voter a voucher to contribute to fund congressional and presidential campaigns; it would provide matching funds for small-dollar contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns. And it would add effective new limits to restrict the revolving door between government service and work as a lobbyist.
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What's ironic is Common Cause, the leaders in wanting campaign finance reform, is an absolutely bi-partisan group. They have had many Republican and Democtrats as leaders.

I think it was determined that something in the $8-12/tax return range would fully fund every candidate for Congress and the presidency.

The biggest problem today would be enforcing internet actions. You could pull licenses from broadcast stations for breaking the rules, but webcasts are nearly impossible to regulate.
 
Bernie and Trump are really the only candidates in this election that have some credibility. Both have flaws (Trump has used the system for decades for instance), but both have made some sort of effort this election cycle to play more by the rules. Trump is going to start courting the big money at this point because he knows he can't beat Hillary with a grass roots campaign, but up to this point his campaign has been about as good as one could hope for regarding campaign financing. I still despise who he is as a candidate, but if I am honest with myself he has made efforts. I understand it is a part of his schtick, but even it is, he stuck to his guns throughout the REpublican primary, when it would have been much easier to accept some major checks.
 
Wrangor said:
Bernie and Trump are really the only candidates in this election that have some credibility. Both have flaws (Trump has used the system for decades for instance), but both have made some sort of effort this election cycle to play more by the rules. Trump is going to start courting the big money at this point because he knows he can't beat Hillary with a grass roots campaign, but up to this point his campaign has been about as good as one could hope for regarding campaign financing. I still despise who he is as a candidate, but if I am honest with myself he has made efforts. I understand it is a part of his schtick, but even it is, he stuck to his guns throughout the REpublican primary, when it would have been much easier to accept some major checks.
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Yep, he has stuck to his racist, bigoted, mysoginstic guns. He still talks about "the wall" every time he can. That's good as well as un-American. He still wants to ban Muslims for being Muslims. How would you react if said he was going to ban all Christians entering the country?

He's still making gross statements about women.

He's still lying about bringing jobs back to America while hacing his products made in China and using foreign workers at Mar-A -Lago.
 
RJKarl said:
Yep, he has stuck to his racist, bigoted, mysoginstic guns. He still talks about "the wall" every time he can. That's good as well as un-American. He still wants to ban Muslims for being Muslims. How would you react if said he was going to ban all Christians entering the country?

He's still making gross statements about women.

He's still lying about bringing jobs back to America while hacing his products made in China and using foreign workers at Mar-A -Lago.
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This has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of Wrangor's post or of this thread
 
Wrangor said:
Bernie and Trump are really the only candidates in this election that have some credibility. Both have flaws (Trump has used the system for decades for instance), but both have made some sort of effort this election cycle to play more by the rules. Trump is going to start courting the big money at this point because he knows he can't beat Hillary with a grass roots campaign, but up to this point his campaign has been about as good as one could hope for regarding campaign financing. I still despise who he is as a candidate, but if I am honest with myself he has made efforts. I understand it is a part of his schtick, but even it is, he stuck to his guns throughout the REpublican primary, when it would have been much easier to accept some major checks.
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Several analysts believe Trump has greatly overstated his wealth ($2.5B vs $10B). If he truly is worth $10B and makes $550M, why would/should anyone fund him other than very specific special interest access? Trump talks a great game, but he's been accepting small donations all along. Adelson's not forking over $100M without expectations/promises of/from Trump.

Romney was "only" worth $250M and he had no qualms accepting big donations from the get go. Trying to get on both sides of an issue and not knowing when to stop talking hurt Trump again.
 
because why the fuck would you pay for something when someone else will do it for you?
 
PhDeac said:
I'm not sure most Americans truly realize the extent to which politics is big business and how many people make a living off of it in numerous ways.
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I think most Americans don't give a shit about politics because of this very issue. Most people (correctly) feel completely powerless anyway, and then a ruling like Citizens United comes along and transforms a system that was broken into one that's broken AND supremely corrupt. That single ruling will have ramifications for decades unless something is done about it - but what can be done?
 
Trumps brand of campaign finance reform is to use shock value to get free TV and media exposure. Not sure that is a credible way of reforming our system, but what the hell do I know, you people seem to like it.
 
Trump's big event fundraising model may be his only option in the West. Mozilla's CEO got pushed out for contributing to Prop 8. Nobody in LA, Silicon Valley, or Seattle wants to host a fundraiser at their house, piss off their neighbors, and have pickets outside their office after the event. Instead have people show up at a hotel or conference center and hope idiots riots outside the event.
 
CantStandYa said:
I think most Americans don't give a shit about politics because of this very issue. Most people (correctly) feel completely powerless anyway, and then a ruling like Citizens United comes along and transforms a system that was broken into one that's broken AND supremely corrupt. That single ruling will have ramifications for decades unless something is done about it - but what can be done?
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Yes and on thread here, what can be done? Anybody?
 
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