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What can we all do?

myDeaconmyhand said:
12th district is 45% black and 89% urban and is shaped like a snake, effectively cutting out the "urban" city centers from the surrounding rural county mass districts which are <10% black and <15% urban. That's completely above board and non-racial because the supreme court hasn't declared it unconstitutional. Give me a fucking break.
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But they have. Twice, in fact. When Dems drew it when it was much, much worse. You act like Pubs originally drew that District. Read the thread. The current State is an improvement upon the first two attempts.
 
Term limits for SCOTUS is the worst idea.

If Senators were appointed, McCrory would at least send some hot twenty something with an English degree, so there's that.

If anything, this debacle may have softened me on career politicians a little. We need less Ted Cruz's and more Lindsey Graham's in Washington.
 
jhmd2000 said:
But they have. Twice, in fact. When Dems drew it when it was much, much worse. You act like Pubs originally drew that District. Read the thread. The current State is an improvement upon the first two attempts.
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i think it is possible to agree that (a) the 12th is a barely-permissible obvious racial gerrymander, which is accepted by both parties because it guarantees a Democrat in that seat and keeps Democrat voters out of the surrounding more conservative districts, thus guarantying that large parts of liberal Greensboro and Charlotte will be represented by a guy elected by the rural counties surrounding them; and (b) the 2010 gerrymander of all the other districts resulted in a very significant swing of three seats to the GOP as shown by WFFaithful's math.

I am not sure how it is that (a) refutes or justifies (b) or vice versa.
 
RJKarl said:
Who's in charge? the batshit crazy people that you support are the problem.

As to "competition for lobbying jobs". it's not just that. companies would directly buy bills and contracts with big payday jobs.

The best thing we could is publicly finance all campaigns. Take all the outside money out of them.

As to not having "professional politicians". The only reason our economy didn't tank tonight is those "professional politicians" worked out a deal. Your TP and RW extremist heroes were perfectly happy with driving us over a cliff.
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Which issues does this mitigate? And how does it mitigate them?
 
beatrix said:
Which issues does this mitigate? And how does it mitigate them?
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1. You don't have to be wealthy or well connected to run
2. Once elected, you aren't beholden to special interests who bankrolled your campaign
3. Elected officials aren't always fundraising
4. No anonymous PAC money running campaign ads
5. Issues become more important than money

Off the top of my head
 
WFFaithful said:
1. You don't have to be wealthy or well connected to run
2. Once elected, you aren't beholden to special interests who bankrolled your campaign
3. Elected officials aren't always fundraising
4. No anonymous PAC money running campaign ads
5. Issues become more important than money

Off the top of my head
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Is there a cutoff at which point certain candidates are deemed unserious, or is the taxpayer going to be stuck footing the bill of every yahoo who thinks he/she should be in Congress?
 
beatrix said:
Which issues does this mitigate? And how does it mitigate them?
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It mitigates the Koch brothers, David Geffen or others donating millions to a candidate or candidates.

It mitigates having to raise money constantly rather than governing.

It mitigates interest groups having big inputs into a range of issues.

It mitigates having to be wealthy to run.

It gives power back to each voter.
 
TR1982 said:
Is there a cutoff at which point certain candidates are deemed unserious, or is the taxpayer going to be stuck footing the bill of every yahoo who thinks he/she should be in Congress?
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Petitions.
 
RJKarl said:
It mitigates the Koch brothers, David Geffen or others donating millions to a candidate or candidates.

It mitigates having to raise money constantly rather than governing.

It mitigates interest groups having big inputs into a range of issues.

It mitigates having to be wealthy to run.

It gives power back to each voter.
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Mechanically, how does this work? Can the groups you listed still communicate with the electorate?
 
No one other than the candidate would be allowed to advertise during the campaign. If the NRA or the Sierra Club would offer people or mailing or any other service, they would have to be paid. Those costs would be deducted from the amount the candidate would have to spend.

If they placed an ad on their websites, the rack rate for the space would be deducted from the budget.
 
Here's an article on how the Germans do it. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-germany-s-politics-are-much-saner-cheaper-and-nicer-than-ours/280081/ They are much more comfortable with certain restrictions on free speech than we are, so they apparently have laws restricting campaign advertising to just six weeks. Each party is allowed one commercial, and it airs on TV a number of times proportional to how well you did in the last election. Obviously when you take wide-open media blitzing out of the game, everything becomes a lot cheaper, less adversarial (no issue ads or attack ads) and obviously shorter. The First Amendment is working against us if we wanted to do anything like this, especially with the current Supreme Court that is going to open up political speech and money as wide as it can.

Second the structure is different. There are also no primaries - you have to get on a party list. There are more parties, so if you are a crazy left- or right-winger who can't get on the list in one of the major parties you can get on a list with the crazies. Top few vote-getters get proportional representation. The lack of primaries shortens the electioneering season and I imagine protects incumbents to some degree. I'm not sure how the party lists are developed.
 
Only our crazy Supreme Court and RWers thinks PAID speech (advertising) is the same thing as free speech and can't be regulated.

If Tom Paine and Ben Franklin considered political advertising the same as speaking openly and freely, it would have been included. They absolutely understood paid advertising.
 
RJKarl said:
No one other than the candidate would be allowed to advertise during the campaign. If the NRA or the Sierra Club would offer people or mailing or any other service, they would have to be paid. Those costs would be deducted from the amount the candidate would have to spend.

If they placed an ad on their websites, the rack rate for the space would be deducted from the budget.
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Would these restrictions on speech apply to groups like the SEIU? ETA: I ask because I didn't quite get your comment on te NRA / Sierra Club.
 
EVERYONE...whatever ANY group spends would be deducted from the proscribed budgets.
 
WFFaithful said:
1. You don't have to be wealthy or well connected to run
2. Once elected, you aren't beholden to special interests who bankrolled your campaign
3. Elected officials aren't always fundraising
4. No anonymous PAC money running campaign ads
5. Issues become more important than money

Off the top of my head
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beatrix, why did you respond to rjkarl and engage with him instead of responding to WFFaithful's post? Just curious.
 
RJKarl said:
EVERYONE...whatever ANY group spends would be deducted from the proscribed budgets.
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Last questions (I think...) - does this only apply to communications / work / mailing / services, etc. in direct support of the candidate? Or does it also apply to 'issues' communications (ACA, Pro-Choice / Pro-Life, etc.). And if it also applies to the 'issues' communications, does it extend to the Opinion pages (NY Times, WSJ, the Post, etc.)?
 
It can't apply to a newspaper picking a candidate.

It absolutely applies to "issue ads" from all sides.
 
Beatrix, PHD wants to isolate me.

You and I are having a very reasonable and reasoned discussion. It pisses him off no end.
 
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