2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumare you (a) PRO Citizens United, (b) ashamed to admit it, or (c)
are you a Bernie Sanders supporter?
Metric System
(6,048 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts).
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)May we please change the menu to something palatable?
Gwhittey
(1,377 posts)I think all Citizens should be United
MadBadger
(24,089 posts)Tanuki
(14,920 posts)litlbilly
(2,227 posts)litlbilly
(2,227 posts)donor base might be holding on to their money a little tighter.
panader0
(25,816 posts)We had a general license and made a few big donations: Turkeys to employees at Xmas
and a beautiful dress for an employee's daughter's quinceanera.
do I need the sarcasm thing?
DURHAM D
(32,611 posts)Who was being attacked?
Pretty sure the answer is NO.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)a filmmaker that he can't release his film because an election is happening soon.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)I think that Citizen's United was 100% correct as a matter of constitutional law: restrictions on political campaigning are precisely the thing the 1st amendment was put in place to prevent.
I also think most DUers are far, far too blase about the costs of overturning it.
But it's also the case that it means that the political support of a rich person is worth immeasurably more than the political support of a poor person, and hence that government is even more likely to disproportionately represent their views and interests.
And I think that that means that - even though it would be a massive, appalling infringement of freedom of speech - a constitutional amendment to reverse it might well be the lesser evil.
strategery blunder
(4,225 posts)And that was Justice Kennedy's sweeping proclamation that unlimited campaign contributions cannot create the quid pro quo and appearance of corruption that campaign finance restrictions had been intended to prevent.
That was, to be blunt, an assertion unsupported by evidence, and the decision rests so heavily upon that assertion for its logical validity (recognizing here that the Supreme Court is allowed to effectively pull legal validity out of its ass).
Now, the wealthy are permitted to openly bribe politicians under the guise of "campaign contributions" and related super PACS, and are nigh untouchable. It is nearly impossible to prosecute corruption anymore, unless the politicians and purchasers thereof involved are EXCEEDINGLY stupid and self-incriminating.
Even the First Amendment is not absolute; perhaps at the time the decision was made the campaign finance laws at question could not pass the applicable standard of strict scrutiny. But if the SCOTUS had an opportunity to revisit the decision, and looked objectively at how much easier it has become for corruption to control the political process (especially should Bernie lose the nomination), some kinds of restrictions to tamp down brazen buying of legislative favors and allow the People to not have their voice suffocated by lobbyist money might be able to pass strict scrutiny now.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)than the support of an unknown or inarticulate person. (For that matter Bono's and others' activism is based on that idea.) What makes money different?
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)or are you c) a Clinton supporter?