Tag: campaign finance regulation

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Accountability moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

Obscene Amounts

George Clooney, Campaign finance, money, big money, election, Hillary Clinton

Actor George Clooney, star of the current Coen brothers picture, Hail Caesar!, is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. When asked on NBC’s Meet the Press if the $353,000 per couple dinner he organized last Friday constituted an “obscene amount of money,” he answered, simply, “yes.”

Clooney went on to explain, “It’s ridiculous that we should have this amount of money in politics.”

He’s an advocate for campaign finance reform. He is, specifically, “against” Citizens United, though he doesn’t know that it isn’t a law but a Supreme Court case that overturned previously passed legislation that regulated what people and corporations could do to support or oppose (or mention) candidates in elections. The government, authorized by the campaign finance legislation, had suppressed a movie.

Interestingly, that movie was a polemical documentary against … Hillary Clinton.

Campaign finance regulation has been shown to help incumbents. Not unexpectedly, since the regulations are written by sitting legislators against their competitors.

But “getting money out of politics” would advantage other groups, too. For example, one consequence of limiting political donations would be to nudge challengers to (a) be rich and mostly self-​funding (like Trump is said to be), and (b) be more demagogic, leveraging the “free” publicity from major media.

More demagogues aren’t needed.

But then, the whole issue is demagogic, appealing to the knee-​jerk reaction of everyday people who are, indeed, often nonplused by how others spend their money.

As for Clooney, he’d like not to have to spend money for his candidate.

We’d all like the important things in life to just happen. But it turns out we have to work for what we want.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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George Clooney, Campaign finance, money, big money, election, Hillary Clinton

 

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First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people

The Ultimate SuperPAC

SuerPac, Marco Rubio, Biased Media, Republican Debate, First Amendment, collage, photomontage, illustration, Common Sense, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob

Sen. Marco Rubio’s charge in last week’s presidential debate, that the mainstream media functions as a SuperPAC for Democrats, was not only accurate, I wrote at Townhall, it has deeper implications.

Consider the relentless media drumbeat for restrictive campaign finance regulations.

If the Federal Elections Commission mutes, at Congress’s instruction, voices of the political parties and silences issue-​oriented advocacy groups — or such groups are prevented by the IRS from even forming in the first place — and if Democrats get their way and ban SuperPACs (other than the media), who would hold the loudest megaphone?

You guessed it.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC News, etc. — corporate behemoths all — warn of the dangers of big, bad corporations and wealthy individuals, hoping to spur regulation that hamstrings the communications of others.

The regulations somehow never involve abridging the speech of those same powerful media outlets.

Last year, every single Democrat in the Senate voted to repeal the essential constitutional guarantee of free speech, voting for Senate Joint Resolution 19, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D‑N.M.).

Had it become part of our Constitution, the First Amendment’s words “Congress shall pass no law” would have been replaced with an open-​ended invitation for politicians in Congress to “regulate” campaign spending — therefore speech — to their hearts’ content.

The amendment was so sweeping the authors felt the need to add: “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

Big Media is a major force promoting Big Government, always willing to attack advocates of a constitutionally limited government.

Except when it comes to constitutional protections for Big Media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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SuerPac, Marco Rubio, Biased Media, Republican Debate, First Amendment, collage, photomontage, illustration, Common Sense, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob

 

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Accountability Common Sense general freedom government transparency too much government

(Un)Intended System Failure

Campaign Finance Follies

The system worked. The problem? The system doesn’t work.

Last year’s successful term limits ballot initiative in Grand Rapids pitted two pro-​limits ladies with scant political experience against a united big business/​big labor opposition campaign, sporting Dr. Glenn Barkan, professor emeritus of political science at Aquinas College, as treasurer.

Just before Election Day, Professor Barkan’s group stuffed mailboxes with advertisements warning residents: “Don’t let your vote be shredded.” The mailings seemed odd in two more respects: (1) there was no mention of “term limits,” and (2) according to campaign finance reports, the professor’s committee didn’t have enough money for mass mailings.

Then, after the election, the committee filed reports acknowledging big money raised and spent prior to the election.

“It just seemed odd that they could do all the mass mailings with little money,” said term limits advocate Bonnie Burke. “We ran a totally above-​board campaign and they have these seasoned people and they weren’t sticking to the rules.”

Michigan’s Bureau of Elections concluded the professor’s committee “deprived voters from knowing the source and amount of more than half of the contributions it received.…” The group was fined $7,500.

The system worked! Reporting led to a violation, which led to a complaint, which led to an investigation, which led to the imposition of a fine.

But to what point?

As my colleague at Liberty Initiative Fund, Scott Tillman, who filed the complaint, explains, “Campaign finance laws do not stop connected insiders from gaming the system and hiding donations. Big money can ignore the laws and pay the fines if they get caught.”

Even worse, Tillman warned, “Campaign finance laws intimidate and discourage outsiders and grassroots activists from becoming active in politics.”

Is either result unintended?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Campaign Finance Follies

 

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First Amendment rights incumbents

Congress Got Your Tongue?

Yesterday’s somber thirteenth anniversary of the 9/​11 terrorist attacks was marred by a brand new and savage act of violence against the very essence of America: the First Amendment.

Who orchestrated the attack? Responsibility was not claimed by ISIL or ISIS … or North Korea’s Kim Jong-​un … or even Dennis Rodman.

The culprits? A majority of the United States Senate.

Fifty-​four Democrats voted to scratch out the words “freedom of speech” from the First Amendment to be replaced by giving Congress new power to regulate the spending, and thereby the speech, in their own re-​election campaigns.

Conflict of interest, s’il vous plaît?

The assault was only thwarted because a simple majority falls short of the two-​thirds required to send the constitutional amendment to the House.

Dubbed the “Democracy for All Amendment,” supporters and their many cheerleaders in the media pretended Senate Joint Resolution 19 would overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and get big money out of politics. Certainly an amendment could do that, explicitly, but this one would have done no such thing.

Instead, SJR 19 would have empowered our despised Congress to regulate as it pleased, with such sweeping power that the amendment’s authors felt the need to reassure supporters (such as the New York Times) by stating expressly in the amendment that, “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

Let’s hope that, for the 54 Senators who voted to repeal freedom of speech, this goes down as a suicide attack … politically.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights ideological culture

Firefox Fired

Brendan Eich resigned last week as CEO of Mozilla under pressure from gay rights activists upset because six years ago Eich had given a thousand bucks to California’s anti-​gay marriage initiative, Prop 8.

On Fox News’s Special Report, George Will dubbed the story “redundant evidence that progressives are for diversity in everything but thought,” as well as an alarming illustration of the intolerance of “sore winners.”

Whatever one thinks of the campaign to drive out Eich (and a number of prominent gay leaders have spoken out against it), those demanding Eich’s ouster were within their legal rights. Still, such a political attack wouldn’t be possible without government assistance in denying donor anonymity. That’s the major lesson Mr. Will drew from the fracas: anonymous contributions are vital:

The people advocating full disclosure of campaign contributions say, “we just want voters to be able to make an informed choice.” That’s not what they’re doing at all. They really want to enable themselves to mount punitive campaigns, to deter people, and to chill political speech.

What’s wrong with today’s vendetta politics (what Pat Buchanan calls “The New Blacklist”) is not that boycotts are immoral, but that, when made personal and coupled with ideological conflict, they lead to never-​ending feuds.

Anonymous speech and press and donations remain key to a peaceful society.

Advocates of mandatory campaign finance disclosure should be asked, “do you also, then, oppose the secret ballot?”

The privacy of the voting booth was also instituted to insulate people from the worst aspects of partisan discord … and commerce from the legacy of the Hatfields and McCoys.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.