Ughh, say hello to even more ca,paign commercials come 2016 :yuk:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-limits-on-federal-campaign-donations/2014/04/02/54e16c30-ba74-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html
QuoteSupreme Court strikes down limits on overall federal campaign donations
Video: In a sweeping campaign finance decision, the Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits — or rules for how much an individual can give in one campaign cycle.
The Supreme Court's divisive decision Wednesday striking down a Watergate-era limit on campaign contributions was the latest milestone for conservative justices who are disassembling a campaign finance regime they feel violates free-speech rights.
The 5 to 4 decision — striking down the limit on the total amount of money wealthy donors can contribute to candidates and political committees — was the fifth since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the court that agreed with constitutional arguments challenging laws designed to blunt the influence of money in politics.
It again reveals a court deeply divided between liberals trying to preserve campaign finance restrictions they say are essential to ensuring democracy is not distorted by the wealth of the powerful, and conservatives who think the First Amendment trumps efforts by government to control who pays for elections and how much they spend.
"There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders," Roberts wrote in the court's main opinion. "We have made clear that Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others."
The liberal justices sharply disagreed, with Justice Stephen G. Breyer reading his dissent from the bench to emphasize the disagreement. The dissent said the ruling expands on a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court's conservatives showed in the landmark 2010 case Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporate spending on elections.
"If Citizens United opened a door, today's decision, we fear, will open a floodgate," Breyer said. He added that the ruling "overturns key precedent, creates serious loopholes in the law and undermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance reform."
On its face, the ruling seems far more limited than Citizens United, which has dramatically increased spending on elections and spawned a new wave of political organizations funded by wealthy individuals.
But by making clear that government may restrict political contributions only to target quid pro quo corruption — as opposed to "the general gratitude a candidate may feel toward those who support him or his allies, or the political access such support may afford" — the dissenters and others said the court was inviting additional challenges to campaign finance restrictions.
The ruling "may represent the latest step in an effort by a majority of the court to dismantle entirely the long-standing structure of campaign finance law erected to limit the undue influence of special interests on American politics," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who co-authored the 2002's Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act with then-Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).
Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joined Roberts and Alito. Justice Clarence Thomas provided the crucial fifth vote for overturning the limits but said the others should have gone further to strike down all contribution limits.
The court's decisions on campaign finance are one of the most dramatic examples of how the court moved when the conservative Alito replaced more moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor was in the majority that upheld the McCain-Feingold law. Alito has swung the court to side with challengers to such laws.
He has been in the majority as the court has eased restrictions on organizations that air ads that discuss candidates in the closing days of the election; struck down a part of the McCain-Feingold law that increased contribution limits for candidates who faced wealthy, self-funding opponents; and struck down Arizona's public finance system, which had a similar provision.
Most prominent has been the Citizens United decision, which was deeply unpopular, according to polls. Roberts seemed to acknowledge that in his ruling.
"Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects," Roberts wrote. "If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades — despite the profound offense such spectacles cause — it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition."
Wednesday's decision concerns a restriction that few Americans knew about and fewer could afford to violate, a limit on the total amount of money an individual can contribute in a two-year period to candidates and political committees.
The limits capped at $48,600 the amount an individual could spend on contributions to candidates, plus $74,600 total on contributions to political parties and committees.
The court did not disturb the limit on how much an individual may contribute to a specific candidate, currently $2,600 per election. But Roberts said an individual should be able to contribute that amount to as many candidates as he chooses.
"An aggregate limit on how many candidates and committees an individual may support through contributions is not a modest restraint at all," Roberts wrote. "The government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse."
Republican Party officials cheered the opinion. The ruling "is an important first step toward restoring the voice of candidates and party committees and a vindication for all those who support robust, transparent political discourse," said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which brought the case with Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman.
At the heart of the case is the framework created by the court's seminal 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which upheld limits on campaign contributions that Congress put in place two years earlier in response to the Watergate scandal.
That ruling drew a distinction between contributions, which the court said could be limited to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption, and expenditures, which the court determined were a form of direct personal expression.
That decision led to the current lopsided campaign system, in which donors can give a federal candidate only $2,600 per election but can donate endless sums to super PACs, which must spend their money independently of candidates and parties.
Wednesday's decision showed the incremental approach to change that Roberts champions. For instance, he said the decision did not overrule Buckley, even though that earlier decision had upheld the aggregate limits.
Instead, he said, the court was "confronted with a different statute and different legal arguments, at a different point in the development of campaign finance regulation."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Breyer's dissent, which highlighted the court's fundamental disagreement over the constitutionality of the federal campaign finance regime.
"The First Amendment advances not only the individual's right to engage in political speech, but also the public's interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters," Breyer wrote.
"Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard . . . And a cynical public can lose interest in political participation altogether."
Breyer said Wednesday's ruling could not be squared with the court's 2002 endorsement of the McCain-Feingold act and the justices' view at the time that campaign finance restrictions were meant to thwart a broader definition of corruption, including "privileged access to and pernicious influence upon elected officials."
Breyer advanced arguments made by the Obama administration and campaign finance reform advocates that removing the aggregate limits would create huge loopholes. An individual he called "Rich Donor" could write a check for $3.6 million to benefit his political party and its candidates because of the loopholes, he said.
Roberts took issue with that. The scenarios sketched by the dissenters and the government, Roberts wrote, "are either illegal under current campaign finance laws or divorced from reality."
Nevertheless, he said, there were additional steps Congress could take to outlaw methods donors might use to circumvent the rules.
Breyer responded that Roberts's reliance on a gridlocked Congress to pass new laws or the Federal Election Commission to enforce current ones showed a political naivete.
Given what he said was the FEC's record of inactivity, "my reaction to the plurality's reliance upon agency enforcement of this rule (as an adequate substitute for Congress' aggregate limits) is like Oscar Wilde's after reading Dickens' account of the death of Little Nell: 'One must have a heart of stone,' said Wilde, 'to read [it] without laughing.' "
The case is McCutcheon v. FEC.
I could actually hear Yi's orgasm the moment the ruling was handed down.
"Divorced from reality." Apt... :hmm:
To the best of my knowledge this means that the total donation to all campaigns in one cycle is no longer capped. I don't really understand how large anonymous donations to Super PACs are preferable to named donations across the board to multiple candidates. It's not like the money hasn't always been able to find a way.
I just wonder, is establishing a donation aggregator legal? Can I for example establish a series of "issue" lists of candidates and set up a company to do the paperwork of taking a donation for 2.6 million dollars and distributing it to 1 thousand different candidates which support my pet issue? e.g. I find 100 candidates all of which support a ban on fur and then get rich anti-fur donors to donate up to 260,000 dollars spread evenly over each one. I'm sure somebody is going to pay for that service, be it candidates, PETA or the donor him/her-self.
Quote from: Viking on April 02, 2014, 09:11:11 PM
2.6 million dollars
100 candidates
260,000 dollars spread evenly over each one.
:unsure:
Seriously, imho, what your country needs is
1. Unlimited named donations to the DNC and RNC
2. A broadcasters public service obligation for unbiased coverage of the election for tv and radio
3. A ban on paid political broadcasts
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 02, 2014, 09:13:30 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 02, 2014, 09:11:11 PM
2.6 million dollars
100 candidates
260,000 dollars spread evenly over each one.
:unsure:
100 candidates, 2,600 per candidate = 260,000 total
I have two examples, one with 100 candidates and another with 1000
Nice try. :cool:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs27.postimg.org%2F8s337rabn%2Frsz_math_dog_istock_000005304730medium.jpg&hash=05e7f36ca6549b17afcf811058c2ef48d27df6a7)
Quote from: Viking on April 02, 2014, 09:14:54 PM
2. A broadcasters public service obligation for unbiased coverage of the election for tv and radio
What's a broadcaster, and what's unbiased?
Corrupting officials with bribes is protected by the Constitution damnit. Can I give free speech to cops if they pull me over to?
Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2014, 09:50:13 PM
Corrupting officials with bribes is protected by the Constitution damnit. Can I give free speech to cops if they pull me over to?
Asked like a white person. <_<
Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2014, 09:50:13 PM
Corrupting officials with bribes is protected by the Constitution damnit. Can I give free speech to cops if they pull me over to?
Be sure to tell them that you pay their salary. They like that.
Quote from: garbon on April 02, 2014, 09:52:46 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2014, 09:50:13 PM
Corrupting officials with bribes is protected by the Constitution damnit. Can I give free speech to cops if they pull me over to?
Asked like a white person. <_<
How would the other half of you ask?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2014, 09:22:53 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 02, 2014, 09:14:54 PM
2. A broadcasters public service obligation for unbiased coverage of the election for tv and radio
What's a broadcaster, and what's unbiased?
a broadcaster is anybody the FCC says so, y'know when they get permission to use public airwaves
unbiased is a bit more difficult, but the us has been organizing unbiased broadcast political debates for decades and the networks have been doing it on an issue by issue basis since they started covering politics, plus the bbc and (I presume) canadian public broadcasters have been doing it for decades too.
even fox news managed to put together a reasonably unbiased presidential debate last time round
estabilshing that as condition of receiving a broadcast licence from the fcc for use of the airwaves during campaign season prime time coverage is a requirement, just like having a news and weather broadcast is
Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2014, 10:06:02 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 02, 2014, 09:52:46 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2014, 09:50:13 PM
Corrupting officials with bribes is protected by the Constitution damnit. Can I give free speech to cops if they pull me over to?
Asked like a white person. <_<
How would the other half of you ask?
We'd know better.
Quote from: garbon on April 02, 2014, 10:19:29 PM
We'd know better.
Eh you get out in the RIo Grande Valley or Louisiana or something I bet you could make it work.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 02, 2014, 09:20:42 PM
Nice try. :cool:
Look, sometimes someone just needs to embezzle US$23.4 million.
I think First Amendment principles certainly require such a ruling. The ultimate solution is a Constitutional amendment. That establishes a one-party state.
While I question the legal basis for the decision, in the context of the bizarre framework of the US campaign finance laws, this is probably a net positive, because it will tend to move money from nebulous and unaccountable "independent" expenditures to established structures like parties and PACs.
Quote from: Viking on April 02, 2014, 10:07:26 PM
a broadcaster is anybody the FCC says so, y'know when they get permission to use public airwaves
So cable-only is exempt?
Quoteunbiased is a bit more difficult, but the us has been organizing unbiased broadcast political debates for decades and the networks have been doing it on an issue by issue basis since they started covering politics, plus the bbc and (I presume) canadian public broadcasters have been doing it for decades too.
even fox news managed to put together a reasonably unbiased presidential debate last time round
So seems like this is a solution in search of a problem.
Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2014, 10:32:48 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 02, 2014, 10:19:29 PM
We'd know better.
Eh you get out in the RIo Grande Valley or Louisiana or something I bet you could make it work.
:wacko:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2014, 09:22:53 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 02, 2014, 09:14:54 PM
2. A broadcasters public service obligation for unbiased coverage of the election for tv and radio
What's a broadcaster, and what's unbiased?
A catapult that throws women. It's unbiased when it throws them in straight line.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 03, 2014, 10:13:31 AM
While I question the legal basis for the decision, in the context of the bizarre framework of the US campaign finance laws, this is probably a net positive, because it will tend to move money from nebulous and unaccountable "independent" expenditures to established structures like parties and PACs.
Agreed. This certainly makes more sense than giving human rights to legal fictions.
Commentary from the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/04/the-john-roberts-project-beyond-mccutcheon.html
Quoteyou think that the Supreme Court's decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission was bad, just wait: worse may be on the way.
The issue before the Court was fairly narrow, even a little obscure. Congress bars individuals from contributing more than fifty-two hundred dollars to any candidate for federal office in any election cycle. It also bars individuals from contributing more than a hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars, in total, to multiple federal candidates in a cycle. In the McCutcheon case, by a vote of five to four, the Court struck down the overall hundred-and-twenty-three-thousand-dollar limit. But this ruling will affect relatively few campaign contributors. In the most recent cycle, fewer than six hundred donors maxed out to candidates.
So why is the case important? Because the language of Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion suggests that the Court remains committed to the project announced most prominently in the Citizens United case, four years ago: the deregulation of American political campaigns.
The court, and Roberts in particular, has been very clear that regulation of campaign contributions is allowed under a single rationale. As he wrote in McCutcheon, "It is not an acceptable governmental objective to 'level the playing field,' or to 'level electoral opportunities,' or to 'equalize the financial resources of candidates.'" Rather, Roberts wrote, "Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—'quid pro quo' corruption."
But what is "quid pro quo" corruption, and what can Congress do about it? Roberts is clearer about what "quid pro quo" corruption is not than about what it is. In the key passage in the opinion, he writes:
Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder's official duties, does not give rise to such quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner "influence over or access to" elected officials or political parties. And because the Government's interest in preventing the appearance of corruption is equally confined to the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, the Government may not seek to limit the appearance of mere influence or access.
In other words, Roberts is defining "quid pro quo" corruption almost as outright bribery, which Congress can outlaw. But the implication of what Roberts is saying is that anything short of outright bribery is protected by the First Amendment.
This means that the Court may be preparing to do away with the fifty-two-hundred-dollar limit, as well. Unlike the restriction on overall giving, the individual limit is enormously consequential. All campaigns, from House of Representatives races to Presidential contests, seek to have their contributors "max out" by donating the full amount authorized by law. To be sure, Roberts says at several points in the opinion that the issue of the fifty-two-hundred-dollar limit is not before the Court. As he notes, "This case does not involve any challenge to the base limits, which we have previously upheld as serving the permissible objective of combatting corruption." But, the Court had previously upheld overall limits as well, in the famous 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo. Roberts brushes that precedent aside as merely "one paragraph of its 139-page opinion."
Roberts is dismissive of the objections to deregulating campaigns and full of sympathy for the plight of those denied the ability to contribute as much money as they would prefer. He writes that under the current law, "A donor must limit the number of candidates he supports, and may have to choose which of several policy concerns he will advance—clear First Amendment harms." He adds that "the whole point of the First Amendment is to afford individuals protection against such infringements." In an almost Orwellian recasting, he calls giving money "participating in an electoral debate."
Every Chief Justice takes on a project. Earl Warren wanted to desegregate the South. Warren Burger wanted to limit the rights of criminal suspects. William Rehnquist wanted to revive the powers of the states. It increasingly appears likely that, for John Roberts, the project will be removing the limits that burden wealthy campaign contributors—the "whole point" of the First Amendment, as he sees it. So far, that project is doing pretty well.
Quote from: grumbler on April 03, 2014, 11:28:13 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 03, 2014, 10:13:31 AM
While I question the legal basis for the decision, in the context of the bizarre framework of the US campaign finance laws, this is probably a net positive, because it will tend to move money from nebulous and unaccountable "independent" expenditures to established structures like parties and PACs.
Agreed. This certainly makes more sense than giving human rights to legal fictions.
No.
Plutocracy: it's not just for the citizens of Pluto anymore.
One thing that is clear from McCutcheon is that the 5 justices have become completely unmoored from existing precedent and doctrine.
Ever since nearly 40 years ago Buckley introduced the notion that transferring cash might implicate the First Amendment in some way, 2 key doctrinal pillars have been:
1) the distinction between restrictions on communications spending which are frowned upon, and restrictions on contibutions, which tend to be upheld if reasonable.
2) the notion that regulation can be justified to respond to the apperance of corruption
Pillar 1 has been effectively demolished by McCutcheon, which actually overrules Buckley on the issue presented, although Thomas is the only one who comes right out and says it.
Pillar 2 was fatally weakned in Citizens United and finally killed off here. The majority plays lip service to the idea of appearance of corruption but applies it so narrowly as to erase it as a justification separate from actual quid pro quo corruption.
It's useful to keep in mind that the Supreme Court has never ruled that the mere transmission of money is in itself protected speech, although there is language in the opening of this opinion that seems to veer in that direction. The concept of First Amendment protection for contributions as articulated in Buckley was entirely pragmatic - "because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money . . . The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech." Perfectly sensible. But it is hard to contend that the RNC - one of the plaintiffs in this case - or its supported candidates have had grave difficulties getting its messages across in these various media under the present laws. On the contrary, Justice Robers alludes to popular discontent with already existing TV saturation of political advertisements.
As I said the practical effect of this decision may not be of special concern, it may actually improve upon the status quo ante. But the constitutional rationale that the Court is pursuing in these cases is becoming harder and harder to follow.
2 Unlimited. :wub: