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US Supreme Court Expected Political Ad Transparency
T Murphy writes "The Supreme Court, when ruling that corporate and union political donations were allowed under free speech, assumed the source of the donation would be disclosed immediately under current donation laws. Due to loopholes, this has not been the case, eliminating the hoped-for transparency the Supreme Court ruled to be vital to democracy. Justice Kennedy, who sided with the majority on the ruling, has been called naive for his expectation that there would be greater transparency. In the meantime, campaign spending for House candidates alone is expected to reach $1.5 billion."
I call bullshit. The court knew exactly what it was doing and knew that loopholes big enough to drive a dump truck full of money through were in place.
The problem is not corporate/union donations to individuals, the problem is one of transparency. Focus on that and on closing the "loopholes" mentioned in the summary, rather than beating your chests about the supposed unfairness surrounding the act of individuals joining together to pool their resources for political change. Anything else is merely a red herring.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Just for reference:
The Canadian election system limits campaign spending to roughly $20 million per major party. The full amount of money allowed in our election is somewhere around $60 million. It costs more to actually run the polling booths. We have a population roughly one tenth of the US. Taking a rough stab at it, you're spending $2.5 Billion for your midterm elections. Or about four times the amount per capita as us.
Additionally, in our system, a large percentage of that is publicly funded. And the maximum corporate donation is $1000. We have problems with corporate interests and lobbyists in Canada. You guys don't have a problem with it: you're OWNED by corporate interests.
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Yeah, cause old men know nothing about the internet.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
Easier fix: all funding must come from the gov't, in equal (and relatively small) amounts for each candidate. Offer each candidate who gets the required number of signatures to be on the ballot, a set amount of TV time, a set amount of ad money, and tell everyone else to butt the fuck out of the process.
As long as you can win by drowning your opponent in money, the system is fucked.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Anecdotal, but my mom was unable to get her dues back from the Washington State Teacher's Union, when she opposed their political spending.
Comment of the year
But the NYT does speak far louder than other entities. It might as well be donating to the candidate when it provides them free services.
On the playground we called it cheating.
I cannot imagine how a playground analogy can be applied here. There is no playground parallel to mass media that I can think of./quote
The government can't save you.