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Interviews: Ask Lawrence Lessig About His Mayday PAC
samzenpus (5) writes "Lawrence Lessig's list of achievements and areas of influence is not small. He's co-founder of the Creative Commons, but it is his Mayday PAC however that has garnered the most attention recently. The crowdfunded "Super PAC to end all Super PACs" was launched in May with the goal of raising money to elect candidates who would pass campaign finance reform. It raised over $1 million in the first 13 days and has the support of some influential people. With the help of matching contributions, Mayday hopes to raise $12 million by the end of June. Lessig has agreed to answer any questions about the PAC that you might have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post."
Quaint, pathetic and naive. Read Marx.
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There are other similar efforts, specifically WolfPAC, which aims to reform using a constitutional amendment. Do you feel that these other efforts are complimentary or just duplication of effort?
So best case scenario is that you lobby away PAC money in the next election cycle. Once you have reached your goal, what do you think is going to prevent lawmakers from finding other loopholes in the laws to do something similar-but-not-equal the cycle after that? As we've seen with FISA/DMCA/... - if they can't do it this year, they'll try and try again until they can get their ways.
In other words, do you think getting rid of PAC's is going to solve anything about corporate money flowing into government. And once you have outlawed the only avenue currently available (a PAC that is run by the people) that can somewhat level the playing field for citizens, what other avenues will there be to fight this corruption?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Mr. Lessig,
Yours is the first effort I've heard about revamping Government that makes any sense whatsoever. A hearty thank you to you and your staff!
In your estimation, does MaydayPAC have a decades-long plan, to replace as much of Congress as possible, and even reach for the Presidency?
I'm all for it. Even if it takes 30 years.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Why do you believe statutory reform is necessary, or sufficient to accomplish anything serious? Why do you believe it is a precondition of a constitutional-amendment path?
Mr. Lessig, thanks for taking the time.
My question is about timing and resource allocation: With all the problems in America right now, why did you feel that campaign finance reform was the one issue of many (civil rights, immigration, American poverty, health care, etc.) that deserves this huge P.R. and money push now?
Thank you Dave Raggett
I was just wondering if you were also concerned about money from unions? To me, a millionaire donating is own money is somehow less problematic than unions taking money from their members to donate. Keep in mind that in many states, union membership is required in order to get the job. Therefore, many union members may find their money being used to support candidates that they do not support.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Your goal is to level the playing field so that some individuals do not have more influence than others on elections. Have you considered the idea of censoring political blogs? Some bloggers have widely disproportionate influence, and by throttling their readership (perhaps by a government controlled internet filter occasionally injecting 404's), together we could take the "celebrity blogger" influence out of politics and level the playing field.
...or would you recognize that as a gross abuse of free speech, much like your plan to make political donations illegal? Seriously, why don't you stop trying to undermine the 1st Amendment?
July 4 is coming fast. The goal is vital. The goal is ambitious. The first thirteen days of May had novelty going for it. What can we do to inject an extra dose of excitement into the next ten days?
If all countries had the same taxes, businesses wouldn't have to/be able to move.
As there are many shapes and forms to democratic process, can you reference an active government that have 'gotten it right' at least in terms of dealing with campaign / direct contributions that you find working well (or at least as close to what you're proposing to introduce)?
Bye!
What kind of accountability exists with the Mayday PAC to ensure that representatives elected due to this funding actually follow through on promises of campaign finance reform?
At what levels of government will your group be providing endorsements and funding to candidates? ..) great state legislators working hard introducing bills for serious campaign finance reform including both the statutory and constitutional amendment paths, and I'd hate to see their efforts ignored in favor of federal candidates only.
In my home state of New Hampshire we have several (as in, 3
Why do you believe that forming a PAC to elect reform-minded candidates is more promising than Wolf PAC's method, of bypassing the typical political process and trying to call an Article V Convention for the purpose of limiting the influence that money has over our political process?
Hello, Mr. Lessig. I'm not entirely sure what the end-game fundraising goal for the PAC is, but I know that many of the people running for Congress are backed by the ultra-rich. In my state, Connecticut, we had a single Senate candidate (Linda McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment) spend something like $97 million of her own money on two races in 2011 and 2012. That averages to over $45 million per race for a single candidate, though I'm not sure how representative Linda McMahon is of the average candidate for the Senate. However, I believe it's safe to say that no matter how much money the Mayday PAC raises, there will always be a bigger fish, so to speak. This leads to my question, which is:
Assuming the Mayday PAC meets its fundraising goals, how do you plan to have the Mayday PAC's voice heard over the dozens of other PACs run by the "bigger fish" - the ultra-rich who can spend hundreds of millions without batting an eye?
How would you respond to critics that believe that as soon as the Mayday PAC raises a substantial amount of money, all the other PAC's, along with the commercial media (who are the main beneficients of political spending) will jointly work together against the Mayday PAC and overwhelm it with superior resources?
Regulations also differ - as do local market conditions.
I want to applaud you for making an impressive effort to fight this problem, but at the same time, you're combating the purchase of elections by purchasing elections. This seems morally dubious. I understand the goal is to have one last round of evil and then patch up the laws that allow these things, but what's to prevent lawmakers from undoing these changes later?
Why does the prospect of government regulation of political speech not terrify you to your core? Any "campaign reform" proposal must necessarily result in government deciding which speech is political and which is not, which is permissible and which is not. How do you prevent government from suppressing only political speech that it disapproves of?
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
..or would you recognize that as a gross abuse of free speech, much like your plan to make political donations illegal? Seriously, why don't you stop trying to undermine the 1st Amendment?
Exactly... If they want to restrict speech, they must amend the constitution. However, more and more people are starting to agree that the 1st amendment "goes too far", so repealing or severely restricting it should be an easy go. Lessig is barking up the wrong tree without a paddle.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That's easy. A blog is speech. Money isn't. Blogs (and the internet, for the most part still) are fairly democratic institutions. Using cash to drown out the majority of voices is tyranny. A more egregious twisting of the intent of the 1st amendment I cannot imagine.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
The two major parties have done everything in their power to make sure that minority candidates have virtually insurmountable obstacles to their getting onto a ballot in the first place, and even then these candidates are rarely given serious coverage by the media. If you were to actually succeed in taking the money out of political campaigning, then how do you keep the news media from completely controlling who gets elected by their control of who is able to get their message out?
Don't suggest that a "Fairness Doctrine" will provide equal coverage to all candidates, because there would certainly be a test for "viability" of candidates before they get any taxpayer-provided funding, and only major-party candidates would ever pass that test.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
What kind of a solutions are you seeking from politicians that your SuperPAC will support: A law similar to McCan-Feingold or something more resilient like a constitutional amendment?
If you seek to address the influence of money on our political process via a constitutional amendment, is your SuperPAC up for the task of influencing not just federal legislators but state legislators and governors as well?
Mr. Lessig,
Have you considered the potential side effect that if you are successful in removing "money from politics"? You will likely end up enormously empowering the position of incumbency, establishing a ruling class that once elected, no one will have the capabilities to truly mount a successful campaign against.
Incumbents have huge benefits and a large number of tools to communicate to the voters (who are of course their constituents, so they can even justify it).
My great fear is that campaign finance reform will do nothing to stem the tide of permanent, lifetime, politicians dominating our system. Even in the worst election for incumbents in a half century (2010) over 80% of incumbents won.
Will you support and make your backed candidates support a constitutional amendment to create and enforce term limits on members of Congress?
If Mayday can't support term limits, then I can't support it. In fact I may feel compelled to fight against it. I don't even really want money out of politics if it leads to lifetime memberships in Congress for the lucky ones that achieve office once, and then never lose again until they die.
So, just because the Warren Burger led supreme court went 5-3 (Justice Stevens did not take part) in Buckley vs Valeo in favor of this line of reasoning does not make it correct. It simply means that our Supreme court believed that it knew better than the majority of Congress, who felt strongly enough about limiting campaign money to override Gerald Fords veto.
I'd love to hear your opinion on the debate over Money as a form of Speech. Should expenditure of money be protected as a form of expression or restricted as a form of coercion (just like some forms of speech are)? How are speech and money similar and how are they fundamentally distinct?
You seek to elect candidates focused on a single issue, however our Congress hears and votes on multiple issues during an election cycle. While campaign finance reform is your goal, wouldn't your contributors / potential contributors be more concerned about other issues that affect our country as well? Campaign finance reform may be important, but rarely would it trump individual moral / political beliefs.
They are going about this the wrong way... There are TWO things we should do to fix this...
1. FULL DISCLOSURE - Namely, make ALL political organizations, candidates and campaigns disclose the source of EVERY penny they receive. If the organization does advocacy for any political issue or candidate, it requires FULL disclosure. Disclosures need to be in a common format and available to the public and should identify by name and address every individual, company, etc who donated to the organization. Also make political candidates disclose their assets and tax returns for a minimum period before they ran for office. Once they are in office, the full disclosure rule applies for every dollar they earn or asset they obtain. This disclosure rule applies AFTER they leave office for a period of time equal to how long they where IN office.
2. TERM LIMITS - All elected offices at the state and federal level should have term limits. For instance, only allowing 12 years of service in congress (6 house terms or 2 senate).
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Lighten up! You have to be amused by the irony of a site which at the top of it: "Help us reduce the influence of money in politics!" just above a button which is labelled "Pledge Now!".
if all the countries had the same taxes, there would be no incentive for governements to keep taxes low enough that people can live
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
How will your plan reduce the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by incumbents so that challengers have a fair chance of winning more than 10% of the time?
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
....you'd think the people with the most money (the so called 1â...) would be able to counter this effort outright.
What is to stop wolfpac from simply being outspent?
Also take into consideration that while expenditure on sustenance remains more or less constant, disposable income increases greatly with increased wealth. The wealthy can afford to spend a larger fraction of their income in addition to having more income.
I attempted to donate the full balance of a prepaid debit card I received from a mail-in rebate. Before charging the card's full balance as I instructed them to do, they made an inexplicable $1 charge first. Since the card then had a balance of $1 less than it was supposed to, the transaction failed. If they're too stupid to successfully take my donation, I have serious doubts about the organization. If they don't refund my $1 soon, I'm going to dispute the charge.
That's easy. A blog is speech. Money isn't.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Whatever term you use, it's clear that you want to let the government take away our "freedom to spend our own money to get the word out about something". That means less freedom. Maybe you're happy with that, because governments never, ever abuse their position when given leeway to curtail personal freedoms?
Blogs (and the internet, for the most part still) are fairly democratic institutions.
I think you define "democratic" differently than I do.
Using cash to drown out the majority of voices is tyranny. A more egregious twisting of the intent of the 1st amendment I cannot imagine.
Using the government to outlaw political movies, political blogs (that cost money to operate), newspapers, etc. is exactly contrary to the intent of the 1st Amendment. I would say that you are a very confused individual. Or perhaps merely naive, if you expect that only roses and happiness will result from such a loss of freedom as you advocate.
There's a plausible argument to be made that money isn't speech and corporations aren't people.
It's almost intuitive.
When your goal is 12,000,000 and have the support of Mr. Wozniak and he believes in your PAC, why not just get the money from him?
(I mean, if I have billions and a topic I support, and 12 million wouldn't make me lose sleep. Just saying.)
Heck, he could start a PR firm that will handle all the ads and such for the PAC and be paid by the PAC. Or you can take a loan from the PAC to pay your bills. Isn't that the way PACs are run currently?
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
anyone who thinks that the first amendment goes to far, should simply find a place that fits their beliefs better, I hear china is nice when it comes to restricting freedom of speech
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Let's put it a different way. Suppose a Republican president comes to power with Republicans in both legislative houses, and it becomes the law of the land that nobody can donate to a Democratic party or politician. Donating money to Democrats is now illegal. So... we all know that is "not OK", but why exactly is it "not OK"?
The answer lies in the freedoms guaranteed by the 1st Amendment, whether you like the "money=speech" idea or not. Tell me why I'm wrong, please!
Because money is not speech.
Seriously, stop trying to undermine the entire concept of a democracy. Or, in your lingo, a republic (even if that means you think the US and China have the same form of electing leaders... oh, wait, that would explain a lot of things).
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
These are supposed to be technical people, but their email list subscription system doesn't work... It's happy to send me an email, but denies that my email address is in the system. Very disappointing. Makes me wonder how well they're going to be spending the SuperPAC money if their own systems work no better than anyone else's.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
I never understood why you libertarians always make such a big deal about flea markets. These days it's mostly expired dollar store crap and people that make your typical Walmart customer look classy.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
How is money not speech? Is any force involved? Do you have to vote for the guy with the biggest budget? Is mass media your only source of information? If so, then the problem is not the crooked politician, or the guy making the offer. If you want to take the money out of politics, then stop voting for big money. That is the only way you can win. Prohibition is tyranny, and I for one, will never vote for such a thing.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Mr. Lessig:
Have you read Crispin Sartwell's article in the latest June issue of The Atlantic? Mr. Sartwell seems to make arguments that imply that efforts such as that of RootStrikers and the Mayday PAC are merely nibbling at the edges of the true problem and not addressing it directly. If the hierarchies of wealth concentration and governance are inextricably linked through a Principle of Hierarchical Coincidence, then will you unlink them merely by legislating campaign finance reforms? For that matter, would even a round of revolutionary head-chopping do the job when so many other heads have been groomed and eagerly await the same chance at dominance?
Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice.
You, the one who wants to restrict free speech because you don't like the results, how would you feel if a right winger tried this only towards the kind of speech liberals like? Liberals didn't complain when it was only Soros' money, but when the Libertarian/Conservative Koch brothers adopt the same exact donation category, all of a sudden you hate it.
Take your slavery and shove it. People like you are the problem, not Koch and Soros.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Given that the Supreme Court has already weighed in twice on the constitutionality of campaign finance reform (money = speech, etc.), is traditional legislation even enough - at this point isn't an actual amendment necessary, to overcome existing rulings?
There's a plausible argument to be made that the 1st Amendment requires that a government can't make it illegal to donate money to their political opponents. There's a plausible argument to be made that exactly zero corporations are owned by robots today -- they are owned and run by people. And finally, there's a plausible argument to be made that you are a somewhat under-informed parroter of left wing talking points.
Because free markets do not exist, and capitalism is not a silver bullet to the world's problems (it may, however, be a silver bullet for the problems of the 1% to get more money, which is why quite a few people like it).
That said, I can't figure out if this is sarcasm, or if someone is serious. The political discussion in this country is seriously fucked.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Ad hominem. I don't htink the mjm wants governments to "take away our freedom." Rather, I suspect he also sees loss of freedom from undue influence in the public sphere by private entities. Surely I don't have to point out examples of this over the last decade, with resulted in significant cost to the taxpayer. He likely thinks a reasonable balance could offset this other category of "loss of freedom." .."...is exactly contrary to the intent of the 1st Amendment."
You're reaching. The concept of money-as-speech did not exist until waaaay after the 1st Amendment was drafted.
I understand the "libertarian" argument, here, but I think you and others are applying it dogmatically, without acknowledgement of the corrupting power of money, and the corrosive effect it can have on governance.
Exactly... If they want to restrict speech, they must amend the constitution. However, more and more people are starting to agree that the 1st amendment "goes too far"
I sincerely hope you meant that as sarcasm, but fear otherwise.
The first amendment has become a sad parody of itself, when we have "first amendment zones"; a press crippled by a tide of anti-whistleblower policies and laws; the complete disregard for religious proscriptions in business; and an inability to petition the government for redress of "classified" grievances... Among other offenses.
That said, we have a much simpler way of undoing the damage of Citizen's United than resorting to substantially gutting the first amendment: Money is not speech. Simple as that, really. Personally, I would go a step further, and point out that corporations are not people, but sadly, that boat sailed over a century ago. But if we do insist on a constitutional amendment as the fix, we damned well need to target the 14th, not the 1st.
Because money is not speech.
OK. But you ignored and did not address my point. If it is desirable to "level the playing field" and make sure some people don't have more of a voice than others, then it should be OK to censor some political blogs, right? (Assuming we got that pesky 1st Amendment reduced in scope.)
Doesn't it undermine the entire concept of democracy if some political bloggers have wider readership (and more influence) than others? That is the core idea behind why you want to change the money flow, right? It's not ultimately about money (after all, people are free to throw their money in the gutter if they like), it's about disproportionate influence, right?
"There's a plausible argument to be made that exactly zero corporations are owned by robots today "
Careful, you don't want to go down that line or reasoning.
"...you are a somewhat under-informed parroter of left wing talking points."
You are growing increasingly shrill and defensive. Relax. I'm more of what I call a "pre-Rand" libertarian.
I love this idea Dr. Lesseg, was one of the first to donate in May.
I was wondering how difficult it is to get media access to shows? It seems like one or two interviews on Colbert, Daily Show, John Oliver, etc. would propel the campaign to the finish line but it hasn't happened yet. I'm assuming you have tried, and/or would be more than willing to appear if they called?
Since samzenpus has decided that Slashdot is his personal soapbox for all his lefty political nonsense, which isn't technologically related, I will be blocking all articles by him. I thought Slashdot was supposed to be tech news site. I guess I was confused. I might as well go read Mother Jones.
Concerning the goals and strategy of the Mayday PAC, what unintended results are you most concerned about, and how do you intend to avert them? E.g., further legitimizing the "buying" of elections, or contributing to the escalation of political spending.
I am not a crackpot.
Mr. Lessig,
Since it seems that your PAC espouses the belief that Citizens United is a horrible supreme court ruling, and noting that the key product of the Citizens United LLC was a Documentary, and also noting that almost all documentaries are backed by or produced by corporations of one form or another; aren't you explicitly calling for the total prohibition of political documentaries in our political system? Also, is the publishing by major corporations (this includes all publishing companies) of books that are about politicians or from politicians required to be banned to take money out of politics?
Why do in-kind contributions from media corporations get a pass on contribution limits in your proposal?
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How will sending more people to Washington with their pockets stuffed with cash fix corruption?
"There's a plausible argument to be made that exactly zero corporations are owned by robots today "
Careful, you don't want to go down that line or reasoning.
Our own judgement will we keep about down what line of reasoning we want to go.
"...you are a somewhat under-informed parroter of left wing talking points."
You are growing increasingly shrill and defensive. Relax. I'm more of what I call a "pre-Rand" libertarian.
I don't care how you describe yourself, but it is my personal policy to become increasingly shrill and defensive when people suggest removing my 1st Amendment's protection from government control/tyranny. :p
MayDay.US promises to "reduce the influence of money". That's a good sound bite, but the reason other people don't like your proposals is not that they like "the influence of money", but that they don't see any way of reducing that that doesn't do more harm than good. So, please be specific: what outcome do you actually envision and desire, and how are the details going to work? You propose "public funding" or "vouchers", but you are vague on who gets to make the decisions about (1) who violates your rules, (2) who the money can go to, and (3) who will still be allowed to use their own resources for political purposes.
(1) If you impose restrictions on political speech, someone needs to be in charge of determining which political speech is in violation of the restrictions you envision. For example, does generally opposing a political ideology count as political speech that I can't spend money on? Is this determined by the courts? The executive branch? Why wouldn't that power be abused by incumbents?
(2) Who can I give the vouchers that pay for political speech to? Just candidates? Not-for-profits? For-profits? Would it be a felony to sell these vouchers for money?
(3) You work for a rich and powerful organization, and many media organizations are rich and powerful too. Will universities and news corporations be subject to the same restrictions on political speech? Will you be prohibited from speaking on political issues? Will the editors of the NYT be prohibited from commenting on candidates? If not, why should they be exempted? Why should the $32+ billion company you work for have rights to engage in political speech that other companies do not?
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So... we all know that is "not OK", but why exactly is it "not OK"?
Because there are different rules for the different parties, simple as that. They need the same set of rules, as do the Libertarian, Green, Justice, etc parties. As it is now, anyone who is not a D or R isn't allowed to debate on TV for president, because the people in charge of regulating presidential debates are Ds and Rs, and those are their rules. We don't even need to resort to hypotheticals to figure out why this is a problem. It's not even an issue of free speech, it's an issue of everyone having the same set of rules. Right now the system is heavily weighted in favor of incumbents.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Whoa! That was intense! Where did I say anything about "liberal/conservative" or Koch and Soros? What to they have to do with the price of rice? I am merely one who believes that "no law" means no law... Your post completely misses the mark, to the point of being completely off-topic.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There's a plausible argument to be made that the 1st Amendment requires that a government can't make it illegal to donate money to their political opponents.
The fact that money is classified as speech but prostitution is illegal doesn't match up. Paying for political influence should not be legal.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Money is not speech.
Why not?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There are many campaign finance systems around the world, and a lot of experience with them in other countries. Can you provide clear and concrete evidence that the kind of mechanisms you envision work better in practice in other countries?
What, in fact, are your objective criteria for "better democracy"?
Note that it is insufficient to cite factors that you prefer for ideological reasons. For example, particular forms of campaign finance may correlate with lower levels of income inequality, but if that's your argument, you are really arguing that we should change the campaign finance system to achieve your political objectives, not in order to achieve a better democracy (low levels of income inequality are not by themselves an indication of a functioning democracy, since low income inequality exists even in many non-democratic nations).
Mr. Lessig, while I respect your efforts on many levels, I'm curious what strategies you will use to prevent those that you will help will with your Mayday PAC to not go off the reservation should they win.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
There are a couple of problems with that. One, you seem to be saying that such a bad law as my hypothetical would have been constitutional prior to 1868. Two, if you don't have a fundamental right to support political causes with your money as a matter of political expression, then there's arguably nothing there to "equally protect". At least, I am sure that an entrenched monopoly party would find a way to suppress political donations if at all possible in the absence of strong 1st Amendment assertion of an inherent right to engage in such political activity.
Perhaps you're oversimplifying this. It's not that "money equals speech"; the problem is that suppressing certain kinds of donations means preventing people from "getting the word out" about something important to them, and thus prevents them from joining in unison with their peers in an act of aggregate, unison political speech. Or something.
I was speaking to the people who think the first amendment goes too far. not "you" you. Sorry about the confusion.
The people I hear complaining about Koch brothers are all liberals, and the ones wanting to restrict money in politics, while saying Unions and Soros can spend all they want. Some people want it both ways.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There's a plausible argument that people shouldn't lose their free speech rights just because they get together in order to exercise them, or formalize their arrangement by forming a corporation.
There's also a plausible argument to be made that if you can't spend your money on, say, traveling places to speak or buying poster boards for signs, you can't actually speak. In fact, if you can't spend any money related to political speech, your speech is largely limited to speaking to yourself at home.
It's almost intuitive.
Because everyone has (to a first approximation) the same ability to speak. The USA has several orders of magnitude disparity in control of money.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This seems like a simpler version of Wolf-Pac.com who aims to pass get a Constitutional Amendment. The problem i see with Mayday is that although it is aiming to elect officials to pass campaign finance reform the problem is those same politicians once in will be spending most of their day (as all other politicans currently do) looking for the next source of campaign funding -- and last i checked the highest funder gets the most attention and sway by these politicians. Mayday is limited in how much influence it can do because there are much wealthier lobbyists who can entice their angels to the dark side quite easily. A smarter approach is to attack the problem at the state level as wolf-pac is doing. Otherwise the problem will persist. My question is: Please convince me that Mayday is a better approach than Wolf-Pac. TYT started Wolf-Pac years ago and is in much further progress than Mayday including the fact that they brought up the flaws of taking a similar approach to what Mayday ended up doing years ago. So again, please talk me down and explain how your approach will work and how because it seems destined to fail to me.
It was a troll with a small number of responses. I give it a 3/10 because it got some responses and this dumb one from you.
the problem is that suppressing certain kinds of donations means preventing people from "getting the word out" about something important to them
Outright disallowing donations is one thing. It's another to place limits on how much they can give. 196 people shouldn't be allowed to donate 80% of the money that goes to super PACs, that is simply buying political influence by those who can afford it. If the donation limit was capped at $1000 per person, for example, then that would change things. Mayday PAC is a good example - the word is out, and it doesn't require people to donate a million dollars each. People can still get the word out, but the power should be with groups of like-minded people rather than very wealthy individuals. Sheldon Adelson said it best:
"I'm against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections," he shrugs. "But as long as it's doable I'm going to do it."
The $11 million he gave to Gingritch is 0.044% of his $25 billion worth. That's the same as a person worth a million dollars donating $440. It doesn't matter to him, but it drowns out everyone else who can't afford to give $11 million. It also drowns out people like those who support Mayday, who combined can only muster a little over $2 million (so far, anyway).
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
So you think our current system is perfect; anyone with access to millions of dollars should be allowed to influence elections in any way they see fit. That must be why congress has the best approval ratings we've seen in years and politicians don't have to waste any time/resources campaigning when they could be, you know, doing their jobs.
Give me a break.
I agree that we should be careful with how we restructure elections. Rather than worry about how to restrict money flowing into elections (and dealing with "first amendment" issues) we should prohibit all political donations and give all candidates a set amount to work with to reach their constituents. I don't pretend to know the details of how a system like this should work, but it's certainly better than restricting political speech to individuals/groups with millions of $$$ to throw around.
OK, if it's so desirable to "level the playing field" so some people don't influence more than others, why not censor some highly influential political bloggers? Why not mandate surgically created speech impediments for the most charismatic political speakers? You still haven't gotten away from my accusation that your core goal is a bad goal. Looking at the money aspect and saying, "See! Dirty money!" doesn't change the fact that "leveling the playing field" is a bad goal to start with, and really a misunderstanding of democratic ideals.
I think you define "democratic" differently than I do.
The idea behind democracy was one person, one vote.
Not one dollar, one vote.
If dollars didn't have the ability to warp the debate, by raising the noise level based not on the number of people involved, but sheerly on how much noise that could be made, we'd simply laugh at all the campaign spending excesses as a waste of money.
But, while it's obvious that money alone cannot guarantee an election, it's obvious that a lot of people both con and pro think it can do something, and if we're to be any form of democracy, even a republic - instead of a plutocracy, then money shouldn't be allowed to warp the process.
You're a lawyer, and the restrictions on speech you propose will certainly lots of opportunity for lawyers to exercise power and get additional work. You personally are almost certainly part of the 1%, and if you insinuate that businessmen try to influence politics for their monetary gain, why shouldn't we assume the same about you? Furthermore, while you propose restrictions on the political speech of other people, you don't seem to be proposing restrictions on the political speech of newspaper corporations, universities, or their employees.
To the degree that your proposals are specific at all, it looks to me that they amount to a self-serving attempt at further concentrating political power and the ability to engage in political speech in the hands of political incumbents, lawyers, the media, and universities. And in the many areas your proposal is vague, I don't see why I should assume that you are not simply pursuing your self-interest with your political activities, which, being a member of an intellectual elite and "the 1%", almost certainly don't coincide with the interests of average Americans. So, why should we trust you?
Why not?
For the same reason a ham sandwich isn't a duck?
"Money" describes tokens of value used in trade for goods and services. "Speech" describes, in its most abstract form, the communication of ideas. The two have entirely different purposes, different modalities, different styles of accountancy/accountability (as appropriate).
Now, if you want to debate whether or not companies can use as much money as they have to directly share their own opinions with the public, such as Chik-Fil-A coming out as anti-gay, we can talk. But Walmart anonymously pumping billions into anti-union candidates or Tyson buying their way into anti-agricultural-whistleblower laws, come about as far from "speech" as that ham sandwich does from a duck.
OK, if it's so desirable to "level the playing field" so some people don't influence more than others, why not censor some highly influential political bloggers?
Because I am concerned with money, not actual speech. People can say whatever they want to say. It's not about leveling all playing fields everywhere in every domain, it is about restricting the influence of MONEY in politics. Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Jon Stewart can say whatever they want to say to their audiences, and if they can convince them to vote a certain way, fine. That is not even in the same arena as Sheldon Adelson giving Gingritch $11 million dollars to single-handedly boost his presidential campaign, or Rupert Murdoch trying to fund a presidential campaign for David Petraeus. It's not people talking that I'm worried about, it is people buying. Specifically, wealthy individuals buying elections. I think it's wrong and incompatible with a democracy. The influence of political bloggers has zero to do with this discussion.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Mr. Lessig,
You are using your First Amendment right to free speech to try to stifle others' free speech... Isn't that just a bit hypocritical?
I don't have any points today.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
No, I think I just put my finger on a fallacy on your part. You've made it very clear that it's the disproportionate influence of one person versus lesser influence of the masses of other people on elections that you can't tolerate.
:p
But you still haven't given any reason why Sheldon Adelson's money is any different here than Famous Q. PolitiBlogger's virtual soapbox. In both cases, one person has drastically larger influence on the political debate than the masses of people around them. Why is this imbalance of power OK for Famous Q, but not for Adelson? Why? Why? Why?
Very unconvinced over here....
Your goal seems to be to invest some agency with more power to police election spending. In order to control this spending, violators will undoubtedly be subject to fines and imprisonment.
Have you considered that it may not be possible to threaten and police and regulate a population into producing the electoral outcomes you desire? Is it wise to try? Is it morally right to threaten and imprison people for this purpose? Why or why not?
Instead of a government with even more power, which would presumably be even more valuable to someone trying to buy control of it, why don't we shrink government so there's less power to buy and less power to be used against us if the wrong guy is put in charge?
I've followed your work on behalf of free culture for years sir, and let me just say "Thank you".
The importance of your current campaign cannot be overstated; no country can be truly "free" it is in fact owned by a few tyrants. Corruption was bad before Citizens United and it's almost uncontroversial to say it's the worst in our history. Aside from donating money, how can individuals help? I'm sure you know this crowd has no shortage of technical skills and I'd be happy to volunteer myself.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
The people I hear complaining
How about the people you hear complaining about Citizens United? Or do your ears stop working when it's not them durty libruls out to destroy capitalism?
Proportional influence is an interesting idea. So we should ban unions since their large membership will give their leaders disproportionate influence with politics? How about newspaper editors they have a large readership and their recommendations in elections can be very helpful? How about political bloggers if they write about one candidates negatives and the others positives? These people become disproportionately important to politician election chances and therefore they are given greater access and influence.
So - I really like the idea of the PAC. I want to contribute. BUT, I don't want to undermine my other causes.
Question: Will this PAC be promoting both liberal and conservative politicians who advocate this one very important issue? The mayday.us website says 5 races will be targeted. What races and why those particular races?
Example:
Politician A is "wrong" on every issue but campaign finance reform.
Politician B is "right" on every issue but wrong on campaign finance reform.
How can someone like me - who believes the current campaign finance system is a rot at the heart of our democracy, but also has to balance this issue with other important issues - how can my concerns be assuaged?
I'm not sure who you are replying to. You seem to be addressing statements that you think somebody made... but I don't see any of them in my post.
Of course money can be exchanged for greater access to an audience. Money can be exchanged to a lot of things. But that doesn't make it any of those things. Money is rarely regulated in the same manner as the things it can be exchanged for.
When the majority of voices do not have some means of access to be heard, there is no such thing as free speech. (In fact, doesn't equating speech with money make "free speech" an oxymoron?) And that is the direction that speech=money heads us toward.
...because governments never, ever abuse their position when given leeway to curtail personal freedoms?
Something, I am sure, corporate interests would never stoop to. In any case, in a properly functioning democracy, there are means for preventing this. In our current plutocracy, not so much.
And, for the record...
democratic: pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
The core issue is conflating money with speech. That has always been a lie, payed for by the very rich to ensure that they maintained absolute control, and is grossly exacerbated by the more recent "corporations are people" lie.
Combine the two, and you have legalized bribery. And not just random Joe Millionaire trying to protect his own indulgences, but multi-billion dollar companies spending the money of their employees to keep entire swaths of congress in their pockets.
This signature is false.
good point, it would be an interesting standpoint
http://www.auqhost.com Reliable web hosting solutions
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
This signature is false.
You spoke of "egregious twisting of the intent of the 1st amendment". It's interesting -- originally voting rights were much more restricted than today. You had to be a white male, and you also had to own 50 acres of land in many states before you could vote. I'm not aware of any restriction on political donations back then, though.
Ronald Dworkin said, “ When politics desperately needs money, and money desperately seeks influence, money and politics cannot be kept far apart. ” Is it possible to take money out politics or reduce the influence of money by establishing another big SUPER PAC"MAYDAY" ? Would it be easier if money isn't speech and corporations aren't persons and public campaign finance is mandatory?
insert whatever issue you want...those are examples
you can troll/nitpick any list of things...the point is the question...why this of all the options?
Thank you Dave Raggett
i'm asking Lessig about the reasons for his choice
statistically all social ills and bad outcomes are predicted by any number of things, household income, school services, etc
the idea that ***campaign finance reform*** is the central issue has been around for a long time...no one in this discussion is the first to advocate strongly for campaign fincance reform
name any issue...there is surely someone who's PhD thesis hinges on a certain factor being true...for that same issue there is also most likely a group/non-profit that things that **that issue** is the key issue
you know that in political lobbying, everyone thinks their issue is the lynchpin, right?
there's a better way to allocate resources...that's what my question is asking
Thank you Dave Raggett
One is the playing field where the elected representative is being influenced by lobbyists with deep pockets, the other is where voters are being influenced by the press, including bloggers.
The first one is reprehensible, the representative has to work for his constituents, not the guy with most money.
The second is exactly what democracy is about, the constituents are influenced by whatever rocks their boat and then they vote.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
AKA, pass laws that prevent my political enemies from spending money on their campaigns while creating a minimal nuisance to my own candidates.
They'll take the money, pocket it, and then draft a bill, and it will get killed from 15 different directions because even with the full force of crowd funding you're not going to have pockets deep enough to continue to match big business on a regular basis.
You're basically giving a politician a large amount of money to try to get him to do something he knows has no chance of success.
So here in Scotland we are about to have a historic opportunity to strike out on our own and redefine our constitution.
The Scottish Government posted a draft constitution last week for public consultation. I wondered if you might have any advice of what sort of thing needs to be in there?
My personal feeling is that the Declaration of Arbroath did not go far enough. We need to define, explicitly, what powers, we the people, reserve to ourselves and exactly when and under what circumstances we can revoke the power of the various arms of government.
I really like much of the attitude to contracts in the GPL and have also toyed with the idea of unalterable articles. I feel like there are certain principles that we need to make clear are not negotiable.
How, at a constitutional level, can we get the money out of politics and regain control of those we elect?
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
Yes, with the original intent being that everyone has an equal right to speak. When money=speech, only those with money will have the right to speak.
If you want to look into the wayback machine, there was a time when corporations weren't people too. Ah, well, one step forward and two steps back.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
Why are you not transparent about which 5 races you will aim to influence? Or at the very least WHEN do you plan to announce that selection?
Dr L, I am a supporter of your movement but when I asked several of my friends (on Facebook) to join me, one of the main questions was - how will you utilize this money to fight the other PACs?
I wasn't able to adequately address exactly what would happen to their pledges. Care to elaborate?
The blogger presumably has had to build an audience by displaying some sort of insight that attracts people and keeps them reading his stuff. Or hers, depending.
In my world, that is better than a guy we'll call "Rick 'the thief' Scott" instead of using his real name, which is "Rick 'the thief' Scott," who spent $73 million to buy his way into the Florida governor's mansion.
"And how did he get all that money?" you ask.
"He was CEO of Hospital Corporation of America when they were ripping off Medicare for billions of dollars, and paid the largest fine in U.S. history," said the little red hen.
Why do you believe it is a precondition of a constitutional-amendment path?
By the numbers:
The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention.
A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States* (38 of 50 States).
The Constitutional Amendment Process
If you can't get an ordinary bill through the House and Senate, you haven't a prayer of getting the super-majorities needed for a constitutional amendement.
[*note:
State ratifying conventions are one of the two methods established by Article V of the United States Constitution for ratifying proposed constitutional amendments. Ratifying conventions have only been used on one occasion, that being for the ratification of the Constitution's 21st Amendment in the year 1933. {Repeal of Prohibition] All other proposed constitutional amendments have been offered to the state legislatures for ratification.
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a popular referendum is not a substitute for either the legislature or a ratifying convention --- nor can a referendum approve of, or disapprove of a state legislature's, or a convention's, decision on an amendment. (Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221, [1920]).
State ratifying conventions
I was gonna ask why Republic, Lost wasn't available under a Creative Commons license but I see that it has in fact become available under a CC license since the last time I checked a while ago. I suggest all US citizens go to http://republic.lessig.org/ and start reading.
Fallacy 1: "Because one politician got his money from ripping off Medicare, all money in politics is corrupt."
(Many other people get their money through legitimate means.)
Fallacy 2: "There is a discernable moral difference between a blogger's disproportionately large audience due to writing skill versus a rich person's disproportionately large audience due to purchasing power."
(Both can only be described as morally neutral in the general case. If you're trying to "level the playing field", there is no reason to restrict it to money -- you might as well consider speaking or writing skill, physical attractiveness, etc. Science fiction has been written on the subject.)
Karl Rove and his "maths" spending a quarter billion dollars and still loosing badly.
You are such an idiom. And a maroon. (Just kidding, of course, but there must be a numbered Fundamental Internet Law that says that online insults of other people's intelligence always contain a misspelling of some sort.)
Money, like speech, only has the value and power a person gives to it. There is nothing intrinsic about either, and it has absolutely no force of its own. Everybody here is wagging the dog in a quest for convenience and expediency. Go after the desire, not the object of that desire.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
more recent "corporations are people" lie
So you are saying that when people band together to accomplish something, they no longer have rights as people. Banded together, they may be censored by the government. They may have their property arbitrarily seized. All the normal rights of people are taken away, right?
I don't think you've thought this through. Corporations are people. They are not owned or run by robots. If you disagree with that, then you're not thinking deeply about it yet.
You are refuting your own point by that line of argument. Everyone has the right to speak, but not everybody has the same persuasiveness/loudness/venue/charisma for speaking. And it would be a horrible idea for the government to try to equalize people's speech. Similarly, everyone has the right to spend their money to advance a political cause, but not everyone has the same amount of money to spend.
So money and speech are very similar there, and what you perceive as "unfair" really just boils down to the same thing as whining because you can't sway the men in the forum like Cicero can. Some people have always had more effective speech than others, and some people have always had more money than others.
Poe's law?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So you'd allow someone who wants to blog for a candidate to pay a hosting provider x amount of money and to pay another company to make sure they are top of google search results but wouldn't allow them to pay for an opinion piece advising people to vote to candiate x in the newspaper, local radio or TV?
If Mayday can't support term limits, then I can't support it. In fact I may feel compelled to fight against it.
Term limits simply shift power to those who can continue to operate outside those limits. The bureaucrat. The lobbyist. The fund-raiser. Historically, term limits have been shaped by the political impotence of those who would impose them. It's not a cure for their disease, it is a symptom.
that TED talk doesn't address my question
Thank you Dave Raggett
But you still haven't given any reason why Sheldon Adelson's money is any different here than Famous Q. PolitiBlogger's virtual soapbox.
One of them is money. As in, currency. Hard cash. Something that you exchange for goods and services. Something that nearly everyone is trying to get.
The other one is a group of people listening.
I can try to convince a woman to sleep with me all I want. If I am influential, she will. But if I pay her for it, it's illegal.
I can try to convince a politician to do something all I want. If I am influential, she will. But if I make an explicit agreement to pay her in exchange for a vote, that is illegal.
A blogger can convince people to vote however they want, and if they are convincing then those people will vote that way. But if I offer a person money in order to go to the ballot and vote how I want them to, both of us have committed a federal crime and are subject to $10,000 in fines and up to 5 years in prison.
Money and speech are obviously not the same thing. Using money to influence an election and talking to people are also not the same thing. This is not rocket science. While spending money and donating to campaigns will always be part of the election process, there are steps we can take in order to make sure that very wealthy people do not have the combined FINANCIAL influence on the election process as literally millions of other people.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
So are a bunch of non "progressives" part of this? I'm sorry,but if this is just a bunch of like minded liberals you will simply have another SuperPAC with a large amount of influence and a definite ideology. Oh...they'll start out saying it won't be about liberal ideology, but then it will come to the first "gray" decision. Support this, or support that...or "well surely, we don't want to target this congressman..I mean look at his stance on X". Yeah...try again....
Go after the desire, not the object of that desire.
I think I made my motivation entirely clear in the original response to you: "if we do insist on a constitutional amendment as the fix, we damned well need to target the 14th, not the 1st". So not shooting for any goals-by-proxy here; I make no attempts to hide my stance that the real problem here involves giving human rights to fictional entities.
Money, like speech, only has the value and power a person gives to it. There is nothing intrinsic about either, and it has absolutely no force of its own.
Quite true - But at least in the US, we hold one of those as a sacred right of citizenship, specifically protected from government oversight (whether or not the government has honored that right notwithstanding). Money, on the other hand, came as a distant afterthought - We used the Spanish Real until 1792, and even after that, right up until the Civil War, "dollar" literally meant a specific weight of silver (the same weight present in the Real) used as a medium of exchange.
All of which has no bearing, of course, on the basic fact that money isn't speech, no matter how you spin it. So in that regard, I suppose we agree, other than coming to different conclusions - Trying to conflate or discriminate between money and speech does count as a red herring, when the real problem involves non-humans having more power to decide our future than actual humans do.
OK, you are giving some fine analogies. But really, we're not talking about making it illegal to explicitly buy out a politician, because that is already illegal. You are suggesting that it should be illegal (by analogy) to pay money to a woman at all, whether or not there is sleeping with oneself involved. Or that there should be limits as to how much money a man can pay a woman. You want to cut out the gold digger girlfriends, and don't care whether you destroy legitimate gift giving freedoms between couples in the process (again, all by analogy). Right?
I don't have a problem with scrutinizing politicians and making sure they aren't selling their legislative votes, because that's a basic corruption issue. And I appreciate that you're trying to catch the more obscure cases of this. But the government isn't going to stop there. Politicians in power will use an ill-conceived campaign finance law like this as a hammer to silence political dissent, whether it's films, newspapers, bloggers, etc. They'll say "money, money!" and violate 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Losses of liberties like this need to be nipped in the bud before they grow into a full Broadway person-eating plant.
You are suggesting that it should be illegal (by analogy) to pay money to a woman at all, whether or not there is sleeping with oneself involved. Or that there should be limits as to how much money a man can pay a woman. You want to cut out the gold digger girlfriends, and don't care whether you destroy legitimate gift giving freedoms between couples in the process (again, all by analogy). Right?
Well, if that woman is a politician, then yes. I am suggesting that politicians have to play by different rules than everyone else when they receive money.
Politicians in power will use an ill-conceived campaign finance law like this as a hammer to silence political dissent, whether it's films, newspapers, bloggers, etc.
I'm optimistically assuming that any law will be worded so that can't happen. Something like that would be obviously unconstitutional, so any law that would regulate campaign finance must be constitutional or else it's a waste of time. I haven't seen any actual bills being proposed at this point, so I can't really say either way.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I'm sorry, that doesn't answer the question. The difficulty of one task vs. another are not that relevant if those tasks aren't substitutes for one another.
Something like that would be obviously unconstitutional
No it wouldn't be. Once Lessig's crowd drills it into everybody's heads that it's OK for the government to block expenditure of money for political ends, then the government will proceed to do so whenever and wherever it can get away with it -- that is, whenever it's to the advantage of the current administration. This is giving government a new avenue to restrict people's political freedoms, and it will certainly be abused.
Raising money to make a political documentary that we don't like? We're gonna shut you down. Gotta get all that dirty money out of politics, you know. It's for the people's good.
So where do you think this would stop? What administration since that of Cincinattus and a few others has ever been anything other than the camel's nose in the tent?
But so long as money forces that issue more, they get their issues to have priority, even if their issues getting solved causes more issues for everyone else by far.
Plenty think they have linchpin issues but the fact of the matter is, how many of those linchpin issues are directly caused by money interfering with the process to extract as much money as possible?
Give you an example. Many see our Foodstamp (EBT) costs as a major issue. But the biggest problem with that issues is the minimum wage and un/under employment of the population where so many are out of work or the working poor to even qualify for it. While the best fix would be ones that raise minimum wage to the point where they don't need it and increase full time employment, that isn't the most profitable endeavor for those with money. So while places like Walmart get a great deal of their incoming from EBT, they will not rally behind the issues to fix it as that would mean them actually having to pay livable wages but the ones running it will complain about having to pay for it and attempt get that taken care of.
So while fixing the major issues would fix a great deal of it, the money has clouded it to ignore the issues and attack the symptoms instead, even if the symptoms are actually easing the pain of the issue at hand.
Pretty sure you're the one who needs to think this through. The people still have rights. The people may speak freely, donate to politics or otherwise exercise any rights enjoyed by We the People. But the corporation, the group, the amassed collection of people does not have rights. CocaCola does not get a vote in November. All of the Coca Cola employees do, sure (assuming non-felons, US citizens, etc) but the corporation is not a person.
I didn't band together with the CEO of my company to accomplish something political. I'd wager that the vast VAST majority of Americans didn't pick their current job because of the political leanings of the C-suite (if those political leanings are even allowed to leak into public knowledge)
Corporations are absolutely NOT people.
This signature is false.
Mr. Lessig, assuming you can muster enough crowdsourced funding to have any serious effect one way or the other, how do you expect this initiative to not to turn into a travesty of itself and just another, and possibly more powerful tool of entrenched special interests, like other initiatives you have been associated with, like ICANN, whose only purpose seems to have been wresting control of network names and numbers away from users and network operators to sell to governments and other legacy enterprises, at the former's expense. Have you ever considered that, however well-intended, you are quite likely only going to exacerbate the problem you propose to address?
In short, do we really need or want another metalayer of "governance"?
But the corporation, the group, the amassed collection of people does not have rights.
Really? Two people working together lose their freedom of speech just because they happen to be working together? You will next suggest shutting down the NYT editorial department, I suppose?
CocaCola does not get a vote in November.
Yawn, straw man fallacy.
I didn't band together with the CEO of my company to accomplish something political.
You don't own the company you work for, so this is irrelevant. The rights of the company to freedom of speech should be equivalent to the rights of the owners of the company, since the company does what they say and speaks for them.
I'd wager that the vast VAST majority of Americans didn't pick their current job because of the political leanings of the C-suite (if those political leanings are even allowed to leak into public knowledge)
Who cares? Private companies are owned and run by people. Those people should decide what the companies do and say. If you want the company to do or say something different, start your own business and spend your own money. What is this, communism? :p
Corporations are absolutely NOT people.
Obviously it depends on the sense in which you use the phrase. In the sense in which I use it, every company is people. You can list out their names -- the owners or stockholders of the company who decide what that company will do.
English lesson time: the word "company" refers to a "company of people", i.e. more than one person joined together to do something together. In this context, a non-owning employee (like yourself) is not a member of that company.
If money is speech then let's just bypass the circus and get payed directly to vote. We could even have a government marketplace for buying votes, to make sure the rich don't have to pay extra. Of course, our legislators would never allow that level of competition.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
C.R.E.A.M.
that's a Wu Tang Clan song...it stands for "Cash Rules Everything Around Me"
***everyone knows*** that more money gets you what you want in most cases
***saying that adds nothing to the conversation***
my question is legit and its obvious you have an axe to grind...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Yup, allowing peole to have a thought not given to them by the government is certainly going to far. I certainly can't wait until we have fully adopted the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary so that this is no longer even possible.
Yes, those complaining about the Citizens United decision are also liberals. the most hilarious ones are the professional media (employees of corporations) when they start complaining that SCOTUS had the audacity to continue allowing corporations to discuss politics. I don't care who you are, that is funny.
Correct, money is not speech but it provides the means to allow speech to be heard and read. Do you think those horrible terrorist of the 1770s were using magical printing presses that magically produced lead, paper and ink or do you think that maybe, just maybe, they had to spend their money to buy those supplies? Is that not pretty much the same as buying ads in newspapers, magazines and on radio and TV?
but it takes money to run a blog so spending money to run a blog that makes political speech should be just as illegal as spending money for any other get-out-the-message activity.
"Rather, I suspect he also sees loss of freedom from undue influence in the public sphere by private entities." Those are the only entities that should have any influence. Imagine the outcome when only the government gets to have an opinion.
Money never has, is not now and never will be defined as equaling speech except in the minds of liberals/progressives. Being heard has always required money to be spent. Back at the time of the US Revolution, money was required to buy or hire printing presses to produce pamphlets. Today it is required to buy ads or electricity to run a blog or pay the hired hands to appear on TV and radio. It has always been the case that those with more money could afford more publicity. That is one reason why the 1st amendment also guarantees to the right to join forces with others (associate).
Either way you cut, it is only a "simple" constitutional fix away, right?
Yes, they are allowed to debate on TV as long as they are willing to pay for the privilege just like the D and R candidates do. There is absolutely no law or regulation preventing it. A private organization pays for all that and has established its rules. All other candidates are currently allowed to join forces and organize all the debates they desire. If the public wants to watch them, the networks will air them.
Yes, you will allow them to say it in private all they want. Saying it in public, where it really matters, is what you have a problem with.
Or George Soros or Michael Bloomberg or Warren Buffet each, individually, spending more on anti-gun lobbying and advertising than 4 million citizens combined? As many have asked previously, why do you liberals ever only complain about one side of the spectrum doing this?
And one of those services you buy is "spreading the word" or speech if you will.
Yes, he 1st amendment was the only thing that prevented the government from shutting down that documentary dn yet, many on hear use that decision as the very reason why we need to alter the 1st amendment. Never mind that the most recent appointee to SCOTUS argued during the hearing that the government already was allowed to do just that (more specifically, prevent the publication of a book the administration deemed undesirable based on political content oriented at itself or a candidate for federal office).
Regardless of what China claims, the US is a constitutional republic. It basically means we have a constitution that defines the role of our government and that we elect representatives to vote on laws for us. Amazing that words have actual meaning, isn't it? And that the meaning need not change just because a dictatorship chooses to misuse those words in describing itself.
And the only group saying that "corporations are people" are liberal groups and liberal politicians. The conservative and libertarian side have ever only made the claim that the people organizing into groups, even if they incorporate for the purposes of money-management, do not lose that right. In other words, the corporation they formed is allowed to enter into contracts to produce and distribute advertising or books or movies instead of having to have 1,000 or 1,000,000 individuals sign the contracts and send in that many individual checks and such.
Other people here have already pointed these issues out separately but I'd like to combine them.
I don't think that anyone can honestly deny how NBC's portrayal of Sarah Palin had a tremendous impact on how the 2008 campaign ended. To this day, a lot of people still confuse Tina Fey's awesome satire for actual Palin statements. Bill Maher, in addition to his million dollar donation to a PAC for Obama's benefit, has constantly given media exposure to politicians who represent his point of view.
Do you have a plan to limit the effect that non-advertising content has on elections?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Do you have a problem with Michael Bloomberg giving $50,000,000 to promote anti-gun politicians?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I can try to convince a woman to sleep with me all I want. If I am influential, she will. But if I pay her for it, it's illegal.
If you pay a woman to have sex with you, in most places, that's illegal.
If you pay other people to tell this woman why she should have sex with you, that's not illegal.
Buying votes is illegal. Paying people to tell others to vote the way you want them to should not be illegal.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Rather than worry about how to restrict money flowing into elections (and dealing with "first amendment" issues) we should prohibit all political donations and give all candidates a set amount to work with to reach their constituents.
ALL candidates? Does that include candidates who have no chance to win? The American Nazi Party for example? Why in the fuck should they get as much money as the "established" parties or even the third parties that are on the fringes but still have the power to influence. Like the Libertarian, Green and Constitution Parties?
Your quick fixes lack foresight. I don't mean that as an insult It seems to me that you're genuinely concerned and motivated to fix the problem but when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you're supposed to do is stop digging. These "solutions" make the problem worse.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
CocaCola does not get a vote in November.
Because CocaCola is not a citizen. Illegal aliens do not have the right to vote in November either. (We all know that many of them will anyway, but they have no right to do so.)
but the corporation is not a person.
Yes it is. Being a "person" under the law doesn't require one to be a human being. There is still a class of human beings who are not "persons" under the laws of the USA. You need to understand the underlying premise here.
The Constitution refers to "Persons", "The People" and "Citizens". These are three distinct types of entity under the law. I am a Citizen and by virtue of that, I am a person and one of the people.
Corporations are absolutely NOT people.
No, they are not "people". They are "persons". There is a legal distinction and an important one.
If a dog bites you, can you sue the dog? No. Why? Because the dog is not a person.
Can you sue a corporation? Yes. Why? Because it's a legal "person". "Incorporate" means to "bring together into one body".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What bothers me the most about this argument is that you are conflating speaking with being heard. If I post a political blog, I can say whatever I want, but the only people that hear me are those who choose to go to my blog. Running a television ad on the other hand, lets you be heard by people who did not choose to listen to you. (Not that web servers are free, but I think that's beside the point.)
That's exactly what's being proposed here, among other things, if you read the fine print.
Damned strange coming from someone associated with, and here trading upon, openness and non-coercion. DAMN strange, if you ask me.
Isn't the influence of money and other forms of power simply infinitely plastic? If you block one path to influence it will simply take another path, there are infinitely many ways to get what you want, and if you have lots of money its always much easier to exercise them. So isn't the real question one of values, not of money?
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The government is hereby shutting down your blog by prohibiting anyone from spending any money to host it.
Dr. Lessig, first, please understand that I am not questioning your intentions, but I do wonder if you've really thought this initiative through. How is attempting to buy elections at the discretion of a self-appointed elite body of what appears to be technocrats who presumably pass some sort of litmus test for political correctness, determined by yet another nebulous front-organization of some sort, which openly speaks of gutting the 1st amendment and suchlike, going to address the brokenness you refer to any better than attacking the problem head on, to wit, cutting this invasive, bloated, monstrosity of a Federal government, with it's extorted legions of State agencies and municipal minions, all sucking on the Federal teat, back down to some kind of reasonable size, and, yes, scope. Forgive me for being suspicious, but what kind of assurance can you give that this initiative is not just a partisan power grab?
A private organization pays for all that and has established its rules.
Yes it has, and it's called The Commission On Presidential Debates. Guess who runs that commission? If you answered "the Democratic and Republican parties created and are in complete control of the commission", then you're correct! So guess why we only get to watch televised debates featuring Democratic and Republican candidates. Go ahead, guess. I'll wait.
Are you done guessing? Did you answer "if any network shows any other debate not sponsored by the commission, then the commission will blacklist that network from its debates?" If so, you're correct! Great job!!!
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Who the hell is complaining about one side? I want it all to end. In fact, I want every single person in Congress right now to be kicked out on their asses and replaced with completely new people. Every one of them. I also want some Libertarian candidates on the ballots, but one thing at a time.
Or George Soros or Michael Bloomberg or Warren Buffet each, individually, spending more on anti-gun lobbying and advertising than 4 million citizens combined?
Yeah, that's pretty fucked up, isn't it? Do you think they should be allowed to do that? I sure as hell don't, and I sure as hell never said I did. Take your straw man somewhere else.
Yes, you will allow them to say it in private all they want. Saying it in public, where it really matters, is what you have a problem with.
The straw is really flying here. No, that is NOT what I have a problem with. People can say anything they want, wherever they want. What I DO have a problem with is a single voice drowning out the voices of millions of others. Notice how I did not qualify that statement with any sort of political affiliation whatsoever. Take your divisive "you liberals" bullshit somewhere else, I'm not interested in politicizing this issue.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Sure do. Have you not been paying attention to anything I've said? Have I qualified any statement with a political affiliation?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You want Libertarian candidates on the ballot? Convince some to run. Convince some to run for every partisan office on the ballot, however obscure, so you show that the Libertarians are a serious party. They don't have to do much campaigning, nor worry about what happens when they're elected, but they should be on the ballot, and should be on promotional materials like voter guides you hand out. You want it to be possible to vote straight Libertarian.
Don't worry so much about being elected President (although the Libertarians should have a candidate for President and Vice-President on every appropriate ballot); that will take a long time. Start local. Try to get them on city councils, in the state legislature, minor offices, whatever. Have some build up some length of service and (hopefully) credibility.
Yes, this is a lot of work. It's work that I'm not going to do, since I'm not interested in Libertarians on the ballot, but some people need to organize more people to keep this sort of thing going. Take the attitude that you're #3, you try harder.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Banning corporate donations should go along with banning union donations. No donations by organizations.
Political speech itself cannot and should not be restrained. If some person impresses me as knowledgeable or insightful, I can take that person's opinion into account while voting (for quite a few years, I just voted Mom's choices for school board, figuring that I'd get results I'd like that way without bothering to do the research). I have no respect for Limbaugh, but he has exactly as much right to talk politics and try to influence people as I do. He's just better at getting people to listen. So, if you want to be disproportionately important in the election process, convince people they want to follow you and vote and contribute like you do.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Huh? Nobody's talking about anybody losing their freedom of speech. If two people work together, they can donate twice as much as one person as individuals. If one is a better speaker or blogger, the second can help the first.
Nobody's talking about shutting down the NYT's editorial department. We're talking about not allowing the New York Times to contribute to political organizations. They want to print editorials urging people to vote pro-Dadaist, that's their right. They want to encourage people to donate to the candidate with the silliest walk, fine. If individual NYT employees want to donate to political campaigns, that's cool.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You want Libertarian candidates on the ballot? Convince some to run.
I don't have to, they already do run. But they and all other smaller party candidates get little to no exposure based on the fact that the commission on presidential debates does not allow any small party candidates to debate on national TV. That's the major thing I want to get changed, I want control of the debate process out of the hands of any political party.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The people, by every natural measure, have superior resources. Any advantage against the people is artificially supported by the willingness of the people, based on a foundation of a cultural illusion. The illusion is becoming increasingly transparent. The thing I like about this PAC strategy is that it is not about winning the game, but about revealing the game. The potential to win the game is what will drive people to play it. But once it is played in any serious capacity, the illusion will be completely gone. Just even talking about it like we are today is harming the illusion. I see the arguments against the PAC, but I don't think they even matter.
So to get money out of elections, we....put loads of money into this SuperPac and believe they are righteous and will not pursue other objectives? Why?
This is a power grab from the powerful to another group of powerful (with our money).
No thanks, LL, you have to be more creative, perhaps working on limiting the power of government so your money won't chase their power?
That he is doing it means that he gets to set the rules. Following a leader requires trust. Lessig has a reputation that established the trust which supports his leadership qualification. I know this is a difficult concept for us liberals to understand.
Suing a corporation has nothing to do with them being people, and everything to do with them being deflector shield for the criminals in charge.
Case in point: General Motors. GM knowingly allowed a defect pass into production, and that defect killed over a dozen people. Somewhere along the line someone (Director, VP, or CEO) decided that it was cost effective to just let people die, rather than issuing a recall and fixing the defect. But that person is legally NOT culpable for negligence or any malfeasance. The corporation "GM" will get sued, will probably pay out some wrongful death suits, and back to business as usual.
That's not to say that corporations as legal targets is an entirely bad idea. Suing the corporation ensures a somewhat speedy resolution to the case for the victims. If we had to wait and dig through emails and history to see who approved the defect, nothing would ever get solved. Just look at what's going on with the IRS inquiry. "Oops, we lost that drive ... oops, those emails got deleted ... oops, etc." And even if we could sort out the individual who pressed OK on the defect, that would completely remove culpability from the management above said person, who were likely pushing an unreasonable schedule and forcing corners to be cut
Corporations are legal targets for litigation. Still doesn't make them people, persons, citizens, or any other such thing.
This signature is false.
Why do you believe statutory reform is necessary, or sufficient to accomplish anything serious? Why do you believe it is a precondition of a constitutional-amendment path?
Government by the people, for the people, and for business. I live in Quebec Canada, and our laws limit political contributions to humans only. And that amount has an upper limit. No one can donate in the thousands and corps and companies are not allowed to donate. As well, to run, an individual needed a small quantity of supporters from the riding in which he resides.
In the beginning these rules suggested that there would be many splinter parties created. Not so. If you are a party of one (an independent), your turn to speak in the parliament is one in 200. Therefore, there were few independents that succeeded.
But the best thing about that ceiling for contributions is that lobbyists can't get a foothold. The people are better protected from large corps pressuring the party in power for corp benefits.
That's easy. A blog is speech. Money isn't.
So... a law that says Lessig can’t raise money to run ads for his campaign—that would be constitutional, right?
While I'm pretty sure you're just trolling, I'll go ahead and respond. Maybe someone else will read through it and learn something.
Really? Two people working together lose their freedom of speech just because they happen to be working together? You will next suggest shutting down the NYT editorial department, I suppose?
It's funny that you mention strawman later, because that's exactly what this is. You're setting up a false argument on my behalf (that would be the "completely fabricating" part), so that you can beat that straw man down. No where did I ever say that the people working together would lose their freedom of speech. In fact, I said quite the opposite in my previous reply, and will say it again here. The people (that is, the actual human beings) still have all the rights that any individual has. They can still speak freely. Their rights are not abated in any way.
You don't own the company you work for, so this is irrelevant. The rights of the company to freedom of speech should be equivalent to the rights of the owners of the company, since the company does what they say and speaks for them.
Who cares? Private companies are owned and run by people. Those people should decide what the companies do and say. If you want the company to do or say something different, start your own business and spend your own money. What is this, communism? :p
Speaking of logical fallacies : That communism snark is full of Appeal to Emotion and Ad Hominem, with just a touch of Bandwagon. Or maybe communism is just a red herring ...
As for the rest of that comment, how does lack of ownership make my opinion irrelevant? For instance: I support Net Neutrality, should I quit my job at Comcast? I'm just a cable tech, but the Corporate guys are using the revenue I generate for the company to fight against Net Neutrality. Not their own inflated salaries. They're not opening their personal wallets to fight for something they personally believe in (which is fully within their rights) but instead, they're spending the corporate revenue that I help generate to fight on behalf of their personal issues.
And therein lies the real rub. Even if I wanted to ditch these guys and go self employed or work for a competitor, I can't. I'm a cable/wire tech, and Comcast has a lock-tight monopoly in the area. They've already leveraged corporate revenues to establish an illegal business practice (in clear violation of antitrust laws) Now they're layering illegal practices on top of illegal practices on top of illegal practices.
Truth be told though, I'd much rather attack the problem from the other side, as proposed and discussed way back in TFA. Limit the total revenue that a politician can spend on campaigns, from all sources, and more strictly monitor gifts/bribes. Not only will this solve the root problem of Corpos buying politicians by the bucket, but it will allow the politician to actually do their jobs and legislate, instead of spending their entire terms fundraising to compete with the challenger who has nothing but free time to fundraise.
This signature is false.
Okay, so maybe it should be structured differently. Like a voucher system. Everyone gets, say 5 vouchers per election cycle they can donate to any candidate or party they would like. With those vouchers, candidates or parties can "buy" airtime/billboards/whatever. Let's not tie this to major parties only, please. I personally don't give a shit if the American Nazi Party gets airtime. We have to rely on people to filter out the bullshit on their own, otherwise we'll necessarily end up with censorship.
The main take-away is that money is not an equalizer and should not be relied upon for a functioning democracy.
While I'm pretty sure you're just trolling, I'll go ahead and respond.
Wasn't intentionally trolling, thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I actually debated somebody else on Slashdot who took your argument to another level and said that no company should be allowed to engage in political advocacy. I raised the example of the NYT and asked if he would axe their editorial department (as far as political commentary/advocacy goes), and was shocked that he said he would. Of course, it wasn't fair to paint you with that brush...
... that to me the freedom for corporations to engage in political advocacy flows from the 1st Amendment, so in a sense I do believe that if you chop down that tree, then the NYT loses its legal protection from further government censorship. If people working together as a corporation don't have the right to speak (with a single voice) as that corporation, that's a big problem to me under the 1st Amendment and also on purely philosophical/ethical/civic grounds.
... except
Speaking of logical fallacies : That communism snark is full of Appeal to Emotion and Ad Hominem, with just a touch of Bandwagon. Or maybe communism is just a red herring ...
OK, I admit to a few fallacies; thanks for useful links. :p
As for the rest of that comment, how does lack of ownership make my opinion irrelevant?
There's nothing wrong with you having an opinion, but the owners of a company get to decide what that company does and says.
For instance: I support Net Neutrality, should I quit my job at Comcast? I'm just a cable tech, but the Corporate guys are using the revenue I generate for the company to fight against Net Neutrality.
I certainly hear you on the monopoly thing. When a company gets that big and ubiquitous it enters a gray area where I will not be so quick to a libertarian analysis of their right to do whatever they want within the law.
Truth be told though, I'd much rather attack the problem from the other side, as proposed and discussed way back in TFA. Limit the total revenue that a politician can spend on campaigns, from all sources, and more strictly monitor gifts/bribes. Not only will this solve the root problem of Corpos buying politicians by the bucket, but it will allow the politician to actually do their jobs and legislate, instead of spending their entire terms fundraising to compete with the challenger who has nothing but free time to fundraise.
I think this will change the problem, but most likely not solve it. They will just shift the money to the fringes and advocate indirectly, which they are already doing in many ways. ("See, we're not working for Joe, we're just attacking Mary!")
Anyway, enjoyed the exchange!
There's a reason PACs and other organizations that seek to affect government exist: power. As long as government has power to destroy your business, or your competitors' businesses -- or you -- people will want to influence government, either defensively or offensively.
The existence of organizations like PACs are a symptom. Getting rid of lawful means of influencing government will not make the reason for it go away -- or the attempts at influence.
Don't take the canary out of the coal mine and think you've made things safer. Don't quit taking the patient's temperature to end the fever. If you really want to do something about them, attack the root: work to reduce the power of the federal government.
There's even a document that describes how to reduce that power. It's called the Constitution of the United States of America.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Corporations can be the targets of legal action precisely because they are persons under the law.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
These "vouchers" that you are describing sound an awful lot like...money.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
if you were interested in actual discussion, you'd point out at what time in the video he does as you say...
maybe even...gasp...**put a quotation from the video**
but you just typed bullshit b/c you're trolling...not trying to foster actual discussion
Thank you Dave Raggett
There's a plausible argument that people shouldn't lose their free speech rights just because they get together in order to exercise them, or formalize their arrangement by forming a corporation.
If the employees of Walmart want to donate to a political issue, or group together to buy an advertisement, go for it. If the owners of Walmart want to donate to a political issue, go for it.
But just like we limit direct campaign contributions, there is no reason we couldn't limit individual political spending. Let everyone spend a total of 100 dollars, directly, on political issues. Travel, hotels, doesn't count. But buying tv time, buying posters, donating to a campaign, very direct and obvious political spending, issue advertising, does count.
INTRO: Money and lobbyists in politics is the symptom, not the solution.
Federal Constitution specifies a census to count people to expand the number of seats in House of Representatives. This was capped in 1913, which allowed lobbyists and money to increase influence. We should have ~80,000 or less people per representative, so each person could conceivably have a group lunch with their rep. Now there are over 1 million people per representative, so only those with money (lobbyists) get access.
QUESTION: Instead of focusing on the symptom of money in politics, why not focus on returning to representative government by allowing the House to grow with population?
RESEARCH LINKS:
424 seats in small state of New Hampshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Federal House seats capped in 1913 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
435 Representatives Can Not Faithfully Represent 300 Million Americans http://www.thirty-thousand.org...
Before smart-guys-and-gals say "30,000 people won't fit", consider meeting in a stadium once a year with tele-conferences the remainder of the sessions. Real representation, and the follow-on impotency of money and lobbyists, is worth the additional cost of paying 30,000 representatives.
Citizens United has nothing to do with Walmart. The "corporations" that Citizens United was about was not-for-profit corporations, specifically created for the purpose of citizen participation. You know, everything from the Sierra Club and the ACLU to Citizens United.
There's no reason why we couldn't transform ourselves into a fascist dictatorship either; that doesn't make it a good idea.
Well, since PBS is basically government owned, I guess PBS could take over all the other debates or maybe all the other candidates could make it worthwhile for the for-profit networks to air their debates. If the solution to every problem is going to be don't get involved and let the government solve it, then nothing really matters anyway.
Why do you think we limited direct contributions? Because way back in our past we were closer to a fascist dictatorship?
This idea that I see brewing in conservative circles, that it should be alright to just flat out cut a check to a politician in any amount is baffling. If it keeps going the way its been going, you'll see, literally, the head of Walmart or some organization walk into the Chamber of Congress before a vote and hand people money.
And if you disagree with flat out cutting a check to a politician, I can't see how you can be in favor of unlimited spending on issue ads or to bolster a campaign. The net effect is exactly the same.
What is baffling is that you consider this a problem, without any evidence whatsoever. Contrary to what you have been indoctrinated to think, the US is not a paradise created by rich people for rich people; there are far better places in the world to be rich. If anything, it is the US middle class that is far too powerful in US politics and enriching themselves at the expense of others.
Furthermore, even if it did cause problems, nobody has proposed better alternatives. Public financing of campaigns ends up being far more corrupt in practice (and there is plenty of experience).
Provide strong evidence that this is a significant problem, and then provide strong evidence that you have a solution that actually works better: that should be the bar people have to reach in order to reform in this area.
The money those horrible terrorists were using to fund their activities wasn't worth jack shit by the end of the Revolution. They printed tons and tons of currency, and then when they couldn't pay it back they legislated it away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_American_currency#Continental_currency
It sucks when your speech has a tendency to depreciate. Opinions on Slashdot certainly have a tendency to depreciate, in the sense that the more half-cocked ideas I encounter here, the more worthless all of them seem to be.