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Mayday PAC's Benjamin Singer Explains How You can Help Reform American Politics (Video)
Larry Lessig's Mayday PAC is a SuperPac that is working to eliminate the inherent corruption of having a government run almost entirely by people who manage to raise -- or have their "non-connected" SuperPACs raise -- most of the money they need to run their campaigns. The Mayday PAC isn't about right or left wing or partisan politics at all. It's about finding and supporting candidates who are in favor of something like last year's Government by the People Act. As we noted in our Mayday Pac interview with Larry Lessig last June, a whole panoply of tech luminaries, up to and including Steve Wozniak, are in favor of Mayday PAC.
This interview is being posted, appropriately, just before the 4th of July, but it's also just one day before the Mayday PAC Day of Action to Reform Congress. They're big on calling members of Congress rather than emailing, because our representatives get email by the (digital) bushel, while they get comparatively few issue-oriented phone calls from citizens. So Mayday PAC makes it easy for you to call your Congressional representatives and even, if you're too shy to talk to a legislative aide in person, to record a message Mayday PAC will leave for them after hours.
The five specific pieces of legislation Mayday PAC currently supports are listed at the RepsWith.US/reforms page. Two are sponsored by Republicans, two by Democrats, and one by an Independent. That's about as non-partisan as you can get, so no matter what kind of political beliefs you hold, you can support Mayday PAC with a clear conscience. (Note: the transcript has more information than the video, which is less than six minutes long.)
This interview is being posted, appropriately, just before the 4th of July, but it's also just one day before the Mayday PAC Day of Action to Reform Congress. They're big on calling members of Congress rather than emailing, because our representatives get email by the (digital) bushel, while they get comparatively few issue-oriented phone calls from citizens. So Mayday PAC makes it easy for you to call your Congressional representatives and even, if you're too shy to talk to a legislative aide in person, to record a message Mayday PAC will leave for them after hours.
The five specific pieces of legislation Mayday PAC currently supports are listed at the RepsWith.US/reforms page. Two are sponsored by Republicans, two by Democrats, and one by an Independent. That's about as non-partisan as you can get, so no matter what kind of political beliefs you hold, you can support Mayday PAC with a clear conscience. (Note: the transcript has more information than the video, which is less than six minutes long.)
Citizens United is a very popular decision here on slashdot...
And it's the right decision, in compliance with the 1st Amendment. Quit your bellyaching and stop voting for politicians who take the money. They are the guilty ones.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So the big complaint is that we can't turn on our television and be guaranteed to see fair campaign commercials? News flash: If that is how you make decisions then you will always be susceptible to being lied to or otherwise taken advantage of.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
I'd be in favor of this coupled with initiatives to decentralize power out of Washington DC (i.e., regionalize agency HQs) and thin the ranks of bureaucrats.
(If you eliminated PACs and similar organizations that act on particular citizen interests, its likely that the people actually running the government would be even more inclined to ignore the masses.)
I think there's a basic error in this approach. It assumes that government can and will run better with "big money" taken out of campaigning. But there's a lot of money given to campaigns for several reasons. The first is that, as Citizens United confirmed, money is speech, and spending money to support a cause or a candidate is at the heart of political expression.
The second reason is perhaps even more basic. When government is huge and has their fingers in every pie, it creates a great deal of motivation to influence those fingers. Campaign contributions are merely a form of lobbying, and lobbying has a standard message: subsidize me and cut my taxes and regulations, but burden my competitors and enemies with taxes and regulations, if not ban them outright.
If you really want to "get money out of politics," you need to (as much as possible) get politics out of the economy. (Ideologues will always lobby, and that's fine, because it's the crony capitalism and pay-to-play aspects that are most objectionable.) Which, of course, is not what many reformers want to do. Until they do, they are basically advocating spreading sugar around their picnic blanket, and then complaining about all the ants.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
If we put Senators back under the control of state legislatures, they'll be less influenced by outside money because the state legislatures can yank the leash when these "law makers" stop representing their constituents appropriately. This would make the Citizens United decision less relevant, at least on the Senate side.
The House reps are another story, because they're still under direct elections by the same public that keeps voting these "luminaries" back into power every time. Like senators, as soon as they finish lying to their constituents to their faces, they turn around and land in DC where they get hypnotized by lobbyists, committee chairmanships, etc. Then they're smooth sailing with their own agenda until it's time to come back home and lie to our faces again.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
Only the vote is a vote. People who let money influence their vote is the thing to address. You are attacking an inanimate object.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
no PACs, no tax checkoffs, no self-funding, no $5 checks from little old ladies... NO ELECTION MONEY PERIOD! go door to door, do a Sunday Silly Hour like BBC does and give all candidates their 5 minutes of TV
This is a nice ideal, but money has to be spent (in some form) so long as there is a goal to educate the people about the candidates.
I'd prefer:
1) all campaign funding to be provided from the general budget, equally to all candidates
2) a centralized government website for candidates to specify their opinions, answers, and rebuttals about the major issues, such that (at least some of) the data can be printed and distributed free-of-charge to any voting citizen that requests it... again all funded from the general budget
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Most of the moral panic surrounding campaign finance is based on correlation, not causation. In reality, large donations don't cause politicians to win, but politicians that are likely to win receive large donations. Furthermore, the fact that lobbyists, corporations, unions, and other special interests get to write legislation has little to do with campaign donations, and more with regulatory capture and the complexity of regulation.
And that brings us to these legislative proposals. The intent is to somehow make political speech more fair and egalitarian. The net result will, however, be that political power will be traded in even less transparent ways. In the worst case of fully publicly financed campaigns, you end up with government effectively deciding who can run against them.
I don't think these proposals have a snowball's chance in hell. But if they were to pass, the US would be screwed. So, I'll be donating to, and supporting, candidates who oppose them.
This would give even more power to the media unless they are not allowed to report on canidates either.
Also, it would make it even harder to get rid of an incumbent since they already have name recogonition.
Disclamer: I will not research how well they keep their promises, or acts they voted for and against or sponsored. I do not endorse or oppose any of these candidates.
I looked at their website, mayday.us It referred me to a different site, repswith.us describing five proposals they support. The plan of Democrat Mr. Sarbanes was first. His site seems to directly address various issues, with little double-speak. The Government By the People Act is its own section of his site, listed under "issues", but in its own section. The plan hinges on a tax credit for political donations to encourage small donors. Also this:
"Allow candidates to earn additional public matching funds within 60 days of the election so that citizen-funded candidates can combat Super PAC"
which doesn't explain how superpac donations won't apply to the matching funds. To be fair I didn't look into it.
Next is Democrat David Price. His site isn't as straight-forward, but does present mostly solid stances on the issues. I couldn't find the Empowering Citizens Act(pdf warning) without using the search function, which tells me he's not staking his reputation on it. This one is more complicated but the main theme seems to be limiting per-donor donations. Obviously loopholes that allow present donors to give more than they need to declare (such as giving bonuses to employees who promise to donate most of the bonus) remain. It also limits total public funds available to candidates, which my intuition tells me will have the opposite effect. This plan looks pretty slimy to me. Your opinion may vary.
Republican Jim Rubens plan, Political Money Reform Proposal" isn't on his site at all, so the link is back to repswith.us. It involves a larger tax rebate for donations and "Require searchable, realtime online reporting of contributions above $200" and removes all political spending and contribution limits.
Republican Richard Painter literally wrote the bookon ethics reform. His site is his university's site, so wouldn't naturally have details on supported initiatives. According to repswith.us the Taxation Only With Representation Act involves a $200 tax rebait for private donations and nothing else.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Because money isn't speech - limiting contributions would not limit your speech. Funny how that works.
of trolls post in favor of citizens united. Didn't know the Koch Brothers bot army was running so well.
Alright, so what about just using "speech = money" to tell people I will pay them $50 to vote a certain way?
Why isn't that protected speech? If money = speech, then by god, voting most definitely equals speech. How is my selling my vote NOT protected by the First Amendment? As long as the voter isn't a public official, how can it be bribery?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I recommend looking into Wolf-PAC -- wolf-pac.com
This effort is focused on states driving a constitutional convention to amend the constitution to ending corporate personhood and publicly financing all elections.
I've written more than a few op-eds over the years that said we should tax "campaign contributions." I agree. A win-win. I also think all politicians should be like NASCAR, and wear all their sponsors' logos.
1) all campaign funding to be provided from the general budget
This is a deeply unpopular idea. Only 6% of Americans opt to direct a portion of their taxes to public election funding, despite costing them nothing to do so. The proportion choosing to contribute has been steadily declining for decades.
equally to all candidates
I see. So the Nazi Party, and the "Keg Party" would get the same funding as the Democrats and Republicans. We would soon have ten thousand political parties.
2) a centralized government website for candidates to specify their opinions
Who gets to decide who is a "candidate"? The incumbent politicians? A commission of political appointees? Is it only for candidates from major political parties? If it is open to anyone who says they are running, then how would it be different from Facebook?
This is a deeply unpopular idea. Only 6% of Americans opt to direct a portion of their taxes to public election funding, despite costing them nothing to do so.
I don't know about everyone else, but I don't check that box because I would rather see that $3 go toward improving our infrastructure, reducing our debt, and a host of other things before I want it to go toward a political campaign. Campaigns already have too much funding as it is, why do they need more?
But it's different when campaigns only receive funding through the general budget. The Presidential Election Campaign Fund checkbox would disappear under these new rules, because it would no longer be funded by choice.
I see. So the Nazi Party, and the "Keg Party" would get the same funding as the Democrats and Republicans. We would soon have ten thousand political parties.
Who gets to decide who is a "candidate"?
There already exist ballot access rules that regulate whether someone can get on the ballot. Only candidates who appear on a ballot would be provided with campaign funding.
(Besides, the two party system is a problem, not something to cherish.)
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.