cherrymapin put something in her post below that really bears repeating and amplifying:
This brings me to a pet issue of mine. It seems to me that an awful lot of what’s wrong in the US right now is the result of corporate interest taking precedence over human interests in our political process. For example overdependence on fossil fuels, global warming (oil companies), unnecessary “preemptive” war (military-industrial complex) no effective fuel economy standards for cars and no willingness to invest in electric cars (auto and oil industries), draining of the aquifers (corporate agriculture), etc, etc. However, the solution may be at hand. The internet holds out the hope that candidates can get elected, and stay in office without selling their souls to business. If only we can get voters to buy the idea that their civic duty involves digging a little deeper to find out what’s going on and then acting on it.
This has doubtless been said before many times, but it can’t be said enough: Campaign finance is the biggest environmental issue. It’s the biggest fiscal discipline issue. It’s the biggest health care issue. It’s one of the biggest education issues. It’s the biggest consumer safety issue. It strikes to the very core of democracy itself: Who holds the influence? Do we do what’s best for the greatest number of people, or do we do what’s best for a privileged few?
And indeed, Gov. Patrick’s civic engagement initiatives try to address this issue: Accord influence to people, not dollars. You may not always like what you find, but it’s better than the alternative.
I think it was Bill Moyers who wisely said that public financing is “the reform that makes all other reforms possible.”
why should I think that the $50,000 inauguration contributions aren’t going to countervail the effort to “accord influence to people, not dollars”?
I completely agree with you.
But I agree campaign finance is central to the unbelievable and anti-democratic stranglehold that mega-corporations have on our civic society. And in places like Maine and Arizona — where they’ve KEPT their clean elections laws — democracy is alive and well. In MA it is floundering. I am not so quick to accept the leap of faith made in the last paragraph though, that Patrick’s civic engagement initiatives are trying to address the issue. Unless he takes it on directly, he’s not addressing it. Bring back Clean Elections!
<
p>
And so far his administration has demonstrated the opposite — rolling out a law that squashes a citizen group’s hard-won SJC victory (while stacking his administration with insiders on the development in question). Making claims of government at the speed of business, holding up expedited permitting as some sort of solution to growth-inhibiting civic engagement.
<
p>
What worries me equally as much as who’s funding what on Beacon Hill is the secrecy in which so much of it happens. Closed-door government and a legislature which has exempted itself from the Open Meeting Law, unaccountable and non-transparent quasi-public agencies overseeing lots of our government functionality (like Big Dig contracts), and these revolving doors between industry and government, rewarding the corrupt politicians with cushy jobs, then sending them back into Beacon Hill when they’ve got something new on the agenda.
<
p>
And it’s the same thing here as it is in Washington DC and probably across the country. We get Iraq reconstruction dollars thrown at cronies, Katrina reconstruction dollars thrown at cronies, and perhaps unsurprisingly, no reconstruction.
Instead of going hog wild finding new ways for big governmnet to regulate campaign advertising and other forms of political speech, I’d prefer to trust the wisdom of the electorate to discount such messages and allow the outcome of elections (!) to settle questions like the above.
<
p>
The situation in Massachusetts is caused by our one-party state. Examine states with a functional two-party system (Ohio or Michigan come to mind) and you’ll find that democracy is far healthier.
<
p>
I believe that stand is consistent with the one taken by the founders.
<
p>
Advertising speech (political or otherwise) isn’t free — far from it. You can’t make false claims. There are restrictions on medical advertising. There’s restriction on content (depending on medium). You catch the drift.
<
p>
Different speech gets different kinds of protection, and this has been happening in SCOTUS for a long time. This sweeping sense that all political spending is related to the most pure form of political speech and therefore should be protected isn’t so clear from where I’m sitting.
Governments regulation or banning of political speech– political speech among the most fundamental of political rights–is among the very worst of fashionable “progressive” proposals for government, and is simply not compatible with our systrem of government.
It isn’t clear that the ability to give a candidate gobs of money is equivalent to freedom of political speech.
<
p>
An individual is free to craft speech — but that’s not obviously the same thing as giving away money.
And a bad one at that. Certainly, it’s the start of a bad argument.
<
p>
Money isn’t speech. Everyone knows that. Money is property.
<
p>
However, what you do with your money can very well constitute speech. You don’t think giving Deval Patrick $50 constitutes a message on your part?
<
p>
How about me spending a gob of money, on my own for some political posters advocating a tax rollback? That’s not speech? Because, that’s what the “money isn’t speech” chant says.
“I support Deval Patrick” is speech. $50 is a cash donation.
<
p>
Now, were I to spend $50 on a website that says “I support Deval Patrick”, that fits into your definition of money-as-speech. But again, it’s not the $ that qualifies it as speech, it’s the content.
is Charley’s…
Our political system in USA has become far too adverserial. Win at all cost, take no prisoners. There is no longer civility, cordiality, and congeniality. Differences of opinion now go beyond the house and senate floor. Both sides are guilty.
<
p>
Corporations began to pour money into politics when they perceived that government oversight was becoming restrictive and stifling, real or imagined. Then corporate CEO’s found that they could dramatically affect
policy and bend political outcome to their own will corporate and personal. If politicians collectively decided to change the rules of the game and conduct themselves more morally, ethically, and civilly perhaps we could turn things away from our present course.
<
p>
It will take some fancy legislation to curb the present abuse due to the present case law re the 1st Amendment. The Constitution cuts both ways.
<
p>
I am very disturbed that people are still waiting around for the politicians to change anything. It is clear that they are not changing — and will not ever change — anything! We the people need to make the change.
<
p>
Just look at this Democratic Congress, swept into power by a country sick of this war, and peeing their pants over the possibility of actually asserting their authority to end it.
Ohio was such a bastion of democracy
given the stories of voter fraud and disenfranchisement.
Anyone, any interest group, can spend whatever money it wants on issues. And they do.
<
p>
What I think is wrong — and this is already regulated — is the legal bribery of elected officials with campaign $. The difference between accepting a campaign donation and accepting a bribe for personal enrichment is slim to none. I don’t know why we outlaw one and not the other.
<
p>
Because Politicians make the laws?
What about the Clean Elections law, passed via the wisdom of the electorate, which publicly funds candidates who meet a threshold of support AND refuse big donations? There are no freedom of speech concerns — only financial concerns. And when you get money out of politics, you get less corruption, so it’s actually cheaper to do public financing than not doing it.
<
p>
The wisdom of the elected pols who were threatened by this sudden accountability (oh my! contested elections?!) was to undermine and get rid of the law.
So what to do about it?
<
p>
p.s. I, along with MANY others, was part of the citizen-activist campaign that supported the campaign finance reform ballot question. What a f—ing drag to have Finneran et al, including my Senator D. Wilkerson, kill the law.