An excellent catch by David Bernstein:
Senator Scott Brown has just opened a federal political action committee (PAC), called the Brown Victory Committee, to collect large-dollar contributions — using the exact same approach that Massachusetts Republicans derided Deval Patrick for, and which was barred by state law in 2009.
The Brown Victory Committee, which operates under federal campaign laws, is not subject to the state ban.
The “Victory Committee” will accept individual contributions of as much as $35,800. Of that, the maximum allowable will be transfered to the Scott Brown 2012 campaign committee ($2500 for the primary campaign, and $2500 for the general election).
It is likely [now confirmed] that the remaining $30,800 will be transfered to the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) — that happens to be the maximum allowable individual contribution limit, per calendar year, to that committee under federal law….
Personally, I don’t have a huge problem with this. The donation to the campaign committee is legal; the donation to the party committee is legal; so what’s the big deal about doing both at once? But not long ago, the local GOP thought it was just awful.
Governor Patrick created a similar arrangement with a state committee, called the 71st Fund (denoting Patrick as the Commonwealth’s 71st governor), soon after he was elected in 2006. Individuals could contribute $5500, of which $500 went to Patrick’s committee, and $5000 to the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
That arrangement was attacked by Republicans as an unethical means of evading Massachusetts’s strict contribution limits, and for providing unsavory influence to large donors and special interests. The state outlawed the practice in an ethics-reform law passed in May 2009.
At the time, then-state senator Richard Tisei, who became the Republican Lieutenant Governor nominee in 2010, accused Patrick of exploiting a “gaping loophole” in state campaign-finance laws. “It is cozy arrangements like this that have made the public so cynical about state government,” he wrote.
Precious irony:
Tisei’s former fundraiser Neil Scott is the finance director for the new Brown Victory Committee.
And a shocker:
Calls to the Massachusetts Republican Party for comment were not immediately returned.
Hilarious. Great work by Bernstein. Can’t wait to hear why this is OK but the Deval committee wasn’t. Oh, wait – I know. IOKIYAR.
Herald quote via RMG:
<
p>
What he said only counted for the campaign.Now that he’s not campaigning, he’s free to disagree with himself.
Here’s the Porcupine Ethics Plan –
<
p>NO donation from anything that is not a single human. No business, no labor, no PAC’s, no groups. Just individuals.
<
p>No dollar limit. Just 24/7/365 on-line rpeorting. No deadlines, no artificial Two Weeks Before and Two Weeks After. Just 1 day to report after cashing the check, or be made to return the donation, with banking records on-line.
1 wealthy individual could donate a million dollars to a candidate for office as long as it was promptly reported. But, a group of 100,000 low income individuals couldn’t donate 10 bucks a pop to a PAC in order to distribute that money to a candidate who supports their shared values. Instead, to be politically effective, they would each have to individually know which candidate was an important champion of their issue and have their collective voice diluted by simply being one of however many individual small donors listed. And while that would financially be as effective as it was before, assuming they could make it happen, the reasoning behind their collective donations would not be as clear (i.e. how when PACs donate it’s clear they represent workers, environmentalists, lgbt community, business community, citizens for small government, etc.).
<
p>Is that correct?
that a plural number of individuals acting in concert do not have any rights anyway
Don’t know where you’re getting. I’m assuming its some kind allusion to corporate personhood. I’m sure you could appreciate the difference between asserting that a corporation formed from an association of individuals having no rights, and asserting that it shouldn’t have the same de facto rights as individual citizens.
<
p>At least I would hope so.
A corporation is indeed an association of individuals.
<
p>And yes, no rights was something of an overstatement by me– though I think an accurate representation of the criticism of Citizens United (which is why I then raised the question of property rights).
<
p>But it was an unnecessary overstatement, since the right for a PAC to make political contributions was the issue in the case– Citizens United WAS a PAC.
<
p>So, I guess I was attempting to point out how the “liberal” position on this issue is, to put it charitably, remarkably incoherent.
“though I think an accurate representation of the criticism of Citizens United”
<
p>Based on what? Not my impression at all.
<
p>”So, I guess I was attempting to point out how the “liberal” position on this issue is, to put it charitably, remarkably incoherent.”
<
p>I still don’t see that you’ve made that case at all. I don’t even know in what particular way you think things are incoherent. If it was ‘remarably’ so, I’d think it’d be more obvious.
I wish we had comment edit. Maybe in the new software.
<
p>I meant to write: accurate representation of the criticism here of the Citizens United decision.
<
p>My response to to the contention that corporations should have no constitutional rights was to wonder about property takings.
<
p>In any event, my unfortunately garbled point was (i) that Citizens United is/was a PAC; (2) that Citizens United, a PAC, was found to have 1st Amendment rights, which provoked consternation among the faithful; and (3) the response to Porcupine, above, was “What, we poor downtrodden individuals can’t express ourselves politically by contributing to a PAC?!”
<
p>The answer to the question above is therefore: (1) Porcupine’s ethics rules are unconstitutional under Citizens United; and (2) yes, you have that right, unless Citizens United is overruled, in which case you might not.
A corporation isn’t a Bridge Club. The whole purpose of creating a corporation is to protect its investors (or members of the association, in your parlance) from liability arising from the corporations actions. It is a legal entity that exists separate from its members and only exists because the state allows the creation of such entities. While there may be a case that corporations are entitled to political speech under the First Amendment, pretending that they’re just “an association of individuals” with no special rules applying to them distinctly from any other association is a gross misrepresentation.
<
p>By the way, the supreme court, including the conservative majority, agrees with me. Some telecom came before them recently arguing that they shouldn’t have to disclose some information required by law that they disclose because they should have the same privacy rights as individuals and they got laughed out of the room.
<
p>http://www.supremecourt.gov/op…
Corporations are, technically, associations of individuals, but by that definition so are armies. They are not small d democratic by any means.
<
p>The liberal position is pretty clear (well, MY liberal position). Citizens United deliberately obfuscates. Nobody argues that corporations are people at downsizing time, do they?
<
p>
It is nothing of the kind. An “association of individuals” is called an association. A corporation, in contrast, is a distinct legal entity with its own legal rights and obligations that is entirely separate from those of any individual or group of individuals. Here’s our friend Chief Justice John Marshall:
<
p>
<
p>I wrote about this very point at some length a while back. I still think I’m right.
I still disagree. It grew from partnership, and serves as a way to organize large numbers of people so they can act collectively, and I see no reason why individuals lose those rights when they act together.
It didn’t exactly grow “from” partnership – it was created as an alternative to partnership. Partnerships are problematic precisely because the individuals involved in the partnership retain potentially unlimited personal liability. (That’s in part why virtually no large law firms are partnerships any more.) So an entirely new construct was devised: in Marshall’s words, “an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.” A corporation simply is not just a bunch of people. You can say otherwise all you want, but it doesn’t make it true.
<
p>
<
p>If it’s just people acting together, they don’t. But if they choose to take advantage of the benefits of the corporate form, they must suffer the drawbacks as well. No free lunch. (Or, at least, there shouldn’t be.)
I was just trying to clarify that’s what Peter Porcupine meant. It might not be. Let’s not get distracted by Citizens United.
… fairness your reaching for, but no limits creates an inherently unfair system – the ‘sacrifices’ of donations of the rich don’t hurt the rich as much as the ‘sacrifices’ of the poor or even the middle class. Given that combined with the demonstrable property of money as a great predictor of election outcomes, no limits would result is an inherent systemic preference toward policies that protect moneyed interests against the interests of the majority. We have enough of that problem already without making it worse.
if that’s what you were implying, just a bad candidate.
… is a crime.
<
p>This is how the rich and powerful get around campaign donation limits. Groups like this, or the Republican Governor’s Association, etc… do little more than an offshore bank does a drug cartel.
<
p>My personal opinion is to limit any individual or group to $5000 TOTAL per year in political donations of any kind.
<
p>$500 to 10 candidates, or $5000 to one PAC or 527 – that’s all you, AT&T, the DSCC, Bill Gates, AFSME, etc… get. And it is all subject to IRS audit rather than the feckless FEC or state elections commissions.
<
p>(Let me know when Hell freezes over.)
Sierra CLub
Act Blue
ACORN
Accountability Now
Blue America
Brave New PAC
Democracy for
America…
.. but you’ve potentially libeled a few organizations that do not actually donate to candidates. And a few who openly channel to specific candidate within the limits of the law. (and one that not only did not contribute but no longer exists. That takes talent.) You can figure out which is which.
<
p>I never claimed that only one side does it, but one side most certainly does it “better.”
<
p>Outlaw them all. $5000 per person/entity per year. Make it tax deductible and auditable by the IRS. Billionaires would have to be satisfied with Think Tanks.