27 ms·

How do we "fix money in politics" without chilling free speech?

javajosh 10y ago
We put all candidates online, for free. They are not allowed to spend money on getting elected - although they can spend their time (generally speaking, sometimes studying, a particular problem, history, how other countries do it, etc). Citizens subscribe to individuals, and groups of individuals, that best reflect their views. Additionally, citizens will be exposed to views that are slightly or significantly different based on an algorithm. On voting day they can print out their vote and either mail it or bring it to the polling place with their ID. While I like the idea of short races (1 or 2 months) this system could easily be a constant presence in people's lives; and a constant presence in the elected official's life, as their decisions are recorded and weighed against their stated principles. This would force pols to be explicit about any horse-trading. Ultimately such a thing is a specialization of social media in the same way the liver is a specialization of muscle. Note that there is no place for "party" in this system, except insofar as it defines a grouping.
- javajosh 10y ago
  Right speech is independent of its volume. Money can only increase volume, so get rid of it. Money isn't speech, it's amplification of speech, and as such should not be protected.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 10y ago
    If a candidate makes a speech in the woods... You proposal is a recipe for electing only celebrities, who don't need money to be amplified.
    - javajosh 10y ago
      Perhaps. But my hope is that such a system would help individuals discover and articulate their own personal principles, and then connect them with others with similar views. I suspect that with a little help everyday voters would far prefer to vote for the candidate that does the right thing than the candidate that they merely recognize. (I might be wrong about that but it's a worthy experiment).
    - sjwright 10y ago
      Surely less bad than the status quo.
- thinkloop 10y ago
  Candidates need to be able to reach voters in the best way they see fit. Online favors candidates that appeal to younger voters. This includes giving speeches, debating, advertising, etc., which takes funding. So we allow candidates to collect donations up to a reasonable limit. Unrelated to that there are private citizens, unaffiliated with the candidates, that want to exercise their free speech by publicly endorsing a candidate. They do not collaborate with the candidate. They just speak through any medium they like. How do you suppress that without suppressing free speech?
  - javajosh 10y ago
    In terms of speech, advertising on network television excludes a lot of people (those without a TV). Making phone calls excludes a lot of people. They are all different channels. Online is the ultimate channel because it is ultra-democratic: anyone can grow a following. Moreover, it's the ultimate channel because it's bidirectional - you can begin to form your own personal platform just off of your reactions (passive and active) to what you view. Personal platforms can be used to locate candidates, causes, like-minded individuals, and specific policy fights, protests and other tasks and actions that ultimately make the world closer to how you want it to be. This is what politics should be like. This is what the polity should be like. >How do you suppress that without suppressing free speech? You don't suppress personal endorsements. Insofar as a person embodies your own views (or close enough) then a personal endorsement is quite valid. Even with this system a candidate will endure far more scrutiny (and endure far more ignorance flung in their direction) so finding a "moral clone" in the world with thicker skin is a good thing.
- cwkoss 10y ago
  Either the media can talk about politicians, in which case most election outcomes will be determined by press coverage (and your system would be ineffective). Or, the media is forbidden from discussing politicians, which has a chilling effect on free speech and journalism.
  - javajosh 10y ago
    It's a far cry from forbidding campaign spending on media to forbidding media from discussing a campaign. And I highly doubt the most discussed campaign wins. Democracy rests on only 2 pillars: the freedom of speech, and a fair vote. Everything else we call democracy flows from these two things, and we cannot afford to ever give them up. It turns out, though, that if you say something often enough, people start to believe it. This violates the spirit of the law, because "free speech" is about sharing views, not programming dependent (as opposed to independent) minds. Note that the notion of "free speech" arose in a time when it meant actually speaking in front of a crowd, or printing and distributing an anonymous flier, critical of the current ruler. It did not mean protecting the right of the ruler to use his power to repeat something so often that his people start to believe it. It is time for a revolution in the way individuals relate to information. It is time for individuals to assert their right to refuse input that is not in their interest. It is time for communication to be by consent only. It is time for us all to stop defending the right of institutional oligarchs to use power-tools to force-feed us speech in the name of defending free speech.
ajmurmann 10y ago
Are you referring to Citizens United or referring to some chilling effects on actual free speech?
nameone888 10y ago
Set an outcome of "everyone's ability to be heard should be closer to a parity." and go from there. Money in politics tilts the "free speech" field towards "free to stand on street corner and flail while rich people take your Senator out for dinner." It's like Adam Smith said, "equality of condition" should be the goal. Any one person that has more than another has undeserved power.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
One of the simplest I've heard is a limit on how much any one person can donate to a politician's campaign in any form. And only individual voters can donate. No corporations. Make it a high-end felony to forge that. Make banks track it. That would be a start. In this case, it would've blocked Intuit from buying a politician mentioned in the HN comments. That might have prevented opposition by that politician. Amplify this to all other sectors. Note: Main technique I see big companies using is offering jobs or something to politicians afterwards like the defense contractors do for Pentagon contract-issuers. There would need to be a strategy for making that illegal or limiting what they could make from who they benefit. Also, paying them the most from taxes so they know who they work for.
- pillowkusis 10y ago
  Individual people already have a limit: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/limits.php https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/limits.php That said, allowing only individual entities to donate would be an improvement. But money would still find its way through, in unlimited amounts, through 1. SuperPACs, which are not allowed to communicate with a candidate, technically, but can receieve an infinite amount of money to further interests that are functionally identical to the candidate's interests (i.e. running pro-candidate ads), and 2. Lobbying. TurboTax can still spend millions to hire people to engage with politicians and bribe/convince them to see it TurboTax's way.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Both solved by only allowing politicians in office to receive money directly from individuals at the rate limit and of course their pay checks. SuperPAC's can't give them money. Lobbyists can't give them money. That eliminates large part of the incentive. There's other to tackle such as advertising. One way to do that might be that any paid advertisements for or against a politician must be paid for by the politician's registered donations. Corporate media might then try to offer extra due to their bias or for favors. That's an unknown right now, though, given they currently do it in exchange for the ad revenue that would go down a lot.
thomastjeffery 10y ago
The problem is that a corporation is legally defined to be the same as a person. A corporation has the same rights that a person does. Spending money is legally equivalent to speech. Because of those two simple legal precedents, a corporation's right to lobby is literally protected by free speech.
- saosebastiao 10y ago
  I don't see the problem with corporations being equatable with people. They are composed of people. Just like unions, nonprofits, social clubs, political parties. Making money is their interest, but there is nothing criminal (or even morally wrong) about that. The reason why corporations have disproportionate political power compared to other forms of human organization is because we fund elections via private donations, endebting our representatives to their donors before their constituents. And whoever controls the most money gets the most representation in our government. It should be possible for politicians to tell major corporations to fuck off without endangering their election, but it isn't. So even the most well meaning politicians take the money, give them a few votes on their pet issues, and then try to make the best with what's left.

We put all candidates online, for free. They are not allowed to spend money on getting elected - although they can spend their time (generally speaking, sometimes studying, a particular problem, history, how other countries do it, etc). Citizens subscribe to individuals, and groups of individuals, that best reflect their views. Additionally, citizens will be exposed to views that are slightly or significantly different based on an algorithm. On voting day they can print out their vote and either mail it or bring it to the polling place with their ID. While I like the idea of short races (1 or 2 months) this system could easily be a constant presence in people's lives; and a constant presence in the elected official's life, as their decisions are recorded and weighed against their stated principles. This would force pols to be explicit about any horse-trading. Ultimately such a thing is a specialization of social media in the same way the liver is a specialization of muscle. Note that there is no place for "party" in this system, except insofar as it defines a grouping.

javajosh 10y ago
Right speech is independent of its volume. Money can only increase volume, so get rid of it. Money isn't speech, it's amplification of speech, and as such should not be protected.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 10y ago
  If a candidate makes a speech in the woods... You proposal is a recipe for electing only celebrities, who don't need money to be amplified.
  - javajosh 10y ago
    Perhaps. But my hope is that such a system would help individuals discover and articulate their own personal principles, and then connect them with others with similar views. I suspect that with a little help everyday voters would far prefer to vote for the candidate that does the right thing than the candidate that they merely recognize. (I might be wrong about that but it's a worthy experiment).
  - sjwright 10y ago
    Surely less bad than the status quo.
thinkloop 10y ago
Candidates need to be able to reach voters in the best way they see fit. Online favors candidates that appeal to younger voters. This includes giving speeches, debating, advertising, etc., which takes funding. So we allow candidates to collect donations up to a reasonable limit. Unrelated to that there are private citizens, unaffiliated with the candidates, that want to exercise their free speech by publicly endorsing a candidate. They do not collaborate with the candidate. They just speak through any medium they like. How do you suppress that without suppressing free speech?
- javajosh 10y ago
  In terms of speech, advertising on network television excludes a lot of people (those without a TV). Making phone calls excludes a lot of people. They are all different channels. Online is the ultimate channel because it is ultra-democratic: anyone can grow a following. Moreover, it's the ultimate channel because it's bidirectional - you can begin to form your own personal platform just off of your reactions (passive and active) to what you view. Personal platforms can be used to locate candidates, causes, like-minded individuals, and specific policy fights, protests and other tasks and actions that ultimately make the world closer to how you want it to be. This is what politics should be like. This is what the polity should be like. >How do you suppress that without suppressing free speech? You don't suppress personal endorsements. Insofar as a person embodies your own views (or close enough) then a personal endorsement is quite valid. Even with this system a candidate will endure far more scrutiny (and endure far more ignorance flung in their direction) so finding a "moral clone" in the world with thicker skin is a good thing.
cwkoss 10y ago
Either the media can talk about politicians, in which case most election outcomes will be determined by press coverage (and your system would be ineffective). Or, the media is forbidden from discussing politicians, which has a chilling effect on free speech and journalism.
- javajosh 10y ago
  It's a far cry from forbidding campaign spending on media to forbidding media from discussing a campaign. And I highly doubt the most discussed campaign wins. Democracy rests on only 2 pillars: the freedom of speech, and a fair vote. Everything else we call democracy flows from these two things, and we cannot afford to ever give them up. It turns out, though, that if you say something often enough, people start to believe it. This violates the spirit of the law, because "free speech" is about sharing views, not programming dependent (as opposed to independent) minds. Note that the notion of "free speech" arose in a time when it meant actually speaking in front of a crowd, or printing and distributing an anonymous flier, critical of the current ruler. It did not mean protecting the right of the ruler to use his power to repeat something so often that his people start to believe it. It is time for a revolution in the way individuals relate to information. It is time for individuals to assert their right to refuse input that is not in their interest. It is time for communication to be by consent only. It is time for us all to stop defending the right of institutional oligarchs to use power-tools to force-feed us speech in the name of defending free speech.

ajmurmann 10y ago

Are you referring to Citizens United or referring to some chilling effects on actual free speech?

nameone888 10y ago

Set an outcome of "everyone's ability to be heard should be closer to a parity." and go from there. Money in politics tilts the "free speech" field towards "free to stand on street corner and flail while rich people take your Senator out for dinner." It's like Adam Smith said, "equality of condition" should be the goal. Any one person that has more than another has undeserved power.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

One of the simplest I've heard is a limit on how much any one person can donate to a politician's campaign in any form. And only individual voters can donate. No corporations. Make it a high-end felony to forge that. Make banks track it. That would be a start. In this case, it would've blocked Intuit from buying a politician mentioned in the HN comments. That might have prevented opposition by that politician. Amplify this to all other sectors. Note: Main technique I see big companies using is offering jobs or something to politicians afterwards like the defense contractors do for Pentagon contract-issuers. There would need to be a strategy for making that illegal or limiting what they could make from who they benefit. Also, paying them the most from taxes so they know who they work for.

pillowkusis 10y ago
Individual people already have a limit: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/limits.php https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/limits.php That said, allowing only individual entities to donate would be an improvement. But money would still find its way through, in unlimited amounts, through 1. SuperPACs, which are not allowed to communicate with a candidate, technically, but can receieve an infinite amount of money to further interests that are functionally identical to the candidate's interests (i.e. running pro-candidate ads), and 2. Lobbying. TurboTax can still spend millions to hire people to engage with politicians and bribe/convince them to see it TurboTax's way.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Both solved by only allowing politicians in office to receive money directly from individuals at the rate limit and of course their pay checks. SuperPAC's can't give them money. Lobbyists can't give them money. That eliminates large part of the incentive. There's other to tackle such as advertising. One way to do that might be that any paid advertisements for or against a politician must be paid for by the politician's registered donations. Corporate media might then try to offer extra due to their bias or for favors. That's an unknown right now, though, given they currently do it in exchange for the ad revenue that would go down a lot.

thomastjeffery 10y ago

The problem is that a corporation is legally defined to be the same as a person. A corporation has the same rights that a person does. Spending money is legally equivalent to speech. Because of those two simple legal precedents, a corporation's right to lobby is literally protected by free speech.

saosebastiao 10y ago
I don't see the problem with corporations being equatable with people. They are composed of people. Just like unions, nonprofits, social clubs, political parties. Making money is their interest, but there is nothing criminal (or even morally wrong) about that. The reason why corporations have disproportionate political power compared to other forms of human organization is because we fund elections via private donations, endebting our representatives to their donors before their constituents. And whoever controls the most money gets the most representation in our government. It should be possible for politicians to tell major corporations to fuck off without endangering their election, but it isn't. So even the most well meaning politicians take the money, give them a few votes on their pet issues, and then try to make the best with what's left.