5 ms·
From Wikipedia about "Citizens United v. FEC": "the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by c
by cschwarm 15y ago
From Wikipedia about "Citizens United v. FEC": "the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions."
The German system does not place rules on independent spending; it only requires TV channels to provide ad space for political parties that run for office. The amount of space is tied to the relevance of the party, usually measured by the success in the previous election. The TV channel can charge the party 35% of the usual price, this is considered to be the cost price of the channel. [1]
Parties are, of course, allowded to buy additional space, but they would have to pay the usual price. In other words, the German law doesn't limit independent spending.
[1] http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Grundlagen_f%C3%BCr_Wahlwerbung_im_Fernsehen http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Grundlagen_f%C3%BCr_Wahlwerbung...
- muuh-gnu 15y ago> The amount of space is tied to the relevance of the party How is this justified? Bigger parties are already popular enough, why should they get more media exposure than unknown parties? This is basically like giving the winner of one race a time advantage in the next race, making it even more difficult for other contestants to catch up.
- cschwarm 15y agoIt's a law. The justification is that it's made by democratically elected representatives. It's also not that much of a problem since we have a 5% barrier. Smaller parties usually have less money to spend on TV ads, anyway. Note that this didn't prevent new parties to become popular. In the last 25 years or so, Germany has seen the rise of the Green party, and the Left party. Today, the Pirate Party seem to be on the rise. It seems to be a rather stable yet permeable system.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]