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And as someone who supports primarily insurgent candidates from outside the mainstream, the Citizens United decision was a godsend. There is no better way to en

And as someone who supports primarily insurgent candidates from outside the mainstream, the Citizens United decision was a godsend. There is no better way to enshrine the status quo for eternity than limiting outside fundraising. Lessig keeps pounding this drum, but Washington corruption goes a lot deeper than campaigns. Who do your representatives talk to every month? Who does their research for them? Who is a big fish in their home communities? I don't know what the right policy is to address Washington inside dealing. But lets not pretend that limiting campaign money (thereby gutting independent campaigns) is the answer.

chalst 14y ago
> thereby gutting independent campaigns I think you need to explain this. Two considerations: 1. In other countries, independent campaigns with little financial backing have had success. The need for very large amounts of money to win elections seems to be distinctive of the US. 2. The independents with such money are "independent" Lesters, in Lessig's terminology (i.e., they are people with enough money to influence elections). So you are using the word independent in a way that seems to show that you are not talking about the same problem.
- mayneack 14y ago
  An incumbent is already well known. People are willing to give them money and put them on TV because they are already a congressman. A challenger has to have enough money to be taken seriously or pay to get attention via ads etc. I would search for some citations if I wasn't about to get noprocrasted out.
mayneack 14y ago
I would recommend reading Lessig's book Republic Lost [1], it's very short and is very quick to discuss that "getting money out" is not the only thing that matters. To your point, you're right that restricting money is often worse for challengers than incumbents. This is because the challengers need to spend money to get their name out and prove they're "serious" as opposed to the incumbents who already have name recognition and can get attention without spending money. However, the issue that he's talking about is different (though related). The problem is that both incumbents and challengers require some small subset of people to support them and fund them. http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433 http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/...
1123581321 14y ago
Republic, Lost has some excellent proposals of methods to reform campaign finance in ways that do not shut out independence.
apendleton 14y ago
But when you say "independent campaigns," what you're really talking about is "independent campaigns that happen to attract the attention of very rich people." Most would-be independent candidates don't get that, and are consequently unable to compete against the candidates (independent or otherwise) who do attract high-dollar donors. There's an undeniable bias in which candidates ultimately get selected as a consequence. If that bias favors the kinds of insurgent candidates you tend to favor, lucky for you I guess, but I'm not sure how that supports the argument that this is good for democratic processes generally.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  I'm talking about Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Justin Amash, really. Along with a dozen or so other guys that didn't win. It has always been legal for very rich people like Mitt Romney to spend their own money on campaigns. McCain-Feingold didn't hurt them, it hurt guys like Ron Paul in 2007. We had tens of thousands of people ready to chip in $10k or more, but they were limited to $3k by the law.
justin66 14y ago
> There is no better way to enshrine the status quo for eternity than limiting outside fundraising. You state this as if it's obvious. It really isn't. The conventional campaign finance reform thinking, which a lot of us agree with, is that campaign money subverts the normal democratic process wherein people make their voices heard, their representative does what they want, and if they don't the people vote in someone who seems more likely to do the job. You seem to be saying that in the absence of campaign money, nothing will happen at all. That can't be what you actually mean?
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  The fundamental problem in running a challenger's campaign is that the incumbent is a lawmaker whose every action is covered by the news media. Incumbents have a HUGE built-in publicity advantage; the only way a challenger can counter that is by spending money on ads and events. The secondary problem in today's U.S. election system is that the 2 largest political parties have baked all sorts of advantages for themselves into the law--for example, for a long time party committees were allowed to collect and spend a lot more money than independent committees. Citizens United did away with this distorting advantage, making it easier for people to organize support for challenger candidates outside of political parties.
  - justin66 14y ago
    > Incumbents have a HUGE built-in publicity advantage This isn't true 100% of the time. In recent years people have been pretty eager to vote out incumbents, in some cases in favor of people who can barely speak in complete sentences... > the only way a challenger can counter that is by spending money on ads and events. There's also the press. That last bit is interesting, thanks. edit: I remain amused at what people will downvote
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      If it's just one downvote, it could've been a misplaced finger on a phone touchscreen.
caseysoftware 14y ago
It cracks me up that people believe that money is the only way to influence legislators. How many congressmen have kids, siblings, spouses, mistresses who work for companies in their districts? How many Senators have golden parachutes into the private sector after leaving? How many politicians, advisors, etc have book deals, speaking tours, etc.. which happen to be announced right after (days) their retirement? And that's not even including the fact that Congress' staffs and spouses are not covered by insider trading rules: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/politics/stock-act-loophole http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/politics/stock-act-loophole
- wwweston 14y ago
  > It cracks me up that people believe that money is the only way to influence legislators. Not only that, but there's an overemphasis on the idea that donations are an implicit quid pro quo exchange for policy. Let's say we could somehow ban any kind of "exchange" -- not just donations, but these other soft influence deals where money doesn't change hands directly. We'd still have a fundamental problem: people who have lots of money can hire other people to represent their interests to congress. Conversely, how many citizens spend time trying to influence their congressional offices? Not just via vote, not just via the occasional phone call or letter, but by actually meeting with congressional staff.
  - leot 14y ago
    Merely because a problem can't be completely solved doesn't mean efforts to mitigate it are futile.
    - wwweston 14y ago
      I don't mean to suggest that at all -- I think there are a variety of things we could try to mitigate some of the problems associated with campaign finance. What I'm trying to communicate is mostly that when it comes to "buying influence", the problem is a lot deeper than any access/influence purchased via donor-driven fundraising. It's actually inherent in any arrangement where money can be used to hire people to lobby on an employer's behalf. And it's particularly unbalanced when most people don't lobby on a volunteer basis.
cabalamat 14y ago
> And as someone who supports primarily insurgent candidates from outside the mainstream, the Citizens United decision was a godsend. If you want non-mainstream candidates to get elected, wouldn't it make more sense to support proportional representation?

chalst 14y ago

> thereby gutting independent campaigns I think you need to explain this. Two considerations: 1. In other countries, independent campaigns with little financial backing have had success. The need for very large amounts of money to win elections seems to be distinctive of the US. 2. The independents with such money are "independent" Lesters, in Lessig's terminology (i.e., they are people with enough money to influence elections). So you are using the word independent in a way that seems to show that you are not talking about the same problem.

mayneack 14y ago
An incumbent is already well known. People are willing to give them money and put them on TV because they are already a congressman. A challenger has to have enough money to be taken seriously or pay to get attention via ads etc. I would search for some citations if I wasn't about to get noprocrasted out.

mayneack 14y ago

I would recommend reading Lessig's book Republic Lost [1], it's very short and is very quick to discuss that "getting money out" is not the only thing that matters. To your point, you're right that restricting money is often worse for challengers than incumbents. This is because the challengers need to spend money to get their name out and prove they're "serious" as opposed to the incumbents who already have name recognition and can get attention without spending money. However, the issue that he's talking about is different (though related). The problem is that both incumbents and challengers require some small subset of people to support them and fund them. http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433 http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/...

1123581321 14y ago

Republic, Lost has some excellent proposals of methods to reform campaign finance in ways that do not shut out independence.

apendleton 14y ago

But when you say "independent campaigns," what you're really talking about is "independent campaigns that happen to attract the attention of very rich people." Most would-be independent candidates don't get that, and are consequently unable to compete against the candidates (independent or otherwise) who do attract high-dollar donors. There's an undeniable bias in which candidates ultimately get selected as a consequence. If that bias favors the kinds of insurgent candidates you tend to favor, lucky for you I guess, but I'm not sure how that supports the argument that this is good for democratic processes generally.

jacoblyles 14y ago
I'm talking about Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Justin Amash, really. Along with a dozen or so other guys that didn't win. It has always been legal for very rich people like Mitt Romney to spend their own money on campaigns. McCain-Feingold didn't hurt them, it hurt guys like Ron Paul in 2007. We had tens of thousands of people ready to chip in $10k or more, but they were limited to $3k by the law.

justin66 14y ago

> There is no better way to enshrine the status quo for eternity than limiting outside fundraising. You state this as if it's obvious. It really isn't. The conventional campaign finance reform thinking, which a lot of us agree with, is that campaign money subverts the normal democratic process wherein people make their voices heard, their representative does what they want, and if they don't the people vote in someone who seems more likely to do the job. You seem to be saying that in the absence of campaign money, nothing will happen at all. That can't be what you actually mean?

snowwrestler 14y ago
The fundamental problem in running a challenger's campaign is that the incumbent is a lawmaker whose every action is covered by the news media. Incumbents have a HUGE built-in publicity advantage; the only way a challenger can counter that is by spending money on ads and events. The secondary problem in today's U.S. election system is that the 2 largest political parties have baked all sorts of advantages for themselves into the law--for example, for a long time party committees were allowed to collect and spend a lot more money than independent committees. Citizens United did away with this distorting advantage, making it easier for people to organize support for challenger candidates outside of political parties.
- justin66 14y ago
  > Incumbents have a HUGE built-in publicity advantage This isn't true 100% of the time. In recent years people have been pretty eager to vote out incumbents, in some cases in favor of people who can barely speak in complete sentences... > the only way a challenger can counter that is by spending money on ads and events. There's also the press. That last bit is interesting, thanks. edit: I remain amused at what people will downvote
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    If it's just one downvote, it could've been a misplaced finger on a phone touchscreen.

caseysoftware 14y ago

It cracks me up that people believe that money is the only way to influence legislators. How many congressmen have kids, siblings, spouses, mistresses who work for companies in their districts? How many Senators have golden parachutes into the private sector after leaving? How many politicians, advisors, etc have book deals, speaking tours, etc.. which happen to be announced right after (days) their retirement? And that's not even including the fact that Congress' staffs and spouses are not covered by insider trading rules: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/politics/stock-act-loophole http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/politics/stock-act-loophole

wwweston 14y ago
> It cracks me up that people believe that money is the only way to influence legislators. Not only that, but there's an overemphasis on the idea that donations are an implicit quid pro quo exchange for policy. Let's say we could somehow ban any kind of "exchange" -- not just donations, but these other soft influence deals where money doesn't change hands directly. We'd still have a fundamental problem: people who have lots of money can hire other people to represent their interests to congress. Conversely, how many citizens spend time trying to influence their congressional offices? Not just via vote, not just via the occasional phone call or letter, but by actually meeting with congressional staff.
- leot 14y ago
  Merely because a problem can't be completely solved doesn't mean efforts to mitigate it are futile.
  - wwweston 14y ago
    I don't mean to suggest that at all -- I think there are a variety of things we could try to mitigate some of the problems associated with campaign finance. What I'm trying to communicate is mostly that when it comes to "buying influence", the problem is a lot deeper than any access/influence purchased via donor-driven fundraising. It's actually inherent in any arrangement where money can be used to hire people to lobby on an employer's behalf. And it's particularly unbalanced when most people don't lobby on a volunteer basis.

cabalamat 14y ago

> And as someone who supports primarily insurgent candidates from outside the mainstream, the Citizens United decision was a godsend. If you want non-mainstream candidates to get elected, wouldn't it make more sense to support proportional representation?