6 ms·

We Did It!

112 points by frostmatthew 12y ago

ramigb 12y ago
You did what??
- imron 12y ago
  The impossible, and that makes them mighty. Edit: For those downvoting, I was just quoting the article (I realise this was perhaps not the best quote, but felt it was the one most fitting given the question).
  - ramigb 12y ago
    The downvotes that you got and i got are something normal, internet trolls are everywhere, although i asked a real 100% valid question, the title of this post and the first couple of paragraphs didn't give me a background about why this is in the front page, those who downvoted me obviously thought i was trolling so they whipped out their swords and fought like real knights ... dumb motherfuckers.
pedalpete 12y ago
I like the irony of raising money to "reduce the influence of money in politics". At the same time, well done. $5 Billion dollars raised is an incredible feat. I'm not American, but hopefully if they are successful in actually implementing the changes they propose, other countries will follow suit. My concern is that if corporate $$ buys less influence in Washington, it might enable them to buy more influence in other places (eg. Canada), and that corporate influence could have a negative effect not only on Canada itself, but retaliatory effects on the US. Think if the Oil industry doesn't get it's way in the US, they start influencing Canadian policy to not ship Canadian oil (or less of it) to the US, resulting in a cost spike for the states. Similar things could happen with other natural resources. But well done for Lawrence Lessig and the rest of the MayDay gang. As he states, this is just the beginning of a very challenging and amazing initiative.
- bennettfeely 12y ago
  *million dollars, a little correction
- yowmamasita 12y ago
  $5 Million
- kennywinker 12y ago
  $5 Million. With an M. Hopefully that's a typo on your part ;) Could be true. Not to say Canada's campaign financing is perfect.. it is not. But we don't have Super PACs, which is nice.
- smsm42 12y ago
  I was really surprised for a second. 5 billion raised is a huge sum which would mean either mass contributions from extremely wealthy individuals or that pretty much everybody is US chipped in. 5 million though is less than 1% of what was spent on presidential elections alone by each side (Obama side spent 779M, Romney side 704M [1]). This is not counting what is being spent in congressional, state, local, etc. elections and what is being spent on one-issue campaigns. For example, just prop 8 campaign in California took 70M [2]. I am not sure what exactly these guys plan to do (my conviction is any law compatible with the First Amendment can not prevent political spending as public speech on national scale costs a lot of money and content-based regulations on such speech to exclude political speech are in direct contradiction with current understanding of First Amendment both by the courts and the public) and their descriptions are very vague ("agnostic about the specific legislation") - I don't think 5 million is going to take them too far. They might support some candidates from the left that already campaign on the issue of "big money stole our politics" (while taking big money like everybody else of course) but those guys were already for it anyway, and I don't think you can tip too many congressional elections with 5 million. We'll see I guess. [1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/49550998/ http://www.cnbc.com/id/49550998/ [2] http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_8,_the_%22Eliminates_Right_of_Same-Sex_Couples_to_Marry%22_Initiative_(2008) http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_8,_the_%22Elim...
  - dbloom 12y ago
slantedview 12y ago
Lessig's last e-mail: http://pastebin.com/AUdh8Dav http://pastebin.com/AUdh8Dav
matias-a 12y ago
Not from the US, but I wanted to congratulate everyone involved in this historic event. I think it is inspiring, apart from being inherently relevant worldwide.
onewaystreet 12y ago
A couple years too late. With the two Supreme Court decisions there really are no reforms that can stop Super PACs in any meaningful way.
- smsm42 12y ago
  You think if this happened earlier the Supreme Court would have different view on the First Amendment? The SC has powers to overturn any legislation, including one proposed by people supported by this campaign. Short of FDR-style tricks I don't see how you could overcome that.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    "Legislation" initiated by Congress isn't limited to statutes, it can include Constitutional Amendments.
    - smsm42 12y ago
      True, but the chance of passing an amendment of such a controversial topic is virtually nil, so I did not consider this as a real option. The bar for the Constitutional Amendment is very high.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        A Constitutional Amendment is where the legislative effort on the issue in Congress is focussed now; if MayDay.US is successful in pushing the legislative balance farther in favor of efforts to reverse the effect of Citizen's United, I hardly imagine that the effort would shift to less powerful remedies than those that are already the focus.
        smsm42 12y ago
        For Constitution Amendment to pass, it's not enough to get a couple of House members. You need 38 states to sign.

We Did It!

112 points by frostmatthew 12y ago

ramigb 12y ago

You did what??

imron 12y ago
The impossible, and that makes them mighty. Edit: For those downvoting, I was just quoting the article (I realise this was perhaps not the best quote, but felt it was the one most fitting given the question).
- ramigb 12y ago
  The downvotes that you got and i got are something normal, internet trolls are everywhere, although i asked a real 100% valid question, the title of this post and the first couple of paragraphs didn't give me a background about why this is in the front page, those who downvoted me obviously thought i was trolling so they whipped out their swords and fought like real knights ... dumb motherfuckers.

pedalpete 12y ago

I like the irony of raising money to "reduce the influence of money in politics". At the same time, well done. $5 Billion dollars raised is an incredible feat. I'm not American, but hopefully if they are successful in actually implementing the changes they propose, other countries will follow suit. My concern is that if corporate $$ buys less influence in Washington, it might enable them to buy more influence in other places (eg. Canada), and that corporate influence could have a negative effect not only on Canada itself, but retaliatory effects on the US. Think if the Oil industry doesn't get it's way in the US, they start influencing Canadian policy to not ship Canadian oil (or less of it) to the US, resulting in a cost spike for the states. Similar things could happen with other natural resources. But well done for Lawrence Lessig and the rest of the MayDay gang. As he states, this is just the beginning of a very challenging and amazing initiative.

bennettfeely 12y ago
*million dollars, a little correction
yowmamasita 12y ago
$5 Million
kennywinker 12y ago
$5 Million. With an M. Hopefully that's a typo on your part ;) Could be true. Not to say Canada's campaign financing is perfect.. it is not. But we don't have Super PACs, which is nice.
smsm42 12y ago
I was really surprised for a second. 5 billion raised is a huge sum which would mean either mass contributions from extremely wealthy individuals or that pretty much everybody is US chipped in. 5 million though is less than 1% of what was spent on presidential elections alone by each side (Obama side spent 779M, Romney side 704M [1]). This is not counting what is being spent in congressional, state, local, etc. elections and what is being spent on one-issue campaigns. For example, just prop 8 campaign in California took 70M [2]. I am not sure what exactly these guys plan to do (my conviction is any law compatible with the First Amendment can not prevent political spending as public speech on national scale costs a lot of money and content-based regulations on such speech to exclude political speech are in direct contradiction with current understanding of First Amendment both by the courts and the public) and their descriptions are very vague ("agnostic about the specific legislation") - I don't think 5 million is going to take them too far. They might support some candidates from the left that already campaign on the issue of "big money stole our politics" (while taking big money like everybody else of course) but those guys were already for it anyway, and I don't think you can tip too many congressional elections with 5 million. We'll see I guess. [1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/49550998/ http://www.cnbc.com/id/49550998/ [2] http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_8,_the_%22Eliminates_Right_of_Same-Sex_Couples_to_Marry%22_Initiative_(2008) http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_8,_the_%22Elim...
- dbloom 12y ago

slantedview 12y ago

Lessig's last e-mail: http://pastebin.com/AUdh8Dav http://pastebin.com/AUdh8Dav

matias-a 12y ago

Not from the US, but I wanted to congratulate everyone involved in this historic event. I think it is inspiring, apart from being inherently relevant worldwide.

onewaystreet 12y ago

A couple years too late. With the two Supreme Court decisions there really are no reforms that can stop Super PACs in any meaningful way.

smsm42 12y ago
You think if this happened earlier the Supreme Court would have different view on the First Amendment? The SC has powers to overturn any legislation, including one proposed by people supported by this campaign. Short of FDR-style tricks I don't see how you could overcome that.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  "Legislation" initiated by Congress isn't limited to statutes, it can include Constitutional Amendments.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    True, but the chance of passing an amendment of such a controversial topic is virtually nil, so I did not consider this as a real option. The bar for the Constitutional Amendment is very high.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      A Constitutional Amendment is where the legislative effort on the issue in Congress is focussed now; if MayDay.US is successful in pushing the legislative balance farther in favor of efforts to reverse the effect of Citizen's United, I hardly imagine that the effort would shift to less powerful remedies than those that are already the focus.
      - smsm42 12y ago
        For Constitution Amendment to pass, it's not enough to get a couple of House members. You need 38 states to sign.