I have for a long time thought that, given that spending money is a form of speech/expression protected by the First Amendment, rather than trying to raise roadblocks to impede the flow of “too much money” into the political machine, it’d be more effective to lean into it.
My general idea would be to allow unlimited contributions and unlimited spending…but to impose a 33% tax on political spending, with funds distributed to opponents of the folks doing the spending.
I will, however, concede that figuring out the details of how to make that happen would make that idea much, much easier said than done. (Not that politicians and contributors would ever agree to allow that to happen.)
Unfortunately, I think the SC would find that unconstitutional.
I remember a fine idea for public financing. The problem was that public money was limited but private money wasn’t. So the idea was that public money would be enough to run a “modest” campaign. But, if a privately funded candidate got more money, the public money would increase (up to some limit, IIRC).
the Supreme Court struck down the Act’s matching funds provision as an unconstitutional burden on free speech. Even though candidates could opt out of clean elections and spend as much as they liked without limit under the Act, the Court held that the matching funds provision burdens political expenditures,
and, maybe predictably, …
the 5 to 4 opinion, dividing along the same lines as the Court’s other recent decisions striking down campaign finance laws, [Davis v. FEC] and [Citizens United v. FEC].
Your idea isn’t identical, but it sure looks close enough to me. I found that a truly discouraging ruling.
No. I’d be happy to overturn Citizens United and the other rulings that favor more money in politics.
But, we’ve got a system where “money = speech” and speech is unlimited. So, $5.7 billion for one presidential election.
I can’t help speculating on what the world would look like if we just threw in the towel and let money win. Kind of like speculating on “What if the South had won the Civil War?” or “What would a post WWIII earth really be like?”
Might be worthy of it’s own thread, but parking this here for now.
tl, dr: Musk’s new PAC is running ads on Google with a pic of Trump post assassination attempt offering a link to register to vote. If you are in a state where the outcome of the election is relatively certain, you get directed to an official state website to register to vote. If you are in a swing state, they collect lots of personal information and do not register you to vote or provide any further information helping you register. Reportedly the information will be used by the PAC to direct their canvassing efforts in swing states.
Interesting. I read that and thought, “Oh good, I guess there are some people rejecting the far-right takeover of the Republicans”
But nope, Trump backed the other candidate over the head of the Freedom Caucus.
Looks like he endorsed DeSantis over Trump. He’s the head of the caucus most likely to oppose any legislation/investigation/press statement/other that could reflect well on Biden or badly for Trump, but he stepped a toe out of line, so it’s the chopping block.
Wondering but not researching right now how Kennedy’s 3.7% compares to prior elections. Also would be curious what proportion of third-party Presidential votes are accidental, or votes by somebody who has no idea who they’re picking, etc.
I’m not even asking about “protest votes”, I’d just be curious how much third-party support is true noise.
I think this is probably the case. This is the fourth election I’ve followed while watching a Silver model and it seems to be that it always overstates the third party vote-getting.
Maybe this needs to be a factor in his model? Discounting the third party polled candidate. Or maybe it already is, idk.
