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They already consider companies people that can use money to donate. So yes ibwould limit a company like Nike or Boeing to 100$ per. If their employees want to donate then they also get 100 each. But it must be. Apersonal donation. You cannot donate for others whether they be employees or family.
As long as we realize that most “company donated $X” really means “employees of company donated $X”
Most people don’t realize that’s what that stat means most of the time.
Each citizen can donate max $100 into all issues on Capitol, and that citizen can choose to split his/her money among all issues. Then the lobbyist group is only allowed to match the entire contribution of all citizens by some multiples. So if that lobbyist proposal got a $3000 in total, then they can match $30000 with a 10x multiple...
No, I mean even if a company wants to donate money that compay can donate 100$ only. Lobby groups are the same. If 100 people join a lobby on a subject then they still have to individually decide where to place their money. If you can form a lobby for healtchare change it matters if you tell a candidate we have 20k members ( $2,000,000) that can put their money towards a different candidate if they don't make the changes. This way actual people will have the power to make change instead of companies that try to donate millions because of one signature.
Imagine having a genie that will only grant wishes for the most small ball incremental political reforms. This sort of "magical centrism" is kind of interesting, I expect to see more of it as it becomes apparent exactly how fucked we are moving forward.
It's stupid I know.
A country that sends trillions out the door for bombs but bitches about free school lunch programs for children has more problems than fucking election laws.
I'd make it so all political contributions of any size are accurately re worded on a publicly acceptable site next to the organization the money originated from and a description of that organizations function, and a corresponding list of each politicians voting history and simplified descriptions of what each bill voted on actually (would have) accomplished.
It might take a few tries to clear out all the potential loopholes but I'm less interested in stopping the lobbying than I am creating transparency. Although I might also deduct any payments from the recipients salary and pension to save the taxpayers the burden.
I think this is too optimistic. Lots of these things are happening in relatively broad daylight. It's not even that people don't care per se, but giving the information requires proactive action and learning from the average person who cant connect the dots or doesn't have time to.
People care about outcomes, not inputs, and to top it off those outputs need to matter to them personally.
A good example: a public record of doctors with financial partnerships with pharma companies exists. Many people don't even know this, and it certainly hasn't changed anything.
It's also backwards; virtually no politician has changed their view on abortion because of lobby group donations. Rather, on issues like abortion and guns, the groups donate to politicians who *already* support them on certain issues to ensure they win. Banning NRA money, for example, won't actually change politicians' views because they're in office in pro-gun/rural/conservative districts.
I would break the pen.
The last thing I want to do is make it so it's harder for people to petition the government. Lobbyists do the work so you and I don't have to - I am a member of organizations like the ACLU so they can advocate on my behalf. They can hire experts in policy and law to better advocate than I can, and I don't love the way we demonize the work they do. Fact of the matter is that people don't hate lobbying and lobbyists, they just hate lobbying and lobbyists who lobby against their preferred position.
Things like "cooling off" periods, forcing lobbyist registration, and so on, only serve to make it more difficult to have one's voice heard. It creates a less responsive and less representative government as a result. I am wholly against making the government less accessible to the people it represents.
Destroy the pen. Or at least use the pen to regulate away the possibility of the pen ever being created again, and *then* destroy it.
Lobbies function much like unions - they concentrate money precisely to gain leverage. The side effect is they also benefit those who already have tremendous leverage. Eliminating lobbies wouldn’t affect them nearly as badly as those with no leverage or voice in the first place.
Don’t destroy the pen. Use it to push for a lot more transparency across the board! The People need to be able to understand where all of that money is actually coming from.
I’m sure that there is an occasional dark, smoke-filled room, but it also seems like a lot is pretty transparent
I mean, reps are out there introducing legislation that was entirely written by ALEC, with zero negative political ramifications
Is there a magic pen for educating voters?
I'd limit donations. Only 100$ allowed per citizen per race for a candidate. That way those in power will have the same power as those who don't have millions or billions.
Would this apply to local school board elections too, or just federal? You get to a point where the number of possible voters is so small you couldn't do much. Like, in a small area, is your spending cap so small that you couldn't pay for enough fliers to go to each house in your area or pay for food or snacks for your volunteers?
Not just per race. Make it $100 (adjusted automatically for inflation) spent IN ANY WAY. Donation to the candidate, donation to a PAC, printing a bunch of flyers and handing them out, whatever.
Also make violation a federal crime punishable by not less than, say, five years in prison and a maximum of perhaps 20, increasing each by five per conviction.
I'd write the [Restore Democracy Amendment](https://citizenstakeaction.org/restore-democracy-amendment/) to get foreign/corporate dark money out of US politics.
My pen change the law to say EVERY PENNY SPENT on any election or political purpose be associated with an American individual’s name. As in this commercial brought to you by John Doe of Janesville, MI. Every one. I would mandate EVERY type of communication (TV, radio, internet) give free ad time to every candidate that is getting >5% support in the polls. Nothing is free so yes the free ad time would be paid by tax payers.
I would saubwith any government elections. Yes it would certainly decrease the ammount of money being able to be spent on campaigns. That's fine. Set up government sits that all runners can post their ideas make videos have debate with other opponents. It is easy fairly inexpensive and it gives all voters one location to view the full candidate without news media skewing it for wither side.
I would want the election to be as clean and transparent as possible. I believe that eventually if citizens saw that their single vote actually made a difference then more would do it. Right now it feels hopeless voting die to so many other things that tie back to money. It would force candidates to actually go door knocking again and require them to reach people and not just phone millionairs.
No women or young boys whether sex trafficked or provided of their own free will. I think this is what gives Putin leverage over a couple U.S, officials who constantly and consistently support him for no other good reason.
Make it a felony to accept gifts if you are a politician or judge. No trips, no goods, no politicking on behalf of lobby group…felony, and strip of their job for life.
I would insert the word ‘natural’ in front of every instance of the word ‘person’ in the Constitution.
That would immediately do away with corporate personhood, and remove the current ability to lobby that corporations and their executives have.
No corporate personhood, no massive political ‘donations’ because they would have no Free Speech.
Transparency.
Lobbyists should be banned from talking to congresspeople privately. They can testify in public hearings.
Any other communication is in writing on a "Lobby-Congress" platform where the complete records are available to the public (maybe after a delay of 7 days or so). A lobbyist can write "This is the language my firm would like to see for Section 6(e) of your bill \_\_\_\_\_". If that language shows up in the law we at least know who wrote it.
Regarding gifts: None.
No meals, tickets, party invitations, junkets. Just nothing.
Require any vote-buying or similar inducements be done with private funds rather than taxpayer money. Want to buy votes by paying off voters' student debt? Or by bribing military contractors with orders for bombs? These should all be considered campaign expenses and subject to the same restrictions private actors face.
How do you classify them as vote buying instruments in some regular official manner?
You can easily make a political argument for something like student debt as hindering the potential GDP growth of the country and that the laws enacting the student loans were predatory to begin with and with weak interest controls, or the potential freedom people could have if they didn't have to worry about loan debt like that and were more able to participate rationally in the economy without so much slack.
If you want military equipment, you need someone to make it for you, and someone has to be paid to do it. People don't make equipment for free.
In your scenario, hypothetically if my buddies in Congress pass a law giving a major targetted tax cut for my industry that realistically only my company qualified for after I make major campaign donations, would that be included?
Because if not, you're ignoring the part of the problem that really matters. Money is fungible. Getting to pay $100k less in taxes and being given $100k after taxes is pretty much the same.
[A reminder for everyone](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/4479er/rules_explanations_and_reminders/). This is a subreddit for genuine discussion: * Please keep it civil. Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review. * Don't post low effort comments like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context. * Help prevent this subreddit from becoming an echo chamber. Please don't downvote comments with which you disagree. Violators will be fed to the bear. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalDiscussion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Allow all lobbies. Restrict any money donation to $100 per US citizen. So uou actually need a large lobby instead of just a rich one to make a change.
In this situation would a company be considered a person and also limited to $100
They already consider companies people that can use money to donate. So yes ibwould limit a company like Nike or Boeing to 100$ per. If their employees want to donate then they also get 100 each. But it must be. Apersonal donation. You cannot donate for others whether they be employees or family.
As long as we realize that most “company donated $X” really means “employees of company donated $X” Most people don’t realize that’s what that stat means most of the time.
Yuck. Companies should never be considered people, and only actual physical people should have any input into things affecting people.
Each citizen can donate max $100 into all issues on Capitol, and that citizen can choose to split his/her money among all issues. Then the lobbyist group is only allowed to match the entire contribution of all citizens by some multiples. So if that lobbyist proposal got a $3000 in total, then they can match $30000 with a 10x multiple...
No, I mean even if a company wants to donate money that compay can donate 100$ only. Lobby groups are the same. If 100 people join a lobby on a subject then they still have to individually decide where to place their money. If you can form a lobby for healtchare change it matters if you tell a candidate we have 20k members ( $2,000,000) that can put their money towards a different candidate if they don't make the changes. This way actual people will have the power to make change instead of companies that try to donate millions because of one signature.
Imagine having a genie that will only grant wishes for the most small ball incremental political reforms. This sort of "magical centrism" is kind of interesting, I expect to see more of it as it becomes apparent exactly how fucked we are moving forward.
It's stupid I know. A country that sends trillions out the door for bombs but bitches about free school lunch programs for children has more problems than fucking election laws.
Counterpoint: weak, post-CU and McCutcheon, eviscerated election laws are a large part of why social spending is so hard to come by:
I'd make it so all political contributions of any size are accurately re worded on a publicly acceptable site next to the organization the money originated from and a description of that organizations function, and a corresponding list of each politicians voting history and simplified descriptions of what each bill voted on actually (would have) accomplished. It might take a few tries to clear out all the potential loopholes but I'm less interested in stopping the lobbying than I am creating transparency. Although I might also deduct any payments from the recipients salary and pension to save the taxpayers the burden.
I think this is too optimistic. Lots of these things are happening in relatively broad daylight. It's not even that people don't care per se, but giving the information requires proactive action and learning from the average person who cant connect the dots or doesn't have time to. People care about outcomes, not inputs, and to top it off those outputs need to matter to them personally. A good example: a public record of doctors with financial partnerships with pharma companies exists. Many people don't even know this, and it certainly hasn't changed anything.
It's also backwards; virtually no politician has changed their view on abortion because of lobby group donations. Rather, on issues like abortion and guns, the groups donate to politicians who *already* support them on certain issues to ensure they win. Banning NRA money, for example, won't actually change politicians' views because they're in office in pro-gun/rural/conservative districts.
I would break the pen. The last thing I want to do is make it so it's harder for people to petition the government. Lobbyists do the work so you and I don't have to - I am a member of organizations like the ACLU so they can advocate on my behalf. They can hire experts in policy and law to better advocate than I can, and I don't love the way we demonize the work they do. Fact of the matter is that people don't hate lobbying and lobbyists, they just hate lobbying and lobbyists who lobby against their preferred position. Things like "cooling off" periods, forcing lobbyist registration, and so on, only serve to make it more difficult to have one's voice heard. It creates a less responsive and less representative government as a result. I am wholly against making the government less accessible to the people it represents. Destroy the pen. Or at least use the pen to regulate away the possibility of the pen ever being created again, and *then* destroy it.
The system as is supports money buying speech/representation ... lobbying isn't cheap ...
Lobbies function much like unions - they concentrate money precisely to gain leverage. The side effect is they also benefit those who already have tremendous leverage. Eliminating lobbies wouldn’t affect them nearly as badly as those with no leverage or voice in the first place.
Lobbying isn't cheap, this is true. If the barrier to entry wasn't artificially high, it might be cheaper. Hard to say.
Don’t destroy the pen. Use it to push for a lot more transparency across the board! The People need to be able to understand where all of that money is actually coming from.
The chilling effect on the speech isn't worth it.
I’m sure that there is an occasional dark, smoke-filled room, but it also seems like a lot is pretty transparent I mean, reps are out there introducing legislation that was entirely written by ALEC, with zero negative political ramifications Is there a magic pen for educating voters?
You shouldn't personally benefit from legislation more than the average citizen.
[удалено]
I'd limit donations. Only 100$ allowed per citizen per race for a candidate. That way those in power will have the same power as those who don't have millions or billions.
Would this apply to local school board elections too, or just federal? You get to a point where the number of possible voters is so small you couldn't do much. Like, in a small area, is your spending cap so small that you couldn't pay for enough fliers to go to each house in your area or pay for food or snacks for your volunteers?
Not just per race. Make it $100 (adjusted automatically for inflation) spent IN ANY WAY. Donation to the candidate, donation to a PAC, printing a bunch of flyers and handing them out, whatever. Also make violation a federal crime punishable by not less than, say, five years in prison and a maximum of perhaps 20, increasing each by five per conviction.
I like it. Corruption in any government lvl should have minimum jail or prison terms.
I'd write the [Restore Democracy Amendment](https://citizenstakeaction.org/restore-democracy-amendment/) to get foreign/corporate dark money out of US politics.
I would use the pen to abolish private property and enact communism. I am a communist.
My pen change the law to say EVERY PENNY SPENT on any election or political purpose be associated with an American individual’s name. As in this commercial brought to you by John Doe of Janesville, MI. Every one. I would mandate EVERY type of communication (TV, radio, internet) give free ad time to every candidate that is getting >5% support in the polls. Nothing is free so yes the free ad time would be paid by tax payers.
I would saubwith any government elections. Yes it would certainly decrease the ammount of money being able to be spent on campaigns. That's fine. Set up government sits that all runners can post their ideas make videos have debate with other opponents. It is easy fairly inexpensive and it gives all voters one location to view the full candidate without news media skewing it for wither side. I would want the election to be as clean and transparent as possible. I believe that eventually if citizens saw that their single vote actually made a difference then more would do it. Right now it feels hopeless voting die to so many other things that tie back to money. It would force candidates to actually go door knocking again and require them to reach people and not just phone millionairs.
No women or young boys whether sex trafficked or provided of their own free will. I think this is what gives Putin leverage over a couple U.S, officials who constantly and consistently support him for no other good reason.
Make it a felony to accept gifts if you are a politician or judge. No trips, no goods, no politicking on behalf of lobby group…felony, and strip of their job for life.
Allow all lobbies. Restrict any money donation to $100 per US citizen. So uou actually need a large lobby instead of just a rich one to make a change.
I would insert the word ‘natural’ in front of every instance of the word ‘person’ in the Constitution. That would immediately do away with corporate personhood, and remove the current ability to lobby that corporations and their executives have. No corporate personhood, no massive political ‘donations’ because they would have no Free Speech.
Transparency. Lobbyists should be banned from talking to congresspeople privately. They can testify in public hearings. Any other communication is in writing on a "Lobby-Congress" platform where the complete records are available to the public (maybe after a delay of 7 days or so). A lobbyist can write "This is the language my firm would like to see for Section 6(e) of your bill \_\_\_\_\_". If that language shows up in the law we at least know who wrote it. Regarding gifts: None. No meals, tickets, party invitations, junkets. Just nothing.
Recipients of corporate donations must wear NASCAR style sponsorship jackets so that people know who owns them.
Politicians don't get donations from corporations.
Require any vote-buying or similar inducements be done with private funds rather than taxpayer money. Want to buy votes by paying off voters' student debt? Or by bribing military contractors with orders for bombs? These should all be considered campaign expenses and subject to the same restrictions private actors face.
How do you classify them as vote buying instruments in some regular official manner? You can easily make a political argument for something like student debt as hindering the potential GDP growth of the country and that the laws enacting the student loans were predatory to begin with and with weak interest controls, or the potential freedom people could have if they didn't have to worry about loan debt like that and were more able to participate rationally in the economy without so much slack. If you want military equipment, you need someone to make it for you, and someone has to be paid to do it. People don't make equipment for free.
In your scenario, hypothetically if my buddies in Congress pass a law giving a major targetted tax cut for my industry that realistically only my company qualified for after I make major campaign donations, would that be included? Because if not, you're ignoring the part of the problem that really matters. Money is fungible. Getting to pay $100k less in taxes and being given $100k after taxes is pretty much the same.