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TOPIC: "The absurdity of campaign finance reform" (Nina Easton, Fortune / CNN Money, 10/29/10)


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"The absurdity of campaign finance reform" (Nina Easton, Fortune / CNN Money, 10/29/10)
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Read @ Money.CNN.com

The absurdity of campaign finance reform

By Nina Easton, senior editor at large

FORTUNE -- One narrative of election year 2010 was shaped long before any votes were tabulated. President Barack Obama penned the first chapter with his January condemnation of a Supreme Court ruling that lifted government prohibitions on spending by corporations in elections. The 5-to-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission "strikes at our democracy itself," he said. Democrats and the media followed with tales of horror and fright, warning of corporate super-PACs and foreign donors. You could practically hear the theme from Jaws rumbling in the background.

But if American democracy really is being threatened by special-interest dollars, let's pose this question: Why -- after a decade of "reform" -- is there more money being spent, more outside electioneering, more negative advertising? Could it be because Washington's attempt at regulating campaign finance, treated as a sacred cause by editorial pages, has only led to absurd consequences?

Anyone who has been around Washington politics long enough can't avoid this truism: Election-year money is like a rushing river that invariably finds cracks in any dam the reformers erect. In 2002, Congress passed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law to stop the flow of corrupting special-interest money -- uncapped donations known as "soft money" -- going to political parties.

The result: Special-interest money, from the right and the left, flowed through a widening crack in the dam in the form of tax-exempt 527 and 501(c)4 organizations that took over much of the historical role of the parties, from messaging to getting out the vote. The voices of the national parties, now subjected to the McCain-Feingold limits, and candidates, operating under strict donation caps, are increasingly drowned out. "I approved this message" (a McCain-Feingold requirement) is a joke when it applies only to advertising produced by the candidate, a fraction of what voters actually watch.

[SNIP]

Nor is the ruling likely to enshrine a permanent tilt in favor of Republicans. (Where was all the media hand-wringing when money from unions and wealthy individuals was gushing on behalf of Democrats in 2006 and 2008?) Campaign money follows the intensity gap -- which is on the Republican side this year but was on the Democratic side in the past two elections.

Continues.

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Nina Easton is missing/obfuscating the point that Citizens United STRUCK THE DECADE OF FINANCE REFORM.

I think it is very important for every political ad to have a face that stands with the message that represents the money that comes into the advertisement. i.e., the sponsor.  Otherwise, it conveys messages of paid participants of this country or worse, Canada. 

The effectiveness of a political promotion voice that ha a big mic is to be gauged with knowledge of who is the face that has poured money into that voice and what are their interests.

We are a group here -- a group of people with a shared goal of seeing Hillary win in 2012 or 2016 - that is what binds us together. Should we get sponsored by a corporation to push our voice? I do not think it is appropriate.  If it does, I think it should be quite clear exactly what are the funding sources, and the ad would have to end with a formal representative from this group saying "I approved this message", website address, and the website detailing the funding sources and uses.

Nina's argument that this does not create a permanent tilt is laughable.  I wonder how much of a tilt is acceptable when it is influencing people without sharing which powerful interest is pushing which message?


Campaign Finance Reform IS important.

And, yes, the SCOTUS has done MEGA wrong to the country and its democracy in Citizens United.

What is worse, we now know that one of the SCOTUS judges who participated in cogitating on the decision, voting in favor of the 5-4 decision, and later defending the decision majorly, Justice Thomas, probably should not have participated as his wife already had a non-profit with a stated political interest, getting funding from corporate entities.  I think it was a serious conflict of interest.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 30th of October 2010 12:19:21 PM

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