Now, whether it's good for "democracy" or not, it is reform

Cheers

Cut out private funding altogether. Give the candidates the same amount of money and let them compete on a level playing field on equal terms.

Cut out private funding altogether. Give the candidates the same amount of money and let them compete on a level playing field on equal terms.

Then there will be a LOT of 'freebies' from supporters. Not much difference. I'm against foreign and corporate donations but otherwise it's fine.

Why should Barbara Streisand have more influence over who becomes President than say Bill Gates?

Why should either of them have more influence than I do? One citizen, one vote.

Campaign finance reform is not about limiting people's ability to participate in democracy, it's about giving everyone an equal voice. You know that one man one vote sort of thing.

An equal voice eh? So you would favor eliminating the press while you're at it then? After all, why should Peter Jennings have a "greater" voice than any other citizen?  People who favor such censorship are almost always selective.  They want to remove MY voice with the effect of magnifying the voice of those who go unaffected -- i.e. the media. 

Unfettered campaign financing by individuals is the only way people like me can have a voice even remotely equal to a celebrity, journalist, or editorial writer.  The people of our country who have jobs such as making food, building shelter, curing the sick, taking care of the infirm, they don't have the same voice as say Paul Krugman of the New York Times who gets to spew propaganda on a daily basis. So what is your plan to make Joe Voter have the same voice as Paul Krugman? Or Rosie O'donald? Or Barbara Streisand? Or Bill O'Reilly?

Tough issue, we don'e wan't the people with millions of dollars controlling everything but we also don't want the media controlling everything either. The fact is Joe voter is never going to be on an equal playing field. I would prefer to limit campaign donations to people/companies inside their district. Of course this is easier said than done but I don't really wan't a senator from Colorado getting funding from big money people of any type in Vermont. If your a congressman then your limited to your district.

I agree with you conceptually, but disagree semantically. We are a Republic and NOT a domocracy!

I]…[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention…intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often…oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country. Fisher Ames, American statesman, 1805[/I

I dont think anyone has suggested we stop some people from speaking and not others, merely they cant donate huge amounts of money. They can still talk and put forward how things will affect business and so jobs and the like just not contribute large amounts. I think you are trying to alter what people have said Brad.

Brad said: "Why can't, for instance, me and my friends get together and pay for a newspaper advertisement or TV commercial explaining why we are for Candidate X? Why should WE get censored but Howard Stern or NY Times editorialists can espouse their opinions without limit?"

I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm mistaken, but from what I've seen, there is nothing preventing you from doing just that. Certainly you can take out the newspaper ad with no trouble; most of the reform is aimed at TV spending.
If you don't want your commercial aired within 60 days of the election, it's no problem. If you spend less than $10,000 a year on political advertising, no problem. (That seems pretty unlikely if you want the ad to be seen repeatedly in high-exposure timeslots, I'll admit.)
And even if it is about Candidate X, within 60 days of an election, then (from what I can see in my (admittedly hasty) research) it just means that the ad can't be paid for with "soft money" (i.e. money you gave to a PAC or to the Republican General Fund or whatever) and information will be collected about who is responsible for the ad. So if you want to pony up the $2,000,000 to run it every night for a month during Friends, you can.

- In my mind if you personally take out an ad in a newspaper then the value of this ad should be deducted from the spending power of the candidate.


Solitair: that would open the possibility to "spend" the budget of your opponents with mediocre ads, if you've got friends willing to do so.

I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm mistaken, but from what I've seen, there is nothing preventing you from doing just that. Certainly you can take out the newspaper ad with no trouble; most of the reform is aimed at TV spending. If you don't want your commercial aired within 60 days of the election, it's no problem. If you spend less than $10,000 a year on political advertising, no problem. (That seems pretty unlikely if you want the ad to be seen repeatedly in high-exposure timeslots, I'll admit.) And even if it is about Candidate X, within 60 days of an election, then (from what I can see in my (admittedly hasty) research) it just means that the ad can't be paid for with "soft money" (i.e. money you gave to a PAC or to the Republican General Fund or whatever) and information will be collected about who is responsible for the ad. So if you want to pony up the $2,000,000 to run it every night for a month during Friends, you can.

The candidate and the big business would be able to agree that if the candidate supports the big business, that the big business will take out ads in favor of the candidate, so it still seems as though the rich win in this case since they'll be having the richest supporters advertising for them.

Campaign finance is one aspect of our election system that is screwed up, but there are others. First, I have proposed a federal system of anonymous contributions which parallels the privacy of the ballot. There has been some academic interest in this idea. You can get the details at www.gocities.com/dfrank_robinson. The 10th Circuit Court Appeals rule just last week that the State of Oklahoma cannot compel political parties to exclude voters of other parties from the party's primary elections - it is now optional - a party can choose to have a closed primary or it can open it up. Obviously, this gives voters more choice if a party chooses to invite them in. The Libertarian Party of Oklahoma prevailed in the suit. The AG of Oklahoma says he will appeal to the Supreme Court.

This brings me to another issue which is similar to the Oklahoma case. Why must voters be assigned to a geographical district for representation? The politicans, in effect, choose their voters. Ninety-eight percent of incumbents in the U.S. House get re-elected. This election pundits say there are only 15 competitive elections for the U.S. House. Why not let voters "transfer" out of the district they are asigned to . How? Put secure ballot printers in every polling place. It would print the correct ballot for any voter in the state on-demand. Any voter could vote anywhere in the state with the right ballot for his "location". It's just like absentee ballots, but they are cast on election day and counted with all the other absentee ballots cast by voters in advance. So, if you don't like your incumbent congressman and the opposition won't put up an acceptable candidate (often because they know they can't win in that area), then you just "move" you registration for congress to a district that has candidates you like better. By the way, these districts are nearly always half empty of registered voters, so one person/one vote is not violated any more than it is by a low voter turnout. Yeah, it seems too simply to accomplish anything, but consider that the voters can "emigrate" to a district and make it competitive! The incumbent in the "safe" district is shown to be a loser even if he wins because people are "voting with their feet" to support someone else. Ok. There are more implications but consider what this might do to shake things loose.