What would a legal definition of "getting money out of politics" look like?

[Recursion]

It's one of those things that everybody agrees on as an idea, but that's hard to write a law to actually bring about. Any thoughts?

[DetlefK]

1. Maybe...

1. Restrict political donations to citizens of the US. (-> only homo sapiens are citizens, not corporations or other organizations)

2. Restrict the amount of political donation per person and election to 1 yearly minimum-wage.

3. Total accountability for all donations. Total transparency for all donations surpassing $100 per person.

[monmouth3]

2. I like it....It's a start...n/t

[Recursion]

5. Should DU publish the real names of its star members?

I mean, I'm a big fan of #3; I've even said before "scrap contribution caps in favor of full transparency" -- the problem is that "political speech" and "political spending" are almost unfathomably broad, or at least can be...

[B Calm]

3. Public funded fair and open elections.

Pretty simple. .

[Recursion]

6. Ding ding ding

I do love that one.

[reformist2]

4. Nobody outside the district should be able to give money, for starters.

Since the ultra-rich 1%ers only live in a handful of exclusive districts around the country, that would sharply limit their influence over most of the rest of us right there.

[DetlefK]

8. What about state- or national elections?

[reformist2]

9. No campaign money should cross state lines, either.

Obviously the one national election - the presidential election - wouldn't be affected by these restrictions.

We've got to start somewhere. I think ring-fencing campaign donations is an idea that would appeal to people across the political spectrum.

[LWolf]

7. All elections would be 100% publicly financed.

No outside financing of anything to do with any campaign.

Those are my thoughts. And no...I don't know how to write that legislation.

We might need to start by narrowing the definition of "speech" to exclude money.

[reformist2]

10. Another route would be to give every candidate who makes the ballot a decent campaign stipend.

Sure the candidates who cater to the rich would still get boatloads of money, but at least every candidate
would start off with the means to get their message out.

[Jefferson23]

11. Public funded elections...all of them, especially the general election.

Over turn CU, then build a movement to public funded only.

Have you seen this, from last month?


Reformers: Publicly Funded Elections Will Tackle New York's Corruption Problem

—By Andy Kroll
Wed Apr. 3, 2013

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/public-financing-new-york-malcolm-smith

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. First off, you'd need a constitutional amendment.

Something like "Where sufficiently extreme justification can be shown, the right to spend money on political speech may be restricted, despite the 1st amendment".

I think that that is a massive, horrendous infringement of individual liberty - I think most DUers are far too blase about it - but it may well be a lesser evil.

Then, I'd go with a cap of $x a year - perhaps $20,000, say - that anyone can spend on political campaigning.

I'd probably supplement that with some form of state funding for electioneering.


Whether and how to cover donations in kind - doorstepping, airtime, favourable opinion pieces, etc, would be a little trickier.