Attended another salon last night...I'm sure you'll disapprove

[brooklynite]

Congressman Sarbanes was in town to promote his "Government By the People Act" bill (HR 20):

It has three main components. First is a $50 tax credit per donor per election cycle. Second is a voluntary matching fund system. People who donate up to $150 to a candidate who has agreed to lower contribution limits and the full disclosure of all donations will have that donation matched 6 to 1 with federal funds. If the candidate agrees to take no contributions higher than $150, the match rises to 9 to 1. And finally, it allows candidates to raise additional matching funds in the last 60 days of the election if the candidate feels he needs it to ward off a last-minute advertising blitz. (The bill has disincentives to keep that additional money from being used unless it is really needed.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/opinion/nocera-rethinking-campaign-finance.html

There are currently 143 co-sponsors (only one Republican).

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Why are you sure we'd disapprove?

Campaign finance reform is one of the most important issues in politics.

[brooklynite]

3. Apparently when 3 or more 1%ers get together, it's a topic for disdain...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. Eh, freedom of assembly.

I don't roll out the guillotines unless it's getting together to discuss ways to screw over the 99%.

[joshcryer]

2. And it will never leave committee.

Elections matter. Extremely rare for minority legislative proposals to leave committee to reach a vote. This will be no exception. After all, the Republicans benefit the most from Citizens United and Oligarchy United.

[brooklynite]

4. ...which he acknowledges.

His goal is to build a coalition over time.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. I don't see how it solves the problem.

I don't see how this impedes billionaires from continuing to do exactly what they are doing right now.

The reform has to happen at the constitutional level. The way to take the money out of the system is to do just that, and that requires a constitutional amendment.

[Jim Lane]

9. True, the billionaires carry on, but at least there's some counterweight.

A constitutional amendment would be preferable. I don't expect to see it in my lifetime. This bill itself would be a pretty heavy lift, but getting two majorities plus the President would be easier than getting two supermajorities (two-thirds in each chamber) plus 38 states.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. We had a counterweight with public financing and it worked (sort of) for a few elections

and then the billionaire class just blew it up by overwhelming it with their money. They'll do the same with any similar reform. I understand it would be easier to do something that doesn't actually manage to reform the system, but it will be just another fig leaf.

[Jim Lane]

12. The 6:1 or 9:1 match would increase its effectiveness.

It falls well short of a complete solution but it's at least a step beyond the fig leaf class.

Obama in 2008 didn't accept the public financing. Suppose that, with his prodigious small-donor fundraising, he'd had the additional boost of a 6:1 public match. Even though the subsequent decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon opened the floodgates to far too much influence of money, a powerful grassroots campaign getting a 6:1 match would regard that influx of cash as much more than a fig leaf.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Even though the subsequent decisions in Citizens United - end of story.

That decision rendered public financing a dead end. A candidate that manages to raise 1.5B from a 9:1 matching on 1M donors will be formidable until the billionaire class just ups the ante and starts funding at 3B or 6B or whatever it takes. The matching would actually have to be gauged in realtime to the funding raised by candidates outside the system to be effective, and then how would that be budgeted?

[Jim Lane]

15. I don't want to come across as Pollyanna but I'm a bit less pessimistic than you are.

There is a point of diminishing marginal returns on campaign spending. I wouldn't assume that 3B or even 6B will always defeat 1.5B. People have won while being outspent by worse than four to one. Even among the four-to-ones, though, my point is that being outspent 6B to 1.5B is a hell of a lot better than being outspent 1B to 250M. Even though the dollar discrepancy in the former case is worse, the candidate in those circumstances can fully fund a field operation plus have enough ad money to make his or her case.

If none of those arguments move you, consider this: Adopting such a public matching system, and seeing it fail to accomplish much, would be step toward building public support for the constitutional amendment that you and I would both like to see.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. So Sarbanes, who is one of the less wealthy members of Colngress, in order to raise awareness of

his push to get money out of politics had a event so expensive that you assume all present were among the 1%? I have to wonder if he is aware of the irony in that...

[cwydro]

8. Wish I could rec this response. nt

[brooklynite]

10. Event had no cost at all...I just know the people there

Last edited Mon Mar 16, 2015, 10:16 AM - Edit history (1)

That said, there will be advocacy work, which comes at a cost.

For those interested: www.everyvoice.org

[KamaAina]

13. In case you're wondering, the repuke is Walter Jones of NC

kind of a right populist.