I wonder if this website needs to be updated. The Fair Elections Now bills currently in Congress, as I understand it, are HR1404 and S750, not HR1826. Perhaps someone can give me a fill on the history of these numbers and how it works. HR 1826 now seems to relate to Indian affairs.

Thanks

I support this bill but it should cover the senate also !! All of congress should have public money sufficient to cover radio and tv ads plus direct mail. This would get rid of the time they waste kissing corporate behind.

This bill gets nothing done except to give the government a little more financial and regulatory control over how elections are conducted. I agree that the corruption of elections by corporations and special interest needs to be remedied. I can’t support this bill, however, because it doesn’t propose a real solution. If you want to truely even the playing field, than you a)need to make this system mandatory; b)completely rule out private contribution to specific campaigns by either making all private contribution go into the same “Fund” pot, or completely eliminating private contribution totally by making it illegal, and actually enforcing it (a thing our gov’t seems unable to do in many cases).

For me, its not enough to go a step in the right direction, because it does nothing but give the government added control without accomplishing the objective of making elections more fair. Again, I agree with the notion, but can’t support this method of accomplishing it.

I see almost no bipartisan support on this. I have to ask why that is. I am wondering if the current climate means the party supporting this feels they are going to be lacking funds?

If a candidate opts into this system are they automatically less corrupt? If a candidate can raise the same amount of money with fewer donations does that make their corruption easier to detect? We blame the politicians for taking so much corporate money and favoring their needs over the people’s needs, yet we still vote them back into power.

Why mess with these paltry compromises? We can just have someone take our money, give it to the best candidates, and have them campaign to an independent commission that will do all of our research and vote for us.

The major defect I see is that candidates have a choice to opt out of this system of campaign finance.

Please listen to Lawrence Lessig at the following link:

http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/page/invite/chronicleIV?source=message&utm_source=message&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20100209

Oops. This comment was supposed to be a reply on the next page. Could one of the mods delete it? I had it in the regular comment box to check the character count and hit “post” by mistake.

Sorry.

I disagree that the only purpose of government is to protect the people’s liberties. I also disagree that only the “vast majority of power” belongs to the people. I would say that all the power belongs to the people, and that government is (or should be) the people’s tool to wield power for democratically directed goals.

I don’t want power to be wielded solely by individuals who have no obligation to consider what effects their actions may have on others. Being subjected to the power of others, without having the ability to seek redress for any wrongs, is authoritarian; it’s the definition of the law of the jungle.

Besides securing basic liberties, government must allow the people to manage society democratically. If government becomes a power unto itself, it will manage society dictatorially. But if properly democratic, it’s far better than the capriciousness of 300 million individual authoritarian powers.

But I’m a socialist, you’re a libertarian, so we argue. C’est la vie.

I would disagree that the only purpose of government is to protect the people’s liberties. I also disagree that only the “vast majority of power” belongs to the people. I would say that all the power belongs to the people, and that government is (or should be) the people’s tool to wield power for democratically directed goals.

I don’t want power to be wielded solely by individuals who have no obligation to consider what effects their actions may have on others. Being subjected to the power of others, without having the ability to seek redress for any wrongs, is authoritarian; it’s the definition of the law of the jungle.

Besides securing basic liberties, government must allow the people to manage society democratically. If government becomes a power unto itself, it will manage society dictatorially. But if properly democratic, it’s far better than the capriciousness of 300 million individual authoritarian powers.

But I’m a socialist, you’re a libertarian, so we argue. C’est la vie.

I would say that the primary limits on government the Constitution’s authors were concerned with involved preventing any individual or group from taking over the government. (Also, the states wanted to maintain some autonomy and keep themselves from being railroaded by other states.) You’re also right that they were looking at the English monarchy as the model for what not to do in government. That’s what is meant by “limited government.”

Remember that from the start, the Constitution’s authors knew that they would be the ones running the government. They wanted to ensure that whichever branch they ended up in, they would have power with regard to the other 2, and that a future rival wouldn’t one day become emperor and start cutting off heads.

Our “limited government” is designed to protect republican institutions and balance power between the branches to stave of dictatorship. The idea that it means government can’t regulate the public or business is nonsense.

Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists wanted a limited government, it was just a question of degree. The Anti-Federalists were a little less naive, however, and so we some of the amendments they proposed as part of the Bill of Rights. Apparently even that wasn’t enough

I would say they wanted a more powerful central government, not an all powerful central government. Both camps were still leery of a powerful central government such as the British crown, from which they had spent quite a lot of time and lives separating. Even without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution already contained significant limitations on the power of the federal government. If they had unchecked central power in mind, why did they construct three coequal branches of government with specific enumerated powers? Why did they allow states to continue to appoint their senators? Why require the states to agree to amendments instead of just allowing Congress to pass them as any other bill? Hell, why not establish a monarchy and be done with it?

I’m not saying it’s the only legal viewpoint, but in my opinion it’s the only valid legal viewpoint. The precedent supporting these laws during the 30s and 40s was legally dubious and basically a concession from the court to avoid Roosevelt’s thinly veiled threat to pack the court. They are ripe to be overturned.

The Supreme Court does not have the last word, by the way. The feds might get away with passing whatever they like, but enforcement is another matter altogether. Many states have passed laws nullifying the Real ID act, federal firearms laws (for those manufactured in state and never leaving that state), and the prohibition against medical (or otherwise) marijuana. Simple civil disobedience is another option; keep in mind that there are tens of millions of us who will never submit. We’ll see who wins.

The Federalists worried that the Articles of Confederation was too weak, that the US would be torn apart through civil war (Shays’ Rebellion was often cited), and that individual states lacked the power or respect to keep the US safe from attack or foreign influence. They also worried about the lack of central authority over the states. In the Federalist #21 Hamilton wrote, “The United States, as now composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish disobedience to their resolutions…”

The Constitution changed this with a powerful central government. Anti-Federalists feared the powers of the new government, so the Bill of Rights was drafted as a compromise. The fact that the Bill of Rights was seen as necessary should be plenty of evidence for how powerful the founders intended the federal government to be. At the time they saw the Constitution as being so strong that, unless it was restricted from abolishing even basic rights and due process, it had the power to do so.

The problem with your argument is that your point of view on political ads and the FCC have not been supported by the Supreme Court. The FCC has existed for 70 years, and in that time the Court has neither dissolved it nor prohibited it from enforcing decency standards. Now you may have problems with the FCC and its policies—I have some problems with the FCC and its policies—but determinations of constitutionality are not up to you or me. They’re up to the Supreme Court.

Now you may not like the fact that judicial review is not explicitly granted to the Supreme Court in the Constitution, or that the Court basically just gave itself the power in 1803, but by the accepted interpretation of the Constitution it’s legal, and decisions of constitutionality are the Court’s. Your strict constructionalist view can and should affect your support for any proposed laws, but you can’t insist it’s the only legal viewpoint. 200 years of history have said otherwise.

Whoops, this is supposed to be part 2 of a response to spender down there.

The problem we have is individuals with lots of capital paying politicians to use government to benefit them and skew the playing field. If the government is not able to do so in the first place, you’ve eliminated much of the problem. Likely there would still be some way of skewing the system, of course, but at this point perhaps the courts could actually be given a chance to work. Justice would be on a much better footing with a less corruptible system.

States have their own constitutions which apply, as I’ve already said. Is it far fetched to see an emphasis on federal issues in a site discussing the activities of the federal Congress?

All levels of government should be weakened to the point that they are only capable of performing their correct function: to protect the rights of individuals. The vast majority of power rightfully belongs in the hands of individuals; we own ourselves and the products of our time and energy. Our rights should only end where another’s begin and vice versa. This is not the ‘law of the jungle’; it is liberty!

“Also, the Constitution was NOT designed to limit the scope of the federal government.”

Excuse me? Perhaps you can explain to me the existence of the 9th and 10th amendments then, seeing as how they do exactly that. Hell, the Bill of Rights flies in the face of that ridiculous statement.

Yes, the Constitution created a FEDERAL government out of a decentralized confederacy. A FEDERAL government absolutely limited to specific enumerated powers, everything else granted to the states and/or the people. I’m beginning to think you may not have read it and are generally unfamiliar with the history of the period. Either that or you’re just being disingenuous.

Caps on monetary contributions don’t violate the first amendment. However, the federal government doesn’t have the Constitutional authority to regulate such. The federal government DOES regulate what sorts of political ads can be broadcast close to an election, which DOES violate the first amendment. The FCC DOES violate the first amendment on a daily basis by enforcing so called “public decency” standards. I also believe the FCC doesn’t have the Constitutional authority to regulate the frequency spectrum, while we’re talking about them.

You make it sound like the federal government is the only thing that can have power over us. If the federal government were made weak and impotent, buying a Congressperson would likely not be worthwhile, but buying a state Senator would, and we’d have the same corruption problem. If the state government were made weak as well, the power would shift to the local governments. If they were weakened, the power would fall into the hands of those who physically own the nation’s capital who, conveniently enough, are the same people who this law is aimed at.

As individuals we always find ourselves under someone’s authority. Faced with this some people dream of increasing their capital and using it to exert their wills over others and be free of regulation. That’s the law of the jungle: The strong are free and do as they please. I prefer taking power away from unaccountable individuals and vest it instead in a body based on rules that I have some control over. That’s the law of civilization.

Laws capping political donations don’t violate the 1st amendment any more than the FCC does. The government is fully able to regulate the manner in which people communicate, provided that it doesn’t regulate the content of the communications (and even that isn’t absolute) or prevent communication from happening.

If the $100 cap were to apply to only Democrats and Republicans, and the law were to mandate a $50 cap on donations to all other parties’ candidates, that would violate the 1st amendment. But a straight $100 donation cap would not.

Also, the Constitution was NOT designed to limit the scope of the federal government. It CREATED the federal government out of a decentralized confederacy. It was written by people who looked at the states’ power in the US confederacy and concluded that this country needed centralized authority strong enough to compel the states obedience. It was not a limit on governmental power, it was a deliberate and vast expansion of governmental power.

All campaign contributions already come from individuals, though indirectly in many cases. Corporations and other organizations are all owned or controlled by individuals, they don’t have minds of their own.

Do you know where your Congressman is?

Would you let your secretary just wander out the door when ever she wanted and without any explanation as to where she was going or when she was going to be back?

More than 20 years ago, President Carter warned that the flow of money into washington and the resulting influence of special interests would destroy our democracy. I believe it has already happened.

I hope I live to see the day when Congress is eliminated completely and every vote is a direct vote from the PEOPLE of the United States. I think at least there should be a very LARGE visual at each senators desk showing how the people he is supposedly respesenting would vote. I think this might be a lot harder to ignore when our PUBLIC SERVANTS are voting on bills before congress. We have the technology to do this. If I can pay my credit card bill on line, from funds from my checking account why the hell can’t I use my computer to cast a vote?

Now is the time for our Public Servants to be held more accountable for their actions. I want to know where they are, and who they are meeting with and what money is changing hands.

I have to wonder what the founding fathers would think about the lobbyists in Washington. Did you know that the only reason that Congressmen were ever paid a salary was so that poor people could serve if elected? The positions occupied by the Senators and Represenatives were supposed to be positions of honor and were to be undertaken as a service to our country. Why should these people receive any more money that those people that risk their lives everyday in the Armed Forces?
I don’t know about you, but I am fed up. I believe that campaign contributions should only come from individuals and be limited to $5000. end of story. The Senators, Representatives and Justices should be reminded that they are on OUR PAYROLL! I like Obama’s idea to publish information about who is meeting with who in Washington. If you own your own business don’t you keep tabs on your employees?

The ‘services’ of a bought Congressperson wouldn’t be quite as valuable on the ‘market’ if the federal government wasn’t akin to Cthulu with enormous tentacles slithering this way and that, interposing themselves in the private lives of every living (or dead?) citizen. How about we enforce Constitutional limits of power instead of new creative legislation to attempt (and likely fail) to right every wrong? A smaller and significantly less-powerful federal government (as originally intended) would offer far less opportunity for mayhem. A bought legislator in a weak government is just that.

“As such, we need a new way of doing things.”

So said the Bolsheviks. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Just to be clear, I’m only talking about the federal government and not the states.

Congress may regulate elections, yes, but they may not infringe on the rights protected by the Bill of Rights in doing so. The 1st Amendment explicitly says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”. This pretty much destroys any legitimacy of so called federal campaign-finance reform laws which, among other things, regulate the purchase and delivery of a form of protected speech.

I would also argue that Congressional authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of Congressional elections is limited in scope to their actual time, places, and manner. The intent of the Constitution was to limit the scope and power of the federal government; it is absurd to suggest in the case of Congressional elections that their authority extends to every peripheral subject upon which it touches.

“I think we should instead work on prosecuting the recipients of this sort of bribery.”

That would be my preferred way of handling it too. But when every politician insists that the contributions they receive don’t affect their votes (even though the stats suggest that they do); and when everyone in a position to begin prosecutions is either an elected official, an appointed official chosen by an elected official, or a subordinate of one of the two; and when our entire government is stuck in this system of pleasing donors with votes so no one considers it bribery in the first place; prosecutions would be impossible.

Basically, like the best criminal conspiracies, this system is documented, public and legal. As such, we need a new way of doing things.