Campaign funding (split from Republican primary thread)

[Silknor]

Yes, money is not the same as in-kind contributions. I wasn't saying that they were the same. But this is an interesting claim, which in my view is inaccurate:

someone making 1,000 phone calls for you could do nothing for you, or they could gain you 1,000 votes. Comparatively, you'll know (or be able to know) exactly what money donated to you has gained you.

The ad you buy with $1,000,000 could do nothing for you or it could gain you 1000 votes. Money, like phone calls, posters put up, or doors knocked on, is a means, not an end. There's no obvious exchange rate for any of these into votes, and it's votes that matter. I would actually reverse your claim, it's easier to measure the impact of calls or knocks, since you get some immediate feedback (even if it's subjective) whereas when you buy an ad you not only can't get feedback till the next poll, you can't tell how much of the change in the polls is due to statistical variance, any given ad, recent news coverage, etc.

Only if you assume that the manner in which that outrage comes to exist is unchanged. Considering the relative lack of outrage over people like Adelson, Fries, or Simmons in this cycle so far, I think we can safely assume that the "outrage-bar" has been raised.

Well I don't actually think that outrage is the limiting factor over the efficacy of donations/expenditures, it was Zamfir who said he did, at least mostly. But it's true, I don't think there's much to be outraged over with those latest donations.

There are problems, this is true, but I've never felt that because something isn't easy, that we should accept it the way it is.

No disagreement here. But I'm not saying change is hard. I'm saying no matter how noble the goal, many proposed changes are bad because of the unintended consequences (though the pro-incumbent impact of some of those changes is likely anything but unintended when proposed by elected officials!). That doesn't mean there aren't good changes possible, nor does it mean we should give up.

[Ghostbear]

The ad you buy with $1,000,000 could do nothing for you or it could gain you 1000 votes. Money, like phone calls, posters put up, or doors knocked on, is a means, not an end. There's no obvious exchange rate for any of these into votes, and it's votes that matter. I would actually reverse your claim, it's easier to measure the impact of calls or knocks, since you get some immediate feedback (even if it's subjective) whereas when you buy an ad you not only can't get feedback till the next poll, you can't tell how much of the change in the polls is due to statistical variance, any given ad, recent news coverage, etc.

The point was you would know that the $1 million would buy you that ad. You could control the creation of the ad, what networks it goes on, essentially everything about it. Someone making phone calls on your behalf is significantly less under your control- you can give them a script and a phone to work with, but after that, it's in their hands. With money, you get one extra degree of separation before the uncertainty happens; it's given to you, you then decide what to spend it on, and then it can or can not help you after you spend it. You know exactly what it bought you, down to the penny, even if the effect of what it did buy you is similarly difficult to measure.

No disagreement here. But I'm not saying change is hard. I'm saying no matter how noble the goal, many proposed changes are bad because of the unintended consequences (though the pro-incumbent impact of some of those changes is likely anything but unintended when proposed by elected officials!). That doesn't mean there aren't good changes possible, nor does it mean we should give up.

Ah, yeah, there's a big risk of unforeseen or unintended consequences, but that just means we need to be careful when making reform. Similarly, even if you think Citizen's United was the right decision (something that I staunchly disagree with), I think it's pretty safe to say it was not made carefully enough. The FEC has not put in place any meaningfully capable regulations to adapt, much of what the justices apparently expected to not happen did happen. It's all a mess, and no one is really allowing anything to be done to make it not a mess.

[Silknor]

The point was you would know that the $1 million would buy you that ad. You could control the creation of the ad, what networks it goes on, essentially everything about it. Someone making phone calls on your behalf is significantly less under your control- you can give them a script and a phone to work with, but after that, it's in their hands.

Yes, you have more control over an ad your campaign pays for than over what they say to voters when you're not looking. So? There's much better reasons to distinguish money from in-kind contributions, you've even made some of them, why does this have any importance?

Similarly, even if you think Citizen's United was the right decision (something that I staunchly disagree with), I think it's pretty safe to say it was not made carefully enough. The FEC has not put in place any meaningfully capable regulations to adapt, much of what the justices apparently expected to not happen did happen. It's all a mess, and no one is really allowing anything to be done to make it not a mess.

Yes, the FEC (and Congress) did not do what the Supreme Court said they could (and the majority expected they would) with regards to disclosure regulations. But this is irrelevant to if the Supreme Court made the right decision in Citizen's United. Constitutional law cases should not be made on the basis of if the decision would be good public policy if it were being enacted as a law instead of as a court ruling. What we think is good policy is a political question, outside the purview and expertise of the court. The only reason the possibility is even relevant to the case is because it helps to show that corporate independent expenditure limitations are not the least restrictive means to achieve a legitimate end.

The Court's decision should not have been any different if they could be positive the FEC would enact a certain response than if they thought the FEC would do nothing. What the FEC hypothetically could have done in response has no bearing on the meaning of the First Amendment and the constitutionality of the provision in question. The Court's role is not to craft good policy but to interpret the Constitution. If they think that their interpretation of the Constitution would lead to bad outcomes, they don't (or shouldn't, depending on your point of view) interpret it some different way.

Should the FEC and Congress have done things differently? Yes. But even knowing that they wouldn't with absolute certainty shouldn't change the correct ruling, regardless of if the ruling is right or not.

Edit: That really isn't directed at you, just the idea I've seen elsewhere that the consequences of Citizen's United weren't exactly what the 5 majority justices predicted, therefore it makes sense for them to reconsider.

[Ghostbear]

Yes, you have more control over an ad your campaign pays for than over what they say to voters when you're not looking. So? There's much better reasons to distinguish money from in-kind contributions, you've even made some of them, why does this have any importance?

It's that the money is going to get more influence. I thought of something that I hadn't stated before that I realized is important to seeing the difference. When you get a $5 million (or whatever) donation, you know exactly what you have now that you did not have before: $5 million. When someone volunteers to be your campaign strategist, even if they come up with a brilliant campaign for you, you don't know what the alternative to them was, because you went with them. Maybe the alternative was someone just as good? In that case they gained you nothing. There are so many alternatives with non-monetary contributions that you can never 100% quantify what that person did for you that you wouldn't have had without them. You can always quantify what someone does for you that you couldn't have done without them with a cash donation. It's not about the fact that it could go well or that it could not- it's about the fact that in one, you don't know what the alternative is, and in the other, you do.

The part about the different personal investments- time vs. some of your bank account- was just an example of how it's much easier for a few individuals to dominate the influence from money, in ways that really aren't possible with other contributions.

The Court's decision should not have been any different if they could be positive the FEC would enact a certain response than if they thought the FEC would do nothing. What the FEC hypothetically could have done in response has no bearing on the meaning of the First Amendment and the constitutionality of the provision in question. The Court's role is not to craft good policy but to interpret the Constitution. If they think that their interpretation of the Constitution would lead to bad outcomes, they don't (or shouldn't, depending on your point of view) interpret it some different way.

Eh, I'm of two minds for this. In a strict judicial sense, yes, they should only really consider whether something is constitutional or not, the practical outcomes be damned. In a realistic sense, however, they do appear to consider the outcomes on reality when making their decisions as well, and I can't really say that's a bad thing. In this instance, I expect that some of them very well would have made a different decision if they knew what the actual outcomes would have been. Which is not to say the way to "fix" that is to bring the case back to them and have them change their minds ("haha, whoops, take-backsies time" is a bad policy- we'll probably need a constitutional amendment to change things) but just that it is quite possibly that they would have decided differently had they known the true consequences. My comment was more along the lines of how we need to be careful going both ways with election laws- adding restrictions can have unintended consequences, but so can removing them.

[Silknor]

I understand that there are difference between money and in-kind contributions. No one is doubting that. The important question is why does that matter for campaign finance regulation? (I'm not entirely clear why this is coming up at all, I don't think anyone is arguing that in-kind contributions are regulated less strictly than money, therefore money should be less regulated).

As for how judges decide, empirically that seems hard to determine. But I don't think anyone would've changed their mind had they've known what would happen.

[Ghostbear]

I understand that there are difference between money and in-kind contributions. No one is doubting that. The important question is why does that matter for campaign finance regulation? (I'm not entirely clear why this is coming up at all, I don't think anyone is arguing that in-kind contributions are regulated less strictly than money, therefore money should be less regulated).

People have actually been making similar arguments to that, I'm not sure if those posts got pulled in when Zamfir did the thread split though. I guess I had wrongly read your post that brought up both influences mattering as being a similar argument. Sorry.

[lutzj]

If you're right that donations and "personal bribes" (assuming you're referring to something not illegal, bribes seems like a strange word choice), are mostly limited by public opinion, that sounds like a good reason not to worry too much about contribution/expenditure limits, as long as things are well disclosed then there's little problem.

Only if you assume that the manner in which that outrage comes to exist is unchanged. Considering the relative lack of outrage over people like Adelson, Fries, or Simmons in this cycle so far, I think we can safely assume that the "outrage-bar" has been raised.

It's also possible that most people don't care about big campaign donors because they don't think big campaign donations aren't a major issue. In fact, the only money people are really complaining about in this primary is the personal fortune of Romney, which 1) he earned himself and 2) hasn't been used to fund his campaign.

[Malice]

While I couldn't comment on the specifics of this example, as a general point it is often implied that corporate expenditures cause policy positions. While no doubt this is true to some extent (particularly on issues where neither the elected official in question nor the public really cares), proponents of this view often neglect that much of the causation likely flows in reverse: supporters of a particular policy give to candidates to support those policies. This is quite obvious at the individual level (if you gave to Obama in the 2008 general election, it's probably because you preferred him to McCain, not because you were hoping your donation would swing his position on a particular issue), yet often overlooked when it comes to corporate donations.

Despite the general implication, donors don't often buy positions; they buy access and consideration. That's why they generally donate to candidates who match their positions in general. They donate to a guy who's already inclined towards stricter copyright controls, and they use their donations to get their lobbyists in to meet him, and then their lobbyists say, "Now we know you want to stop this piracy menace. We have some suggestions on the laws we'd like you to support..." Then their suggestions make their way into the sponsored bill (assuming the lobbyist doesn't just drop a bill they authored on his desk), which is then the legislation the nation gets to contemplate. They haven't bought a vote; they've bought the ability to insert themselves into the process at the most basic level.

[Silknor]

Thank you for being more explicit than most. I see that as a more accurate description than the more common casual causal implication. However, it's easy to imagine that access being somewhat less available when donators are not true donators but rather contributors to independent expenditure groups.

On an unrelated note, in California a "sponsored bill" is a bill written by a lobbyist and introduced on their behalf. I blame term limits (in part).

[Malice]

Thank you for being more explicit than most. I see that as a more accurate description than the more common casual causal implication. However, it's easy to imagine that access being somewhat less available when donators are not true donators but rather contributors to independent expenditure groups.

That might be true, were those expenditure groups actually independent. *obligatory "A Better Tomorrow Tomorrow" reference*

[Silknor]

Interesting article on money, politics, lobbying, and polarization.

And a graph of presidential campaign spending as a percent of GDP: http://enikrising.blogspot.com/2012/03/ ... tions.html

[Whammy]

Interesting article on money, politics, lobbying, and polarization.

And a graph of presidential campaign spending as a percent of GDP: http://enikrising.blogspot.com/2012/03/ ... tions.html

Surprised this was still on the first page XD. Sorry for disappearing there, real life got in the way aka spring break and even I enjoy having some time off to be braindead for a bit XD...and some health issues with office worker leading me to have to spend extra time in the office =P

Anyway, I really liked that article, and that graph was rather interesting. 1896...crap, what election was that....*checks*. William McKinley vs. William Jenning Bryans. First real modern-day campaign...somehow that doesn't surprise me actually.