Illegalizing Out-of-state money

[POA]

One problem that the American political system has is the unrestricted flow and use of money to dominate and override anything that the people who live in a state might have to say or think.

Two examples of this phenomenon at work were the flooding of Iowa with negative advertising aimed at Dean to aid Kerry (and working through Kerry), and the massive flooding of DLC and AIPAC money into the Georgia Democratic primary in order to defeat Cynthia McKinney and replace her with Denise Majette in Georgia.

As a result, I am curious if anyone else supports the idea of illegalizing out-of-state money in terms of donations to political candidates in order to help try and break the 'money primary' phenomenon?

POA

[Moses]

I don't know-- we had the same thing here in Maryland, with the right wing dirty tricks money backing a Republican candidate for Governor, who won.

But then, on the other side, we had a candidate who was a clueless member of the Kennedy dynasty.

[Ropegun]

I may not be popular for this, but I think private funding of campaigns should be banned.

I think every candidate should have a fixed amount of money to run on. This money should be budgeted for in the federal budget, and states taking the same role for local and state elections. This is so that the field is leveled, and all candidates have an equal voice. It also makes it more personal to voters, who are all now paying for elections as well as the campaigns. Most people have concerns about how their tax dollars are spent, and this show how at least some of it is spent.

Media outlets such as TV conglomerates should be made to air equal amounts of advertising for each candidate. Maybe even during the same blocks of time.

This will allow the Sharptons and the Naders and the Kuciniches of amerika to get their voice heard as much as the Bushes and the Kerrys. No one candidate would have any advantage due to money. But candidates could be free to use their alloted time as they see fit, and stand or fall by those decisions.

Just an idea on your subject, POA.
Let me know what you think.

Peace.

[POA]

Ropegun said:

I may not be popular for this, but I think private funding of campaigns should be banned.

I think every candidate should have a fixed amount of money to run on. This money should be budgeted for in the federal budget, and states taking the same role for local and state elections. This is so that the field is leveled, and all candidates have an equal voice. It also makes it more personal to voters, who are all now paying for elections as well as the campaigns. Most people have concerns about how their tax dollars are spent, and this show how at least some of it is spent.

Media outlets such as TV conglomerates should be made to air equal amounts of advertising for each candidate. Maybe even during the same blocks of time.

This will allow the Sharptons and the Naders and the Kuciniches of amerika to get their voice heard as much as the Bushes and the Kerrys. No one candidate would have any advantage due to money. But candidates could be free to use their alloted time as they see fit, and stand or fall by those decisions.

Just an idea on your subject, POA.
Let me know what you think.

Peace.

That doesn't make you unpopular with me at all, actually. I do advocate equal media time provided by the government, and additionally that no candidate can buy additional time or accept 'donations' from private parties along those lines.

The reason why I thought about the out-of-state limitation , though, was for the following reasons:

1) Even with massive increased progressive taxation, how much is it going to cost for the government to fully fund elections considering how many elected offices the US has, and would have if the other reforms I had in mind ever take hold?

(The experiences of other DD'ers who are aware of full public funding of elections in other nations would be helpful along those lines).

2) Unless we get phenomenally lucky at once, we're probably going to need some intermediate measures in order to get to where we really want.

[Ropegun]

Intermediate measures....

What do you have in mind and what can we do to get these instituted?

This comes down to something I've wanted to talk about for a long time. You know my history at SC, POA, and know that I like to try to get at practical methodologies for real change. Thats what I hope to get out of this board.

Do we agitate for outlawing of out of state funding for advertisments? How would we do that? Protesting clearly will not work, as it's kind of an obscure issue. People most likely would not know what we were talking about.

Maybe writing to folks like Kucinich and the like? At least we can make our concerns known, but given political history in amerika, I don't think it would do much good. We'd be ignored as fringe elements an swept under the rug, like always.

Educating people we know would be a good start, but time isn't something we have the luxury of. things have to progress quickly, or we may be looking at a really nasty future, as if we already are'nt.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Peace.

[POA]

Ropegun said:

Intermediate measures....

What do you have in mind and what can we do to get these instituted?

This comes down to something I've wanted to talk about for a long time. You know my history at SC, POA, and know that I like to try to get at practical methodologies for real change. Thats what I hope to get out of this board.

Do we agitate for outlawing of out of state funding for advertisments? How would we do that? Protesting clearly will not work, as it's kind of an obscure issue. People most likely would not know what we were talking about.

Maybe writing to folks like Kucinich and the like? At least we can make our concerns known, but given political history in amerika, I don't think it would do much good. We'd be ignored as fringe elements an swept under the rug, like always.

Educating people we know would be a good start, but time isn't something we have the luxury of. things have to progress quickly, or we may be looking at a really nasty future, as if we already are'nt.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Peace.

Actually, this is an issue where protesting and a referendum or proposition might actually work. It's primarily aimed against Congress and gubernatorial races. Here's how:

This rests on the following assumptions:

1) Both members (the single member?) of the duopoly function as essentially a money-laundering scheme to get money from large donors scattered across the USA, concentrate it, and then give it to compliant candidates in states without a lot of large donors in order to convince them to comply.

2) Election standards are controlled by the states in question, not the federal government.

3) The states in question also have a viable referendum or proposition mechanism like California does. (I need to get an map of which states do and don't have this)

How you get people to support this is you turn the right-wing rhetoric of 'states-rights' essentially on it's head. That is, you make an argument of something like "Our politicians recieve over $10 Million from out-of-state donors per year! How can they claim to be representing us when they take so much money from people who don't even live here?"

Then, you propose the banning of out-of-state money as a solution.

At this point, both parties are in a quandary. Either they can try and argue that a state doesn't have a right to regulate it's own electoral standards (making it clear to everyone that they believe in the power of nothing but money), or they can give up on the way they've been doing business along these lines or try and cheat their way past it.

If this happened in enough states then it would seriously hamper the ability of the duopoly to function, especially as far as the Senate is concerned because you don't need a lot of Senators to stop it's operation.

[spikeb]

I think making out of state contributions illegal is a GREAT intermediate step. While I think elections should not be privately funded at ALL, we're not going to get there yet. We need to work at chipping away at the ole rock, so to speak. Serious finance reforms at the state/local level and serious vote reforms at the same level are the way to start.