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Originally Posted by LadyShea
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Minority Leader Pelosi said that the move to amend the Constitution was part of a three-pronged strategy that includes passage of the DISCLOSE Act, which would further regulate disclosure requirements for organizations that run political ads, and promotion of taxpayer funding of political campaigns. Ms. Pelosi said, “Our Founders had an idea. It was called democracy. It said elections are determined by the people, the voice and the vote of the people, not by the bankrolls of the privileged few. This Supreme Court decision flies in the face of our Founders’ vision and we want to reverse it.”
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Public funding of elections should be the only goal. Without private direct funding of individual candidates, corporations could not purchase individuals. "People" could still donate to the election pool (to be equally distributed) all they want, if they truly are donating because they care so hard about the democratic process. Also, "people" could still speak freely all they want when speech no longer includes campaign contributions. |
I'm pretty not-comfortable with that. It seems to me that actual humans certainly ought to be allowed to pool resources to buy TV ads and things. Furthermore, who decides which candidates "count"? Consider all the abuses possible by having multiple candidates who do nothing but dilute the election money pool, or the problems inherent in using tax money to fund white supremacist hate speech...
There are real problems with centralizing this. I do see problems with companies funding election campaigns, but that doesn't mean the alternatives are totally trouble-free.