In this day and age of the Internet and social media in general, I don’t see much actual need for rounding up so much money to get a message out. It’s nothing but a way to bribe, IMHO. Anyone can get a website and it’s pretty cheap.
This is one area where the term “both sides” certainly applies. I hate that term though, it’s mostly used a cop out and I digress.
I’d work on how we finance these things if we want to get serious about stemming corruption in government.
Another thing I’d do is limit the “election season”. Most other countries do that. In the UK, it’s like six weeks or something like that. Ahhh, wouldn’t that be nice!?!!? Can we do that here?
Take away the caps on donor limits. Take away pacs. Let anyone donate any amount to anyone. The candidate just has to publicly post who and how much is donated. No secret money. No secret PACs. You will know exactly who donated. Also make the donations taxable for the candidate and not a tax write off for the donor. Bring it all into the open.
Depends on what you mean by cleaning up. 100% of it forever? No but we can do better.
I mean I don’t see how can anyone be ok with “dark money” mixed in with binding on everybody law writing unless you’re part of that secret transaction. It’s nuts, self defeating and shows how blind and/or unwilling to do anything about it we or the vast majority of us are about it.
They should NIL this stuff. All above the table and taxable. If some pharma company wants to drop a few million on a candidate let them. But then the candidate has to let everyone know. No hiding behind Super PACS that the candidate does not control. A spending report as well. Let us know how much they throw at these silly texts, Facebook, twitter, etc.
The problem with campaign finance reform is that most people would say “we need to get all of this money out of politics”. Ok, then if asked “should political position only be reserved for the wealthy?” They would say hell no, we need normal people.
Unfortunately if you take the money out of it, then the wealthy have a huge advantage. It creates the tyranny of the wealthy that most people would object to.
But the way it is now young congress members spend all of their time dialing for dollars. Its very complicated.
If that were the case, I am sure the public post of donations would be ultra fine text buried in the classified ads of some newspapers. I am sure the candidates would find ways to get around it.
Very very true. Been doing research why politics, attracts psychopath, sociopath and narcissist ( there are some very good people to) The answer is power ( no surprise here) anybody knows anything about what’s attracts these dark personalities and how it can serve them and their purient interest. It’s up to the people to recognize this people for what and whom they are… That’s why it’s said a people deserve the leadership they get. The leaders are nothing but a reflection of collective consciousness that puts them there
Johnny, my friend, I would debate you on this (the Electoral College) but not on here. Both our notes would be too long and likely dismissed. You do have some good ideas about how to clean up politics but feel given the state today it would be akin to trying to clean up TDECU after a big game with a whisk brush.
That would be a debate that I would totally enjoy participating in and learning from. Don’t know if I’d be ready to go up against a University of Houston College of Law Professor but I’d give it a shot.
Run off avoidance can be accomplished via ranked choice voting. As peoples (most likely third party and independent candidates) choices are mathematically eliminated votes move to the next choice until a majority is secured.
