Biden endorses bill to disclose Super PAC donors

I’d rather them just shut it all down.

 

This could work for direct donations, but I don’t see how it can help with independent PACs.

 

That's the thing, if PACs were no longer available and elections were run with a set amount of public funds, that would be the part to undergo accounting. Additional donations would be prohibited. Should be pretty easy to determine what politicians are utilizing unauthorized funds at that point.

 

Looks like every GOP Senator voted against it

 

Except I’m thinking about independent PACs, ie those that don’t donate directly to the candidate but still perform actions on their behalf. I think I understand that many of the PACs even today work this way.

 

I've never even heard of this. Can you give me an example or two?

 

Republican senators vote to block a bill requiring dark-money groups to disclose their donors: 'I don't want to see them doxxed' (msn.com)

Republican senators on Thursday voted to block a bill that would have required so-called dark money groups to disclose their donors, hindering Democrats' efforts to increase transparency in elections.

The Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act targets political nonprofit groups and super PACs, requiring them to reveal donors who have contributed more than $10,000 during an election cycle. The measure also applies to groups that spend money on ads supporting or opposing judicial nominees.

 

So basically as I understand it, a super-PAC is a totally independent private organization with a mission to get a particular candidate elected. I think because they don’t donate directly to candidates, they can raise unlimited amounts of money.

Super PACs

 

any pac controlled by someone that chooses how to spend their money and who to spend it on. Unlimited, un accounted for funds put under the control of a politician but not for his own campaign. Trumps' Pac (Save America), McConnell's PAC (Senate Leadership Fund). Getting one of these PACs well funded and under your control is how you become a power broker even as a newer rep or senator

Senate GOP super PAC cancels ad buys in Arizona, Alaska - POLITICO

 

Can you blame them? The justice department has lost credibility so you don’t want to give them information.

 

Sounds like the solution is pretty simple here.

 

the moment they do something against MAGA they lose credibility..got it..the force is strong with this one

 

They benefit from dark money. They are who we thought they were

 

Putting aside the incorrectness of your claim, this bill would require them to disclose the information to the Federal Election Commission, which is an independent agency, not the Department of Justice.

So you're going to have to find a different reason for why your party isn't in the wrong here. But I have complete faith in your ability to fabricate another pretext!

 

This is why it didn't used to be unconstitutional, and it makes perfect sense to me:
State law grants corporations special advantages -- such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets -- that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders' investments. These state-created advantages not only allow corporations to play a dominant role in the nation's economy, but also permit them to use "resources amassed in the economic marketplace" to obtain "an unfair advantage in the political marketplace. " MCFL, 479 U.S. at 479 U. S. 257.

As the Court explained in MCFL, the political advantage of corporations is unfair because "[t]he resources in the treasury of a business corporation . . . are not an indication of popular support for the corporation's political ideas. They reject instead the economically motivated decisions of investors and customers. The availability of these resources may make a corporation a formidable political presence, even though the power of the corporation may be no reflection of the power of its ideas." Id. at 479 U. S. 258. We therefore have recognized that "the compelling governmental interest in preventing corruption supports the restriction of the influence of political war chests funneled through the corporate form." NCPAC, supra, 470 U.S. at 470 U. S. 500-501; see also MCFL, supra, 479 U.S. at 479 U. S. 257.

The Chamber argues that this concern about corporate domination of the political process is insufficient to justify restrictions on independent expenditures. Although this Court has distinguished these expenditures from direct contributions in the context of federal laws regulating individual donors, Buckley, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 47, it has also recognized that a legislature might demonstrate a danger of real or apparent corruption posed by such expenditures when made by corporations to influence candidate elections, Bellotti, 435 U.S. at 435 U. S. 788, n. 26. Regardless of whether this danger of "financial quid pro quo " corruption, see NCPAC, supra, 470 U.S. at 470 U. S. 497; post at 494 U. S. 702-705 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting), may be sufficient to justify a restriction on independent expenditures, Michigan's regulation aims at a different type of corruption in the political arena: the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas. See supra at 494 U. S. 658-659. The Act does not attempt "to equalize the relative influence of speakers on elections," post at 494 U. S. 705 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting); see also post at 494 U. S. 684 (SCALIA, J., dissenting); rather, it ensures that expenditures reflect actual public support for the political ideas espoused by corporations.

We emphasize that the mere fact that corporations may accumulate large amounts of wealth is not the justification for § 54; rather, the unique state-conferred corporate structure that facilitates the amassing of large treasuries warrants the limit on independent expenditures. Corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections when it is deployed in the form of independent expenditures, just as it can when it assumes the guise of political contributions. We therefore hold that the State has articulated a sufficiently compelling rationale to support its restriction on independent expenditures by corporations.
Austin v. Mich. Chamber of Comm., 494 U.S. 652 (1990)

 

Thank you for this!

Certainly, I don’t expect the size of a corporation’s coffers to reflect the power of its ideas. Though I hold the same view for the financial statements of individual citizens. And also, I don’t think we possess any objective method to assess an idea’s power.

What seems to be the main argument is that the state has granted corporations favorable conditions to earn their wealth, so therefore it is justifiable to limit the use of that wealth on political action. I’m not sure I buy this. One, the state has granted private citizens many favorable conditions as well, such as access to state schools, mortgage tax rebates, and other kinds of welfare. But also, I would assume that gains (and political power) are relative phenomena. If the state destroyed all these favorable rules for corporations, would private corporations as a whole sudden have less total wealth? I don’t think so, because even if they had to reduce prices, people would just consume more of their products or more of some other corporation’s products. It seems like if an imbalance of power is the key feature, relative wealth is what matters, not the means of accumulation. And if it’s the means of accumulation that matters, then most of us would be in jeopardy of losing our right to use our money for political action.

PS: I don’t personally like Citizens United, but I don’t see a great way around it currently.

 

Why I am not surprised? Although the Democrats are no saints themselves when it comes to benefiting from special interest money, the U.S. Republican Party is truly the best political party that money can buy and they want to keep it that way.

 

These party line politics also make it easy for parties to play on each other's expected position. The pubs are too cowardly and too predictable to do anything but vote against this which makes it easy for democrats to vote for it even if they don't want to expose their funding sources either because they KNOW the pubs will unanimously vote it down. Win win for two corrupted parties in my opinion.

 

True in theory, but as pointed out in this thread the details and exceptions would ruin it.

A bill like this should be a simple one or two paragraph bill. But I suspect what we would get is some 2,000 page bill with endless pork attached that ends up costing us taxpayers half a trillion a year.

 

I think if you would look at things honestly you will see that both parties have both hands in the cookie jar. Neither party has a leg on the other wrt corruption and political favors for PACs. Just look at House and Senate salaries and ask how these folks get so damn wealthy. Take a look at your state and local ones too while you are at it.