Hacker News Reader

Comment by QGQBGdeZREunxLe | Hacker News Reader

Is there any viable road to campaign finance reform that is also constitutional?

Tax campaign related spending at 200% after you hit a limit, and distribute the money to smaller candidates so donating more becomes self defeating.

There is no hard cap and no limit on doing things that don't cost money so no one is ever prevented from speaking (that would open censorship challenges). It doesn't need to survive strict scrutiny because all candidates are treated equally making it viewpoint neutral topic discrimination. And Congress has a long established power to tax basically anything they want.

I believe Hawaii already has, by redefining what rights corporations have under their state constitution. If every state followed suit, the problem would be solved.

> If every state followed suit, the problem would be solved.

Or it creates an entirely new problem. People like this don't just go away after hitting a single roadblock.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good my friend. Closing a loophole that's done so much damage to the country is a good thing, even if there's another loophole waiting to be found.

If it isn't done federally then it isn't done.

The dynamic is that corpos are chartered/registered by states, both domestic (operating in the state its chartered in) and foreign (operating in a different state than where its chartered).

Federal regulation would make a mess of the idea due to preemption, eliminating the state regulatory option and leaving us with just the federal options of a Constitutional amendment or impeaching/replacing the Supreme Court and repudiating their openly corrupt precedent (decree).

> If every state followed suit, the problem would be solved.

If we just change the rules, the game will stay exactly the same? Sorry, but this awfully naive.

That's how all changes to the law work... First you change it, then you enforce it.

There always was. You just have to make sure your Supreme Court isn't bought and paid for by the same people who wish to buy elections.

Also the court follows laws. There are numerous cases where weird stuff happens with supreme court rulings only because congress never passed any law regarding whatever it is.

Yes, we need a vastly larger supreme court, probably with a reorganization such that there are smaller panels that hear cases, etc, like happens with other courts.

The current court is completely partisan and has zero judicial theory other than backing partisan power and oligarch power. They have the final say on how to interpret the constitution but reject the founding principles of the USA.

And far better checks on whether or not a SC member has been bought. There is so much evidence of this and yet everybody just sits around as if they couldn't possibly do anything about it. A politicized Supreme Court is worse than nothing because it concentrates insane power in the hand a few un-elected people.

There are no checks because (US) Supreme Court judges aren't subject to any laws making non declaration of gifted RV's and expensive holidays illegal.

That said - yes, they need anti corruption / bribery regulation, fixed terms, and those terms to be co-prime wrt political fixed terms.

* https://www.abc.net.au/science/archive/articles/2001/11/27/4...

What do you want to ban?

There's a free speech issue to saying "you can't advertise your own opinions". Where is the line? Should every charity that "raises awareness" be banned? Should every sponsored Youtuber be forced out of political commentary? (I mean, I don't hate the idea completely ....)

There's the skeezy links behind organisations that support a political stance, and claim no real links to politicians. But we know that it's all kinda bs with strong links between the "nonaffiliated" "Political Action Committees" that claim to just represent causes and ideas, and the politicians who just happen to be close friends with the organisers. But it's rarely totally black and white.

> There's a free speech issue to saying "you can't advertise your own opinions".

There's a free speech issue to letting money make someone's speech be heard louder than others, making most other people's speech technically free, but inaudible.

Most countries have limitations on the broadcasting of political opinions and candidate support for periods before elections.

These laws don't work as well these days with the importance of social media (and it's mostly the same rich Americans that take advantage of this to meddle into European affairs) but at least the principle is there, while I think the fundamentalist way that the US interpret "free speech" prevents anything from being doable at all to curb the undue influence in politics that money can give.

The authors of the First Amendment were not ignorant of the “volume” afforded by expensive printing presses.

> These laws don't work as well these days with the importance of social media

Indeed, as the UK is finding out at the moment, the existing rules are insufficient and it's turning out that a rule is only a rule if it is enforced anyway.

I guess I'm saying I disagree with the Buckley v. Valeo ruling. Money isn't speech. Never has been.

Truth in advertising laws.

Allow civil suits when promises made aren't kept.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com