Rep. Deutch Presents Amendment To Ban Corporate Money From Politics

The only problem with the proposed amendment is that it allows non-profits and only bans for-profit companies.

Excuse me while I go start a non-profit called Elect Ron Paul and give him lots of money. Hey, its legal, right?

Problems with this:

1. The press is exempted. So someone with a lot of money they want to spend promoting a candidate just has to buy a newspaper and push the candidate through the paper.

2. Section 1, which describes the organizations covered, lists for-profit corporations, limited liability companies, and other private entities stabled for business purposes or to promote business interests. It should not be hard to organize entities that don't fall under that to do your political advocacy.

3. Sections 2 and 3 refer to section 1 for their definition of the entities covered, so have the same problem described above.

4. Section 4 does not limit itself to the entities describe earlier. It appears to allow regulation of election expenditures by any entity.

Does that mean they could prohibit me from having a bumper sticker advocating a candidate? Worse, suppose there is some political issue that the incumbents do not wish the public to discuss. All they have to do is put some question related to that on a ballot so that issue is part of an election, then they can regulate all expenditures related to that.

This is simply a horrible proposed amendment. It has too many loopholes, and leaves too much open to interpretation so that it could be used for oppression.

According to the article, this is a proposed amendment to ban corporations from making political donations or expenditures. It's not clear from context if that means companies donating to a political campaign, or if it extends to independent expenditures that would influence an election. Let's examine each possibility in turn.

If it just covers donation, then, under current law (which has been upheld by the Supreme Court) corporations may only contribute a maximum of $5,000 per candidate. To put that in context, Obama may raise $1 billion dollars this cycle; the Republican challenger will likely do similarly. Is $5,000 from Exxon or whatever really worth worrying about? (Besides, under Supreme Court precedent, you could probably ban all corporate donations if you wanted, instead of just capping them. Nobody's tried, because honestly, who cares?)

Alternatively, if covers ALL corporate expenditures that may influence an electionm then it would also remove all free speech protections from such things as: The New York Times, Michael Moore's movies, MSNBC, Greenpeace, and more. (Yes, Greenpeace, according the the proposed text of the amendment.) Or rather, they would have free speech protections as long as didn't say anything about any political figure or issue, such as the economy, the environment, or foreign policy.

And that's really the only two options. Either the amendment does absolutely nothing worthwhile (stopping the scourge of Exxon being able to donate $5k to a candidate), or it eviscerates pretty much every vestige of a free press left in America. There's just no way to interpret this as a good idea.

Further, if it DOES stop all corporate expenditures, the only people this amendment would really benefit is the rich. The 99% can't get our message out without the help of other people, banding together to help each other. By removing one of the main ways people group together to get their message out, you muzzle the little guys. But billionaires face NO restrictions! Nothing in the amendment stops the Koch brothers from spending an effectively unlimited amount of money on promoting their favoured candidates and ideas as long as they do it from "personal" funds. What do you call an amendment that stops me from donating to Greenpeace so they can run a pro-solar power ad, but doesn't stop the Koch brothers from running pro-oil ads?)

(Note: I've used left-wing examples as the good guys, and right-wing examples as the bad guys. If it helps, swap them. Consider the damage done to Fox News and the NRA, while it lets George Soros spend with impunity, if that's more alarming. I think this proposed amendment should give everyone something to hate.)