A trillion? Why wouldn’t we set the bar at $0 - companies are not people, and allowing them to influence politics, at any size, corrupts democracy
https://issueone.org/press/new-polling-citizens-united-money...
The law and the majority don’t agree way more often than one would expect in a democratic society.
Government influence primarily consistes of sharing information with votes passing flyers on the street or running adds.
When framed this way, I dont think most people would agree that groups should be prevented from getting their message out.
Coops, unions, guilds, non-profit societies, knitting circles, meetups, etc. are all non-corporations.
> Government influence primarily consistes of sharing information with votes passing flyers on the street or running adds.
Lobbying, and superpacs are not about getting a message out - they are about spending money on ads to buy votes. That’s different from advocating for your hobby or interest.
Not to mention the asymmetry. If 20,000 grain farmers want to lobby about wheat by spending $10 each, that’s different from one man spending the same $200,000k on getting a candidate in. Or millions - e.g. elon, etc last election.
That said, we could also ban informal groups from political speech.
How are these things different, getting the message out versus buying votes? Also where do I go to collect my vote payments? Getting the message out usually cost money. If you like some but not others, is it the content of the messaage you find disagreeable?
Money is not speech. Speech is free, everybody can speak. Money lets some people amplify their speech proportional to how rich they are. Thus the rich get richer and democracy goes hungry.
> How are these things different, getting the message out versus buying votes
“Grain is good” getting your message out.
“Vote for jeff, a message from big grain” buying votes
You could talk to your neighbor but not donate or collaborate.
E.g. Spending limits. Each person can spend up to $2000 on political speech. Individually or as part of a group, company, whatever. After that, all you’ve got is your time - go knock on doors.
Sure, $2000 is nothing to a jeff bezos, and too much to someone making $18k/year - but it levels the field so that jeffy, or the nra, or aipac, or oil and gas can’t throw their weight around in the way they do now.
There are other ways, that’d just be a return to how things were pre-citizens united
That said, I think it's a position that someone could take that they'll political speech should be limited when it involves money, provided they are honest about it.
I do think it would give more power to those who owned the megaphones, but maybe that's worth it.
That said, I don't think that pac spending are that big of a problem. The bigger problem is lobbying, aka the sharing of thoughts and ideas with politicians to educate them and inform their positions.
Speech is free, as in part of freedom, so speech should not be regulated by the government.
Spending money to amplify speech is not a right or a freedom, it should be heavily regulated.
> That said, I don't think that pac spending are that big of a problem
Look at aipac, there are only a handful of politicians who don’t take their money (or how every you want to phrase pac money being spent on you “independently”). And yet something like 60% of americans have an unfavorable view of israel. If those politicans taking aipac money take the wrong position on israel, that money disappears, and goes to an opponent of theirs. That’s just lobbying. Pac money is lobbying.
Sure, most people would agree that the various kinds of corporations formed for the purpose of doing something other than making money should be able to play a political role.
But I do not believe that most people would agree that corporations formed for the explicit and (generally) sole purpose of making money should have this ability.