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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Sure, but that protection isn't absolute. Otherwise "I am donating to your campaign if you promise to pardon me for the bank robbery I just committed" would be legal. Protection isn't absolute. Is there good evidence of a quid pro quo? I'm not that familiar with the case, but from the NPR article it looks like Williams didn't benefit from his contributions at all except for some professional networking. Is a lunch or an introduction or a night in the Lincoln bedroom all it takes? Did I miss something important or is that it? edit: just realized these were personal gifts/loans instead of campaign contributions. Yeaaah that makes it a lot shadier than it would have been. esquilax fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 17:46
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esquilax posted:Is there good evidence of a quid pro quo? I'm not that familiar with the case, but from the NPR article it looks like Williams didn't benefit from his contributions at all except for some professional networking. Is a lunch or an introduction or a night in the Lincoln bedroom all it takes? Did I miss something important or is that it? An interesting question. Is incompetence a valid defense of corruption? Is "I accepted this money, personally, and did my best to get him everything that he wanted, I just wasn't able to pull it off!" a worthwhile argument? euphronius posted:How could you not say donations of money to political causes is not protected under the 1st amendment. euphronius posted:I mean yeah I don't think it's controversial to say "bribes are crimes" and therefore not protected speech. What if you're bribing someone in support of your political cause. (Maybe the difference here is that "bribery" on the part of giving money to someone else with certain expectations in return should be legal, but actually taking bribes with the understanding that you will return the favour should not be?)
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Apr 27, 2016 18:24
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GlyphGryph posted:An interesting question. Is incompetence a valid defense of corruption? Is "I accepted this money, personally, and did my best to get him everything that he wanted, I just wasn't able to pull it off!" a worthwhile argument? That's not my question, since he claims there was no attempt to use governmental power in the first place. From what I see, most of what he did would not look very corrupt if it was done for a personal friend, but looks very shady because it was done for a donor. I'm just curious if there were any actions he performed that would still look bad, even in a more favorable context - I didn't see any from the article.
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Apr 27, 2016 18:44
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esquilax posted:Is there good evidence of a quid pro quo? I'm not that familiar with the case, but from the NPR article it looks like Williams didn't benefit from his contributions at all except for some professional networking. Is a lunch or an introduction or a night in the Lincoln bedroom all it takes? Did I miss something important or is that it? Thing is though -- 1) difference between personal and campaign donations is largely technical. The law won't address this because doing so would upend our whole election system, but especially when candidates are allowed to spend personal funds on campaigns, dollars donated represent personal funds the candidates can save . . . 2) professional networking can be huge. Careers get made and broken by that kind of thing. He got publicity and an apparent government endorsement. Ultimately I think our entire system of campaign finance is rotten to the core. Money is speech but the acceptance of money by any candidate from a known donor creates an unavoidable appearance of corruption. I don't have a good solution to propose, though. My favorite idea was a limit to issue ads only, plus a tax on political ads to fund public financing of campaigns, but that has also been ruled unconstitutional.
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Apr 27, 2016 19:30
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Was there a circuit split in that case somewhere?
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Apr 27, 2016 19:57
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FlamingLiberal posted:Was there a circuit split in that case somewhere? On McDonnell? Yeah, there's a huge split on what constitutes honest services fraud iirc, based on whether you need a predicate state law violation or not.
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Apr 27, 2016 20:04
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I like this thread because every time there is a burst of posting in it, afterwards I feel simultaneously that I have become more well-informed, and that I understand things less well. Is this what being a lawyer feels like in your head?
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Apr 27, 2016 20:17
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mdemone posted:I like this thread because every time there is a burst of posting in it, afterwards I feel simultaneously that I have become more well-informed, and that I understand things less well. I think this is what expertise in any field feels like. It's sure as hell been my experience with computer science.
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Apr 27, 2016 20:20
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mdemone posted:I like this thread because every time there is a burst of posting in it, afterwards I feel simultaneously that I have become more well-informed, and that I understand things less well. The more I practice, the more I know I don't know.
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Apr 27, 2016 20:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ultimately I think our entire system of campaign finance is rotten to the core. Money is speech but the acceptance of money by any candidate from a known donor creates an unavoidable appearance of corruption. I don't have a good solution to propose, though. My favorite idea was a limit to issue ads only, plus a tax on political ads to fund public financing of campaigns, but that has also been ruled unconstitutional. Well, if it's the appearance of corruption you want to avoid, you could always go the Clarence Thomas route of allowing secret and anonymous donations  .
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Apr 27, 2016 21:04
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Kalman posted:The more I practice, the more I know I don't know. Same in theoretical physics but at least we are inculcated from the very start with the idea that humanity doesn't know poo poo-all about the universe.
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Apr 27, 2016 21:17
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Kalman posted:The more I practice, the more I know I don't know. Have you considered becoming fishmech
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Apr 27, 2016 21:29
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anonymous donations would work but they hove to be anonymous to everybody, including the people making them
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Apr 27, 2016 22:02
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ayn rand hand job posted:Have you considered becoming fishmech Fishmech is usually correct. Not necessarily right, but correct.
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Apr 27, 2016 22:05
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I prefer the opposite solution, which is draconian transparency requirements for personal and campaign gifts. I'm pretty sure the majority in CU pointed that this was an option that could be reconciled with the ruling, as well.
Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 22:06
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Discendo Vox posted:I prefer the opposite solution, which is draconian transarency requirements for personal and campaign gifts. I'm pretty sure the majority in CU pointed that this was an option that could be reconciled with the ruling, as well. Thing is I think we're past a point where that could have worked. That only works if public shaming is a factor and at this point it isn't any more; power is so entrenched it doesn't care. Haliburton does what? What happens?
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Apr 27, 2016 22:07
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Thing is I think we're past a point where that could have worked. That only works if public shaming is a factor and at this point it isn't any more; power is so entrenched it doesn't care. Haliburton does what? What happens? I disagree. I think public outing of such behaviors still has a role in democratic electoral systems- and it has the benefit of making efforts at genuine corruption much harder to hide. When someone isn't reporting a gift, the reasons become pretty clear.
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Apr 27, 2016 22:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Thing is I think we're past a point where that could have worked. That only works if public shaming is a factor and at this point it isn't any more; power is so entrenched it doesn't care. Haliburton does what? What happens?
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Apr 27, 2016 22:19
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twodot posted:We've seen public shaming work in Chik-fil-a, and there's pretty good evidence donors don't want transparency in the NOM court case(s), so I think there's sufficient evidence transparency has an effect. Whether that effect is worthwhile compared to other solutions is a reasonable question. It has an incredibly minor effect and only for hot-button social issues where what's being punished is effectively the holding of the disliked ideology rather than the money spent influencing policy. It has basically no effect for buying influence and it's a dumb libertarian idea that transparency will make the corruption go away.
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Apr 27, 2016 22:24
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evilweasel posted:It has an incredibly minor effect and only for hot-button social issues where what's being punished is effectively the holding of the disliked ideology rather than the money spent influencing policy. It has basically no effect for buying influence and it's a dumb libertarian idea that transparency will make the corruption go away. I don't know that that's accurate, honestly. The "bought and paid for" line has worked pretty well this primary season; how much better when there's actual transparency as to who's giving what?
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Apr 27, 2016 22:34
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Kalman posted:I don't know that that's accurate, honestly. The "bought and paid for" line has worked pretty well this primary season; how much better when there's actual transparency as to who's giving what? That's the thing: there already is, and we can see that it doesn't work. For example, well, Hillary Clinton's speaking fees, yet she's still in the lead and will likely win. Unfortunately, campaign cash is a powerful enough force that it can overwhelm evidence of corruption.
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Apr 27, 2016 22:54
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's the thing: there already is, and we can see that it doesn't work. For example, well, Hillary Clinton's speaking fees, yet she's still in the lead and will likely win. Unfortunately, campaign cash is a powerful enough force that it can overwhelm evidence of corruption. It shows disclosure does exactly what it's supposed to do - people are aware. Some people care; lots don't. Some don't think that speech fees are actual evidence she is going to favor financial interests. Disclosure accomplishes its goal: it provides the necessary information to allow voters to decide if the individual is corrupt. Turns out most people don't actually think Hillary is.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's the thing: there already is, and we can see that it doesn't work. For example, well, Hillary Clinton's speaking fees, yet she's still in the lead and will likely win. Unfortunately, campaign cash is a powerful enough force that it can overwhelm evidence of corruption. Bernie's insinuations of corruption do not reality make. What we've actually learned is that campaign cash is almost irrelevant to the success of a candidate. A certain amount is necessary for viability, but there are rapidly diminishing returns after that. There have been a bunch of very high-money candidates that have flopped badly the last few election cycles. In any event, there is scant evidence that campaign donations have any tangible effect on candidates' positions, with the possible exception of Scott Walker, who was very eager to support whatever his donors wanted him to - but then he never went anywhere anyway.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:06
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Kalman posted:On McDonnell? Yeah, there's a huge split on what constitutes honest services fraud iirc, based on whether you need a predicate state law violation or not.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:08
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FlamingLiberal posted:I meant in the rulings. Are you asking if the circuit court decision was 2-1? Because otherwise circuit splits are always about some standard or rule that would change the outcome in a given case - you don't get splits across a single case because it only goes to one circuit. There is a circuit split as to whether you need a predicate state law violation or not to trigger honest services fraud. That split affects the decision in McDonell.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's the thing: there already is, and we can see that it doesn't work. For example, well, Hillary Clinton's speaking fees, yet she's still in the lead and will likely win. Unfortunately, campaign cash is a powerful enough force that it can overwhelm evidence of corruption. There isn't. One of the main reasons 501c3s and associated entities proliferate is that they can be used to prevent identifying the sources of their funding.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:25
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Kalman posted:It shows disclosure does exactly what it's supposed to do - people are aware. Some people care; lots don't. Some don't think that speech fees are actual evidence she is going to favor financial interests. Wait, are you arguing that most or even a plurality of voters make rational decisions based on examination of the facts? Deteriorata posted:Bernie's insinuations of corruption do not reality make. Eh, it's not just Bernie; Elizabeth Warren has laid similar charges. http://billmoyers.com/story/elizabeth-warren-recalls-a-time-when-big-donors-may-have-changed-hillarys-vote/ What really clinched it for me personally was this story though: quote:Returning then to my original question: Why does a non-profit spend 10 per cent of its annual budget, ten times what it would normally pay for a keynote speaker,[12] increase its annual total expense line item for “speaker presentations” from $102,784 to $350,619 for a high-profile politician and present her to an audience probably split in its political loyalties? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/2/24/1489983/-HRC-s-Final-Paid-Speech-260K-from-the-ACA There's plenty of evidence out there that Hillary is, if not quite up to Scott Walker levels of blatant corruption, "swayable" by campaign donations. quote:What we've actually learned is that campaign cash is almost irrelevant to the success of a candidate. A certain amount is necessary for viability, but there are rapidly diminishing returns after that. There have been a bunch of very high-money candidates that have flopped badly the last few election cycles. That's true but it's not the argument I'm making. There is definitely a money threshold past which additional money does not make candidates more or less successful. However, that says nothing either way about the corrupting influence of said money on said politician (apart from the obvious point that only a winning candidate can engage in quid pro quo behavior). Discendo Vox posted:There isn't. One of the main reasons 501c3s and associated entities proliferate is that they can be used to prevent identifying the sources of their funding. That's true, but there are enough incidents where the donations have been non-anonymous and it hasn't mattered that we can conclude anonymity doesn't make too much difference. It's a rock that keeps tigers away.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Wait, are you arguing that most or even a plurality of voters make rational decisions based on examination of the facts? Yes, they're spending that money because they think it may get them access. It's not corruption until there is actual evidence that it does. There's a certain amount of "keeping up with the Joneses" involved. If a company sees a competitor spending $X on lobbying efforts, they'll spend $X+10% to ensure that if there is any influence available, they'll get it. Meanwhile the candidate is laughing all the way the bank because he (or she) doesn't give a poo poo how much they donate. Meaning, donors hoping to buy influence is far different from them actually buying it. This has been a part of our political system for a couple hundred years, and most politicians have stories about stiffing donors who convinced themselves they had said politician bought and paid for. Donating money to a candidate, even in the hope of getting something for it, is not corruption. That's what makes this case so difficult to parse.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Wait, are you arguing that most or even a plurality of voters make rational decisions based on examination of the facts? No, because if they did then campaign finance would be a much smaller issue than it is. Campaign finance is a terrible avenue for obtaining influence compared to spending the same amount on lobbying or (even better) on having your friends and people who are naturally inclined to your point of view in office. quote:Eh, it's not just Bernie; Elizabeth Warren has laid similar charges. Turns out Warren wasn't quite accurate there, though. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/09/elizabeth-warrens-critique-of-hillary-clintons-2001-bankruptcy-vote/ The camp association thing also seems like a stretch - they paid for her to speak because having high profile speakers at your events gets your membership excited and gives you a way to fundraise. Yeah, they have political interests, but literally everyone does.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:42
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Deteriorata posted:Yes, they're spending that money because they think it may get them access. It's not corruption until there is actual evidence that it does. No, it's corruption if does; it's only criminally prosecutable if there's evidence. The two are not the same thing. More to the point, though, they think it gets them access and they are correct. quote:In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate. They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist quote:Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 Now, I don't want to take this too far -- it's hard from this to conclude that any specific politician or deal is explicitly corrupt. But we can look at the overall pattern and conclude that on the whole these donors must be getting something for their money or they would not keep doing it.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:48
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:No, it's corruption if does; it's only criminally prosecutable if there's evidence. The two are not the same thing. Lobbying isn't donations, though. One works very well. One doesn't.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Now, I don't want to take this too far -- it's hard from this to conclude that any specific politician or deal is explicitly corrupt. But we can look at the overall pattern and conclude that on the whole these donors must be getting something for their money or they would not keep doing it. This doesn't follow-- they only have to think they're getting something from it, and that "something" could well be "warm fuzzies." In almost all cases it is not, but mere continuance of the practice doesn't demonstrate that it's always as effective as those who participate would undoubtedly like.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:57
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Quorum posted:This doesn't follow-- they only have to think they're getting something from it, and that "something" could well be "warm fuzzies." In almost all cases it is not, but mere continuance of the practice doesn't demonstrate that it's always as effective as those who participate would undoubtedly like. I think this argument fails under the "you can't fool all the people all of the time" argument. It's certainly true that sometimes some politicians take money and don't do poo poo, or that some politicians are playing Fistful of Dollars and taking donations from both sides. But we're talking about tens of billions of dollars here; there are only so many suckers out there, much less suckers willing and capable of donating tens of millions of dollars on a recurring basis every campaign cycle. They're getting something for the money or they would eventually have stopped doing it (if only because tossing tens of billions of dollars into a pointless dumpster fire every four years is not a sustainable business model).
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Apr 28, 2016 00:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think this argument fails under the "you can't fool all the people all of the time" argument. It's certainly true that sometimes some politicians take money and don't do poo poo, or that some politicians are playing Fistful of Dollars and taking donations from both sides. Are you talking about campaign finance or lobbying? The two systems are totally different in impact and in how they're treated legally. If you conflate the two you will completely misunderstand both.
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Apr 28, 2016 00:06
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Kalman posted:Are you talking about campaign finance or lobbying? The two systems are totally different in impact and in how they're treated legally. If you conflate the two you will completely misunderstand both. Both. I think you're overstating the practical differences -- campaign finance opens the door for the salesman, lobbying is the sales pitch. That said the numbers in that post you quoted are for campaign finance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Campaign_finance_numbers edit: addenda: http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=4060 Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 00:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Both. I think you're overstating the practical differences -- campaign finance opens the door for the salesman, lobbying is the sales pitch. The door opening effect of campaign finance is a lot lower than you think.
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Apr 28, 2016 00:31
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Speaking of public corruption and the SCOTUS, whatever happened to the case where a cop was accused of conspiracy to embezzle funds from a fellow conspirator though the transaction was mutual.
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Apr 28, 2016 00:40
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Evil Fluffy posted:Thank god Scalia's still dead because at worst we might get a 4-4 ruling and the appeals court upheld his conviction. Dead Scalia probably won't save this one. The AP article I read quoted Breyer siding with Roberts on this.
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Apr 28, 2016 03:05
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Ballz posted:Dead Scalia probably won't save this one. The AP article I read quoted Breyer siding with Roberts on this. It's probably going to be 6-2 or even 7-1 (and not impossible it's 8-0.) the prosecutions theory is openly dangerous to completely valid political exercises.
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Apr 28, 2016 03:20
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Kalman posted:[campaign finance stuff] This is a very Robertsesque argument. You can't prove that any single campaign donation/PAC donation influences a politician, therefore the entire campaign finance system does not present any evidence of corruption. Meanwhile billions of dollars continue to flow and policy continues to favor the donors - but surely that's just a coincidence? It is well established that loosening campaign finance restrictions creates less democratic outcomes. But law has a problem with requiring a mechanism of causality to a fault. Look at how disparate impact laws are under attack, even where the racism they mitigate is blatant. Good population data is stronger evidence for most effects than any individual detailed example, but lawyers keep pretending the latter is the gold standard.
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