brianboyko posted:

4) I could be wrong. I could totally and utterly be wrong. But the way I see it, this may be the last big gasp of trying to work within the system we have to fix it before I start investing in companies that make canned goods and shotguns. I get the cynicism. But even if it's futile, I'm still going to try anyway.

And I guarantee you that if everyone who sneered sarcastically at me and said "yeah, buddy, good luck with that," when I talked about getting money out of politics actually got off their rear end and did something about it, this would be a problem solved quickly.

5) Maybe to fix *everything* we need a constitutional amendment. But we could pass statutory reforms now that would allow politicians to break the fundraising corruption cycle and opt-into a system where they raise funds from the people. They tried it on the state level in Connecticut, and 78% of politicians opted in.

I'm not saying I have THE solution. I'm saying that I'm trying A solution.

And if you can't see how trying A solution is better than trying NO solution, then whatever man, don't come crying to me.

Elotana posted:

This thread really isn't going to go well for you, and you should probably cut your losses and close it now.

SedanChair posted:

e: everything about this demands to be taken seriously



e2: everything

CheesyDog posted:

CheesyDog posted:

Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:

You can probably do it as long as the public system establishes a floor instead of a ceiling, like giving challengers franking privileges and equal financing for everyone on the ballot. But that might actually unseat incumbents

quote:

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act created a public financing system to fund the primary and general election campaigns of candidates for state office. Candidates who opt to participate, and who accept certain campaign restrictions and obligations, are granted an initial outlay of public funds to conduct their campaign. They are also granted additional matching funds if a privately financed candidate’s expenditures, combined with the expenditures of independent groups made in support of the privately financed candidate or in opposition to a publicly financed candidate, exceed the publicly financed candidate’s initial state allotment. Once matching funds are triggered, a publicly financed candidate receives roughly one dollar for every dollar raised or spent by the privately financed candidate—including any money of his own that a privately financed candidate spends on his campaign—and for every dollar spent by independent groups that support the privately financed candidate. When there are multiple publicly financed candidates in a race, each one receives matching funds as a result of the spending of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups. Matching funds top out at two times the initial grant to the publicly financed candidate.

...

The logic of Davis largely controls here. Once a privately financed candidate has raised or spent more than the State’s initial grant to a publicly financed candidate, each personal dollar the privately financed candidate spends results in an award of almost one additional dollar to his opponent. The privately financed candidate must “shoulder a special and potentially significant burden” when choosing to exercise his First Amendment right to spend funds on his own candidacy. 554 U. S., at 739. If the law at issue in Davis imposed a burden on candidate speech, the Arizona law unquestionably does so as well.

The differences between the matching funds provision and the law struck down in Davis make the Arizona law more constitutionally problematic, not less. First, the penalty in Davis consisted of raising the contribution limits for one candidate, who would still have to raise the additional funds. Here, the direct and automatic release of public money to a publicly financed candidate imposes a far heavier burden. Second, in elections where there are multiple publicly financed candidates—a frequent occurrence in Arizona—the matching funds provision can create a multiplier effect. Each dollar spent by the privately funded candidate results in an additional dollar of funding to each of that candidate’s publicly financed opponents. Third, unlike the law in Davis, all of this is to some extent out of the privately financed candidate’s hands. Spending by independent expenditure groups to promote a privately financed candidate’s election triggers matching funds, regardless whether such support is welcome or helpful. Those funds go directly to the publicly funded candidate to use as he sees fit. That disparity in control—giving money directly to a publicly financed candidate, in response to independent expenditures that cannot be coordinated with the privately funded candidate—is a substantial advantage for the publicly funded candidate.

Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:

Uh just because it doesn't have a Davis-type provision doesn't make it toothless. Public financing for all candidates is fine, but equalization provisions have been struck down since Buckley v. Valeo: "But the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment".

Mo_Steel posted:

hooman posted:

Brian's active within the New Zealand greens discussion board.

XyloJW posted:

I am beyond confused why he used his real full name as his account name for every website in the past 10 years, except RPGNet.

Sheng-ji Yang posted:

Xandu posted:

$4,938,640
pledged of $5,000,000 goal
10 hours left

Sharkie posted:

So there's no real accountability as to how this money gets spent, right?