[EL] Civic Courage, Indeed

[Larry Levine]

I think the corrupting influence under the circumstances you put forward
most likely begins long before the spending. They aren't buying the
candidate. They are backing the candidate of whom they already are
confident, which I suggest is true of most political contributions. I recall
a time when my wife and I gave an unrestricted, interest-bearing loan with a
repayment schedule. He opted to use the money in his campaign for state
assembly. The regulators claimed we had laundered the money and it was in
excess of the contribution limit. His response was: "if my parents were
going to corrupt me they would have done it a long time ago." There is a
really easy way to resolve this whole thing: eliminate contribution limits
and watch how quickly independent expenditures go away. I don't know of any
person or interest group that wouldn't rather give the money directly to the
candidate.

Larry

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Salvador
Peralta
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:09 AM
To: jon.roland at constitution.org; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Civic Courage, Indeed

 

I don't think that candidates should be cloistered monks, but I also don't
feel any particular need to buy into the fiction that a pac funded by
billionaire allies of the candidate, run by close allies of a candidate,
outspending that candidate in key races in a fashion that to all outward
appearances seems clearly coordinated, can never be corrupting.  

We limit speech rights all the time.  Many of the strongest opponents of
limiting money as speech have demonstrated that they have no problem with
limiting political speech when it involves actual speech (e.g., time and
place restrictions such as free speech ghettos), but those same people often
develop a near-terminal case of the vapors at the prospect that anyone would
want to keep billionaires from buying elections on behalf of the candidates
they support.  

Shel Adelson effectively purchased the Republican Primary for Newt Gingrich
in South Carolina by giving him a $5 million megaphone to "speak" with.
That's 1000x more than he could give directly to Gingrich, yet the public is
supposed to passively accept the notion that this was wholly uncoordinated
while folks like yourself try and make the argument that such acts could
never, ever, possibly be corrupting if it doesn't involve an outright "quid
pro quo" transaction?  

  _____  

From: Jon Roland <jon.roland at constitution.org>
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu 
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: [EL] Civic Courage, Indeed

 

This discussion is becoming ridiculous. The reforms sought by some here
would mean the only way campaign spending can avoid an "appearance" of
corruption is if the candidate is some kind of cloistered monk isolated from
family, friends, and supporters, who does nothing to get elected other than
consenting to be a candidate and then keeps quiet until he is elected.

-- Jon
 
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