[EL] Why campaign spending is protected - in action

[Scarberry, Mark]

Trevor,

My point was that it is dangerous for government to be permitted to regulate spending. It's interesting to note that the first presidential candidate to refuse public money so that he could spend unlimited amounts, our current President, is the leader of the party that is so outraged by the Court's decisions. So who is responsible for the demise of the public funding system?

Would you regulate spending by news media, who are thought by many (most?) people to be extraordinarily partisan, and to engage in herd-like repetition of memes (like this morning's characterization of competition for the position of Speaker as Republican "chaos")?

Do you support return of the Fairness Doctrine?

Mark

Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law


Sent from my iPad

On Oct 11, 2015, at 8:28 AM, "Trevor Potter" <tpotter at capdale.com<mailto:tpotter at capdale.com>> wrote:

Mark

I am interested in your apparent assumption that the only alternative to a infinitesimal tiny percentage of wealthy Americans dominating the process by which we choose our President is restrictions on speech.


Your post says: "I will say that I don't like rich people having so much influence; but the cure -- government regulation of the amount of money that can be spent to put forward a message -- may be worse than the disease. (Power of all kinds is dangerous, to state the obvious.)"

From 1976 through 1996 we had a functioning system of public funding in both primary and general elections for President. It included a " matching" component to double the value of small ( up to $250) contributions. This system is widely credited with enabling Ronald Reagan to win the 1980 Republican nomination despite some early primary losses that temporarily dried up his fundraising-- the matching funds arrived in time to finance wins in later primaries. As a result of the Buckley decision, individuals could still spend an unlimited amount of their own money on political speech-- but they had to speak themselves rather than give it to SuperPacs , which did not exist in today's form because of contribution ( not expenditure) limits.

It is interesting that ALL of the discussion about the NY Times article so far on the ListServe has related to claims of " silencing" the speech of the highlighted 158 families, rather than enhancing the speech of 100 million or more others. It seems to me that both sides of this debate-- those concerned about preserving the ability of the ultra wealthy to speak/ spend? without limit in elections , and those concerned about the dominant role such unlimited money provides to a tiny handful of Americans-- should agree on the virtues of proposals to enhance the speech of all other Americans.

As a start, we have the model of the Presidential public funding system, which still exists in law, if not in reality: it could be reformed and improved. There are bills pending to do so. We have the model of the NYC 6-1 match of small contributions. We have the Minnesota model, where political contributors of small sums fill out a simple state form and immediately receive direct reimbursement of the contribution from the state. We have a proposal from Prof. Richard Painter, formerly of the George W. Bush White House, for a $100 " first fruits of their labor" taxpayer rebate, provided to all registered voters in the form of a voucher divisible and transferable to candidates or political parties-- sort of like a Starbucks card.

All of these seem to be possible ways to address the problem-- a problem that you describe as " rich people having so much influence" --by expanding speech, not restricting it. It would likely produce a flood of new political speech-- surely music to the ears of those who say we need more, not less political speech. And any of these proposals ( or all, for that matter) would strengthen the voice of ordinary Americans in our political process-- surely something to be devoutly hoped for and worked for in this era of citizen disaffection with our political system, which poll after poll shows voters believe has been captured by the very few ( such as those in the NY Times article).

Trevor Potter


Sent from my iPad

> On Oct 10, 2015, at 9:11 PM, "Scarberry, Mark" <Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu<mailto:Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu>> wrote:
>
>
> I will say that I don't like rich people having so much influence; but the cure -- government regulation of the amount of money that can be spent to put forward a message -- may be worse than the disease. (Power of all kinds is dangerous, to state the obvious.)


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