[EL] Why campaign spending is protected - in action

[Schultz, David A.]

Nicely stated.  We often forget that other democratic societies strike
different balances (e.g.  Canada ) and they are able to be free and protect
free speech.
On Oct 11, 2015 3:03 PM, "Eric J Segall" <esegall at gsu.edu> wrote:

> The astounding to me about most (not all) of this debate is the mixing of
> policy issues and judicial review issues. These policy issues are really
> hard but absent censoring movies or content based restrictions on actual
> speech (not writing checks), this is all judicial common law in a very
> difficult area. For God's sake other countries with free speech and free
> elections do it do much differently. I'm not saying they are right but 5
> judges based on vague text and opposite history imposing their views ....
>
> I think, at the least, the policy and judicial review issues should be
> kept separate.
>
> Best,
>
> Eric
>
> Sent from my iPhonech
>
> On Oct 11, 2015, at 12:44 PM, "Scarberry, Mark" <
> Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:
>
> 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> 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> 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.)
>
>
> <115101111283601206.png>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20151011/8fbb24d2/attachment.html>