[EL] Ned Foley's piece

[Bill Maurer]

I encourage everyone to read Ned Foley’s excellent piece below. I was doing some research the other day and noted that Bernie Sanders has been talking about a “rigged political system” that benefits the wealthy and connected for much longer than Donald Trump has been talking about a “rigged election” that will benefit the wealthy and connected. Trump’s unique contribution seems to be that he has identified the specific election he believes will be rigged, while Sanders and some (but clearly not all) of those who favor campaign finance regulations make more amorphous and broader suggestions of campaigns being “bought,” thus suggesting that all or at least a large number of election results are fraudulent.

Ned is correct that neither is correct and that that this kind of rhetoric from both sides encourage cynicism, distrust, and alienation. CNN is no more rigging the election than the Koch Brothers and having both voices in the political debate strengthens our political system. People voting multiple times is as much a fantasy as Sheldon Adelson or Charles Koch picking the next president practically on their own. Trump supporters cannot name one election determined by fraud and the more extreme pro-regulation supporters cannot name one election that was “bought,” but both believe, without noticing the inherent contradiction, that in order to have a fair election, voices with which they disagree must be silenced or reduced and the “wrong” people discouraged to participate. They both believe that when the government threatens people with fines and criminal sanctions for engaging in peaceful political activity, this somehow is “democracy.” Ned is totally correct that these types of Manichean delusion deserve to be publicly rejected and refuted by those who can do so.

I encourage Ned to expand this piece and publish it for a mass audience.

Bill

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 8:02 AM
To: Election Law Listserv
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/19/16

“The Claim that the Media is Rigging the Election–and Citizens United”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87695>
Posted on October 18, 2016 5:16 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87695> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Ned Foley<http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2016/10/the-claim-that-the-media-is-rigging-the-election-and-citizens-united.html>:
Now for the relevance of Citizens United: insofar as the attack on that decision rests on the premise that corporate-funded speech will distort the electoral process by persuading voters of its message, it seems the same sort of argument that Trump and Pence are making with respect to the media’s capacity to influence what voters think.  To be sure, there might be different types of arguments for attacking Citizens United–that corporate money, for some reason, should be off-limits in the process of persuading voters what to think.  But if one rejects the idea that CNN and the New York Times are capable of rigging the election because the messages they send to voters about the competing candidates, then presumably to be consistent one should equally reject the idea that Citizens United and other corporations are capable of improperly distorting the electoral process because of the messages these other corporations send to voters.
Conversely, defenders of Citizens United should be taking the lead in condemning the Trump-Pence claim that the media is currently rigging the election because of its messages about the candidates.  The First Amendment reasoning that underlies Citizens United rules out the Trump-Pence position on this issue.
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D87695&title=%E2%80%9CThe%20Claim%20that%20the%20Media%20is%20Rigging%20the%20Election%E2%80%93and%20Citizens%20United%E2%80%9D&description=>
Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


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