A bipartisan Amendment is introduced to overturn citizens united

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

4 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

I applaud the goal, but it's not happening until the Democrats have 90% majorities in both houses.

Which would only happen if they had a surplus of big money over republicans. And then Democrats won't want to. 

 

Like how democrats want to abolish gerrymandering districts until they have a significant majority. Then they want to gerrymander. 

[Jwheel86]

8 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Do you think corporations and unions should be held to the same restrictions on political speech?

Yes given the legal responsibility of those organizations. People's opinions and ideas can be changed or reprioritized, a corporation's legal responsibility is to make as much money as possible. If corporate leadership fails to do that by any legal means, they get replaced. It's like giving AI rights. Unions have similar single tracked focuses, not as extreme but close. 

 

Corporate speech is only one aspect of the issue though. The larger issue is the influence donors have over those in office because unless you're AOC level known, running for office is expensive and being in the good graces of a corporations is a solid method to fund it (directly or indirectly through a PAC). Freshman House members are expected by leadership to speed 50% of their work day fundraising. Those fundraising goals have an insane impact on not only reelection, but committee assignments, bills getting brought to the floor, etc. 

 

So if you're uncomfortable with restricting corporate or union speech, I get it. The alternative is to legally restrict the total size of costs (NBC or Facebook can only make $X off political ads, consultants can only make $50k a year). 

[Massdriver]

Restrict the speech of corporations and unions? Yes. How about we just Federally fund elections and take money completely out of the equation? 

[mclumber1]

7 hours ago, sblfilms said:

I don’t have any issue with the notion that businesses are people, as they are just a collection of people.

 

I do take issue with the position that money = speech. That is the hottest of garbage.

 

I actually feel the opposite.  Since money enables speech, especially speech that you want a lot of people to hear, telling people or groups of people they cannot spend money to express their speech IS a restriction on their speech.

[mclumber1]

16 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

Restrict the speech of corporations and unions? Yes. How about we just Federally fund elections and take money completely out of the equation? 

 

There are definitely issues with federally funded elections, depending on how it's done.  How do you determine which candidates or parties get the money?  Would only the GOP and Democratic party receive these funds?  What about third parties?  Would they receive a lesser amount because they are smaller parties, or would it only be fair to give them an equal amount as the bigger parties?  

[Massdriver]

4 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

There are definitely issues with federally funded elections, depending on how it's done.  How do you determine which candidates or parties get the money?  Would only the GOP and Democratic party receive these funds?  What about third parties?  Would they receive a lesser amount because they are smaller parties, or would it only be fair to give them an equal amount as the bigger parties?  

What do other developed nations do? I don’t know, but just emulate them. 

[PaladinSolo]

I'd start with making it illegal to campaign outside the year of the election you're running in, the punishment is death.

[Ghost_MH]

39 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I actually feel the opposite.  Since money enables speech, especially speech that you want a lot of people to hear, telling people or groups of people they cannot spend money to express their speech IS a restriction on their speech.

 

Then let's just restrict who can spend their money in elections to entities that can legally vote. Anyone arguing corporations are people can get in court and argue that their 18yo company should have the right to vote.

[PaladinSolo]

I'd only accept the corporations are people argument if every single person employed by it gets a say in where the money goes, as it is now its just another rich guy who now gets to dump insane amounts of money into an election.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I actually feel the opposite.  Since money enables speech, especially speech that you want a lot of people to hear, telling people or groups of people they cannot spend money to express their speech IS a restriction on their speech.

 

Money does not enable speech, it enables distribution. Money isn’t speech by any reasonable definition.

[mclumber1]

1 minute ago, sblfilms said:

 

Money does not enable speech, it enables distribution. Money isn’t speech by any reasonable definition.

 

I cannot reasonably be able to express my speech to a wide audience without spending money or other resources (which cost money in themselves).  Is my speech being restricted if the government only lets my shout on the street corner, because printing pamphlets or airing radio advertisements are now banned?

[Anathema-]

12 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I cannot reasonably be able to express my speech to a wide audience without spending money or other resources (which cost money in themselves).  Is my speech being restricted if the government only lets my shout on the street corner, because printing pamphlets or airing radio advertisements are now banned?

 

‘The law is equal because rich men and poor men are equally forbidden from sleeping under a bridge.’

[Jwheel86]

21 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I cannot reasonably be able to express my speech to a wide audience without spending money or other resources (which cost money in themselves).  Is my speech being restricted if the government only lets my shout on the street corner, because printing pamphlets or airing radio advertisements are now banned?

Speech isn't the issue and trying to regulate speech is going to be very difficult with the internet now. If a corporation gives money to a PAC that isn't speech, that's simply spending money, a third party is doing the speech by proxy. If Coke wants to call Warren a Communist, that's fine. It's when they do it through several layers of intermediaries is the issue, including when they give direct to a campaign. Can I sell drugs if I need the money to make speech? Either speak yourself or if you can't afford to speak raise money by legal means. Those means of raising money are not protected by the 1st Amendment. 

[SaysWho?]

58 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I cannot reasonably be able to express my speech to a wide audience without spending money or other resources (which cost money in themselves). 

 

You have a right to speech, not a right to be heard. If reaching a wide audience is the criterion, then that means people have a right to a megaphone. Or Facebook/Twitter/Instagram can't ban someone for being racist or spreading dangerous conspiracy theories. And that's not the case. 

 

I don't see how someone has the undisputed right to donate unlimited sums to cater the government to themselves; it seems to be the opposite of what a representative democracy even stands for.

[Jason]

6 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

You have a right to speech, not a right to be heard. If reaching a wide audience is the criterion, then that means people have a right to a megaphone. Or Facebook/Twitter/Instagram can't ban someone for being racist or spreading dangerous conspiracy theories. And that's not the case. 

 

I don't see how someone has the undisputed right to donate unlimited sums to cater the government to themselves; it seems to be the opposite of what a representative democracy even stands for.

 

There's a difference between a TV station refusing to carry your political ad, and the government engaging in prior restraint from even offering a TV station money to carry your political ad in the first place.

 

I think the better megaphone comparison is that the situation right now is the equivalent of letting a guy follow you around with a megaphone to shout over you. Most people can't be heard if only a few can afford megaphones.

[SaysWho?]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

There's a difference between a TV station refusing to carry your political ad, and the government engaging in prior restraint from even offering a TV station money to carry your political ad in the first place.

 

I think the better megaphone comparison is that the situation right now is the equivalent of letting a guy follow you around with a megaphone to shout over you. Most people can't be heard if only a few can afford megaphones.

 

I mean, I guess it's semantic from the analogy standpoint.  But I feel your analogy works well to describe it!

[Jwheel86]

10 minutes ago, Jason said:

There's a difference between a TV station refusing to carry your political ad, and the government engaging in prior restraint from even offering a TV station money to carry your political ad in the first place.

Restrict where the money can come from, the speech stays legal so long as the money comes from legal sources. Coke buying any ad = legal. Coke donating money to a PAC to then run ads should be illegal because the donation itself should be illegal. The PAC can still run ads so long as they have legal revenue sources to buy them. The transaction from Corporation to PAC should be illegal. There are thousands of restrictions on money is spent. 

[Greatoneshere]

Oh, so everyone is on board truck drivers dying for their companies?

 

Because that is exactly the reasoning Neil Gorsuch used via Citizen's United to judge multiple cases before he was put on the Supreme Court.

 

But yeah, sure. Let's empower corporations more by legally giving them the rights of individual citizens. I work for a small corporation, so I empathize with small businesses, but to agree with Citizen's United is very clearly saying: "fuck you" to the majority of people. 

[PaladinSolo]

7 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Oh, so everyone is on board truck drivers dying for their companies?

 

Because that is exactly the reasoning Neil Gorsuch used via Citizen's United to judge multiple cases before he was put on the Supreme Court.

 

But yeah, sure. Let's empower corporations more by legally giving them the rights of individual citizens. I work for a small corporation, so I empathize with small businesses, but to agree with Citizen's United is very clearly saying: "fuck you" to the majority of people. 

I'm pretty sure most of us are not OK with it. 

[Greatoneshere]

2 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

I'm pretty sure most of us are not OK with it. 

 

Then the posts in this thread belie the fact that is exactly what Citizen's United says and we should all want it repealed/abolished/whatever.