When I was getting my BA degree back in the late 90s, one textbook dwelt on the fact that the marketplace mentality had managed to infiltrate almost every aspect of our society from health care to education to what have you. It's no longer about what qualities or insights you can bring to a given endeavor - it's whether your qualities or insights affect the bottom line.
Very sad, really. And the dearth of actual discourse in this country is frightening as the dream of an informed electorate slips away. The equivalence drawn between bloggers and the early pamphleteers is apt, I think - we write longer posts than a mere sound bite can encompass, and our language has to be up to scratch or no one will pay attention.
This is a damm good idea, my gut telles me we are goingto have to tear a hell of a lot down to implament this...this will involve a LOT of primary cahllanges and gneral election cycles fighting an entrenched wealthy group
Our political establishment has fogotten that the phrase "Money talks" does not appear in the Constitution. I just hope there is enough non-profit motivation in the Congress, WH amd SC for this kind of change to happen.
It's good to see Lessig changing his focus to this project. He brings enormous talent to it, and there are a lot of people who have worked with him.
The Lodger: there isn't...not yet...thats goign to be our job.
On some level, what we're running into is an issue of scale. A House district, outside of the smallest states, contains well over a half-million people. There's no cheap or free way to run a campaign in a constituency of that size.
Public financing may be a solution, but (a) it's a hard sell to the taxpayers who don't see a tangible benefit and (b) adding public money doesn't eliminate private money, and private money will continue to be deployed to try to affect election outcomes.
They shake your hand and they smile
And they buy you a drink
They say we'll be your friends
We'll stick with you till the end
Ah but everybody's only
Looking out for themselves
And you say well who can you trust
I'll tell you it's just
Nobody else's money
Money changes everything
Money changes everything
We think we know what we're doin'
We don't pull the strings
It's all in the past now
Money changes everything
cyndi lauper (who really is that cute, that good, and that fun)
the way to pull thsi off is not by rules changes. there will allways be loop holes...look at presidential public finacing, any one who is honest is at a disadvantage if we set too many rules and restrictions. perhapse instaed of placign caps on how much money a canadate can take in, we set spendign caps...it still dosn't solve the advocacy group issue though. lobyist money will go soft and work under teh table.
I had always heard that pharmaceutical complanies put huge price mark-ups on drugs, but I never really realized the amount of money being made (and wasted) until recently.
I was offered a "corporate gig" which musicians get occasionally. Usually that just means that you sing at the office holiday party, or something. This time it was for a gigantic conference for the launch of a new schizophrenia medication. This company had a whole floor of San Francisco's enormous Moscone Center, had way-over produced speeches (with light shows) and the unveiling of their theme song.
This is the part I was involved in. Not only did they hire a choir of 40 voices, but they also flew in a director from LA, along with 3 soloists and all these production managers and stuff.
It was appalling.
What was especially weird was that this was for their own employees. If they're doing all that just for their own people, I'm imagining that what they do for doctors is even worse....
gross, gross, gross...
The entire speech is available from ustream. I hope you don't mind the link directly to my post, but it's the handy place I knew to find it (at the very bottom).
kat: I worked for big pharma for a while...an yes they dump a lot of cash on their employees, but its not without reason. At least in IT it was one of the msot stressfull situations I have ever worked in. it may be diffrent now, back then the FDA had teeth...yearly audits (and occasional random ones.) every thign we touched...everything had to be done by the book, down to the letter...SOP for everything, you had to sign off on every step of the SOP...signeture and time stamp...if you missed a step you where looking at at least a heavy fine if not jail tiem dependign on the magnatude of the screwup.
If we screwd up a machien it could cost lives, we where aloud to goof off a lot during the down tiem at work...had to blow off steam somehow
Lessig is being disingenuous. Worse, he is being untrustworthy.
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) is the case in which, among other issues, the Supreme Court held it is a constitutional violation of the First Amendment for candidates to be restricted from contributing as much of THEIR OWN PERSONAL FUNDS as they wish.
That decision was over 30 years ago, it was Per curiam (by the entire court) however with the Concurrence/Dissents it was effectively 6-3 in favor on this issue. The current Court is in no way even close to overturning this decision.
The original decision was well argued, well made, and no Court which I can realistically imagine or, frankly, which has ever been seated in the history of the United States, would have overturned the ruling.
The ONLY way to overturn this ruling is through a Constitutional Amendment, and there is NO WAY IN HELL Congress or the States will vote in an Amendment to LIMIT their ability to win elections with their own money. Most members of Congress are RICH. If not when they become Senators or Congressmen/Congresswomen, for damn sure after they've been there a while. This provision helps incumbents and hurts challengers. It ain't going nowhere.
Lessig is a constitutional scholar and knows all this. He routinely argues before the Supreme Court (and typically loses, I might add.)
Lessig was and is posturing for a crowd who didn't know better and trusted him on the legal issues, with a totally bullshit legal argument. And then when he was called on precisely this very question with the second question during Q&A, he had the fucking GALL to say this could be changed as was Dred Scott, one of in my view, the three worst decisions the Court has ever made.
No Supreme Court in U.S. history would have or will change this decision, and Lessig knows it. He doesn't like it because it invalidates his entire speech. But why hurt a fire-breathing speech which moves people, with hard cold legal facts, when you can just bullshit your way out of it...
Lessig should be ashamed of himself.
Buckley v. Valeo (Supreme Court Decision at FindLaw)
The key part of the decision reads as follows:
2. Limitation on Expenditures by Candidates from Personal or Family Resources
The Act also sets limits on expenditures by a candidate "from his personal funds, or the personal funds of his immediate family, in connection with his campaigns during any calendar year." 608 (a) (1). These ceilings vary from $50,000 for Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates to $35,000 for senatorial candidates, and $25,000 for most candidates for the House of Representatives. 57 [424 U.S. 1, 52]
The ceiling on personal expenditures by candidates on their own behalf, like the limitations on independent expenditures contained in 608 (e) (1), imposes a substantial restraint on the ability of persons to engage in protected First Amendment expression. 58 The candidate, no less than any other person, has a First Amendment right to engage in the discussion of public issues and vigorously and tirelessly to advocate his own election and the election of other candidates. Indeed, it is of particular importance that candidates have the unfettered [424 U.S. 1, 53] opportunity to make their views known so that the electorate may intelligently evaluate the candidates' personal qualities and their positions on vital public issues before choosing among them on election day. Mr. Justice Brandeis' observation that in our country "public discussion is a political duty," Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375 (1927) (concurring opinion), applies with special force to candidates for public office. Section 608 (a)'s ceiling on personal expenditures by a candidate in furtherance of his own candidacy thus clearly and directly interferes with constitutionally protected freedoms.
The primary governmental interest served by the Act - the prevention of actual and apparent corruption of the political process - does not support the limitation on the candidate's expenditure of his own personal funds. As the Court of Appeals concluded: "Manifestly, the core problem of avoiding undisclosed and undue influence on candidates from outside interests has lesser application when the monies involved come from the candidate himself or from his immediate family." 171 U.S. App. D.C., at 206, 519 F.2d, at 855. Indeed, the use of personal funds reduces the candidate's dependence on outside contributions and thereby counteracts the coercive pressures and attendant risks of abuse to which the Act's contribution limitations are directed. 59 [424 U.S. 1, 54]
The ancillary interest in equalizing the relative financial resources of candidates competing for elective office, therefore, provides the sole relevant rationale for 608 (a)'s expenditure ceiling. That interest is clearly not sufficient to justify the provision's infringement of fundamental First Amendment rights. First, the limitation may fail to promote financial equality among candidates. A candidate who spends less of his personal resources on his campaign may nonetheless outspend his rival as a result of more successful fundraising efforts. Indeed, a candidate's personal wealth may impede his efforts to persuade others that he needs their financial contributions or volunteer efforts to conduct an effective campaign. Second, and more fundamentally, the First Amendment simply cannot tolerate 608 (a)'s restriction upon the freedom of a candidate to speak without legislative limit on behalf of his own candidacy. We therefore hold that 608 (a)'s restriction on a candidate's personal expenditures is unconstitutional.
Jesse's legal analysis is pretty convincing to this lay person. The other dilemma that Lessig doesn't even touch on is related to public financing. The biggest freedom/first amendment issue with public financing is the question of gate keeping. Who decides which candidates may feed at the trough of public financing? What are the criteria for exclusion and how do those influence the ability of new parties or new candidates to get started?
The Obama campaign's convincing answer to the question has been to set up defacto "public" financing by attracting a MUCH wider range and number of donors. Isn't this a step towards the ideal? Of course it ignores the fact that a TRUE advocate of the poor (for example) who genuinely connected with them and depended on them to fund her campaign would never attract sufficient money under such a model. *sigh*
damm jesse...very usefull info but i damm near fell asleep...now i remember why i didn't look at law, thats some boring ass language.
Bless you, Jesse, for doing this leg work. I wrote this mostly as journalism, for the folks who couldn't attend, but it was a good thing to have Jesse nearby and good for all of us to have his rebuttal here. I agree with the "money erodes trust" message and examples, but not where Lessig decided the solution lay (not entirely). So, Jesse's knowledge makes this a complete pro and con, which I didn't have the background to offer -- thus, I stuck to reporting.
I remember my first "big" story back in journalism school, covering a Russian polyphonic choir for the fine arts beat. I was blown away by the concert and spent hours writing an over-the-top description of all the emotions I experienced during the performance. I had no idea what makes a choir polyphonic, its cultural connection to Russia, etc., and I didn't research it. When I turned in my long, beautiful (I thought) story, the editor, Dr. Shelton, read the first paragraph, looked at me in disbelief, and tore the whole sheaf of yellow pages up in front of the entire newsroom. He said "Either report what you know for a fact, or report what happened and leave the rest alone." It nearly killed me (I was 1
, but I never forgot it. Blogging offers more leeway but it's still a good fallback position.
Maggie, excellent summary of what Mr. Lessig said. Jesse, wow, thanks for researching that crap. Now I think I'll go stick my head in the freezer for a while.
hey maggie put a space between the 8 and the ) i keep gettign eth
good bit of reporting
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