The legalized bribery is our biggest issue because of how it makes other issues far more difficult to get effective legislation for.
You know those state level ballot measures voters get to directly vote on? let’s put something to get money out of politics on the ballot. Bypass the corrupted politicians entirely on this one.
Maybe it says something along the lines of: No donor, to include but not limited to individuals and/or organizations, may donate more than $10 per month to any or all political candidates running for office or to any political action comity, and they are most certainly not allowed to donate in the name of another donor. Any candidate who does not abide by this law shall be kicked off the ballot in federal races or not allowed to run if it’s a state or lower level race.
get this passed in like 10 states and watch the political landscape change overnight. When state legislatures repeal it pretty much immediately that’s political gold for the progressives that run against them. it’s the biggest issue that effects legislation for all other issues. it needs to change or everything else won’t change fast enough to help anyone.
Seriously, if we all do it at the same time, even if corporate media tries to smother the story it’s going to go viral anyways. Especially if we combo door to door talking to people with as many famous people vocally backing it up as possible.
It’s probably not the ultimate solution to money in politics, but it’s probably the best first step we can take.
If you liked this idea, just wait until I post about my ideal solution for gun control
The problem is enforcement. If you make a rule that says you cannot give over a certain amount. You create a bunch of incentives to circumvent that rule. So who stops people from doing that? How are they funded is it protected, or subject to appropriations? What would enforcement look like? Would it be a new agency or fall under a current agency? Most difficult to get right would be the teeth of the enforcement. What are the penalties? Would a corporation consider a fine as deterrent?
Agreed. Good idea in theory, but it’s rather bare bones. I can assume by your wording of “getting it passed in 10 states” that what you are implying is that the goal would be to pass laws like this on the state level. For local elections this might fly, but it is going to have problems with any federal position.
As unlikely as it is to happen, what I would like to see is a restructuring of the entire campaigning system entirely. Instead of having any campaign contributions allowable at all, what I would like to see is a federal office with a designated amount of money, split evenly amongst all candidates for campaigning. No playing favorites. No rallying through fundraiser. Everyone gets the same amount of money to campaign on from this new federal government institution, no more, no less.
Feel’s like a pipe dream’s fairy tale, but it’s the only truly fair way that I can think of to run elections. We forbid any finances at all going into the campaign except from this hypothetical government organization and you have to make your case with that. Then, if someone takes any money from any other person or org “for their campaign” would be disqualified from the race, fined for the amount the government contributed to their campaign, and imprisoned for up to one year for engaging in bribery. That’s my wish but I doubt it’d ever get enough support.
I’m actually jumping in here from the “operation hope” thread
When I get off work I will be posting an actual solution with steps to work toward that will actually also cover the legalized bribery.
If we look at it from a realistic point of view, the real issue is the messaging. Not enough people are being made aware of the problems occuring in our Congress.
I’ve come up with a plan to not only show voters what their elected officials vote on or bring to the floor in Congress, but also show who their donors are as well as how much they’ve donated.
I will be elaborating on this later today when I get off work in about another hour.
Obviously something to this degree will take time because it’s going to involve TYT making an app for it. But this is a long term solution to educating voters.
It will also allow voters to critically target those elected officials who are legislating AGAINST the will of those they represent.
The idea is SuperPACs need to be overruled because they donate to both sides and when both sides get donations it means both sides are beholden to corporate interests before voters. So basically that’s why the duopoly’s always rigged for actual progress, IMO. All we have to do is prevent corporate interests from making campaign contributions to BOTH sides because if they have to pick one that’s significantly better. Ideally, corporations shouldn’t have any say because they all have the Fiduciary Duty that corrupts their ability to think about anything other than a profit for stock shareholders. They don’t think about their workers, not dumping cancer causing pollutants into communities and leaving superfunds & brownsites for taxpayers to clean up their messes at our expense. That’s why we need a triple bottom line economic approach for business. Less entanglement between corporations and politicians also, referees not teammates!
I think this is a general plan of sorts. We are building a parallel system due to other system failure. We should keep presence in both systems. As one grows or shrinks collectively we shift to use of an alternative system and mold them as we need. If we loose one we build another, two seems far more solid then one.
I don’t know about you all, but I feel that corruption in politics is an issue agreed upon across the aisle, among majority of Americans, up there with Paid Family Leave. You even have representatives like Gaetz and AOC coming together to address it in Congress in relation to lawmakers owning stocks.
Is there no way for us to band together to get a politician to push the issue, as we did with getting Bernie to force a vote on $15 minimum wage?
I just ask because I also agree that a lot of our issues stem from this concept. I understand that there are too many players participating in this corruption, but how many is the question when you have people like Gaetz trying to address it?
The problem is that corruption is pervasive far beyond politics. The entirety of our society is built on corruption.
The way to stop the corruption is to bypass the purpose of financing entirely. Money should never be a motivator for anything. As long as we’re using money as a carrot on a stick we can trick a gigantic portion of the population into believing the idea that a person’s value is based on how they choose to spend their time.
To combat the corruption is to show capitalists that money is irrelevant. Provide goods and services for free. Help others in need. Share your supplies with anyone who needs them. Donate anything extra you may have to the unhoused. There are so many things we can do to help each other and none of them require any exchange of currency.
I’m not sure how much this would help or if it would be allowed, but if the Citizen’s United decision were published verbatim on social media sites including a few right wing sites, maybe some people would read it. I’m not sure how good an idea this is, but I welcome feedback on that.
I agree with the spirit of your argument but honestly we have a hurdle from the citizens united decision. AS the law stands right now money is speech. We have to overcome this with a federal constitutional amendment OR public funding of elections. I don’t see any other way around it.
Your point here, about the corporate duopoly, I think we can address. Have you checked out my topic thread, run republican progressives? I detail more there, but we can use the duopoly to triangulate on the corporate oligarchy. Kind of using their strategy against them.
Your point here about our Orwellian justice system granting money the rights of speech, I think we can address this. I started a topic thread about a class action against federalist society / heritage foundation. That type of plan could maybe expose many of the rulings which were bought and paid for by the oligarchy as legally illegitimate.
idk, it seems like everyone on both sides can agree the bribery is a problem. that’s like the one thing everyone agrees on. whether they say that about their favourite politicians is another issue.
under the current laws, there can be some regulations regarding speech AND there are laws on the books that somewhat limit donations and spending. this is just a lot more strict.
I think requiring that the person running discloses all their contributions in order to have their name on the ballot at all would be a good first step towards enforcement. then election officials can monitor this and point out anyone who donates too much. if someone running tries to hide additional donations the will be disqualified from running and possibly face criminal charges. it’s really something that would be easier to enforce at the state and local level. for federal elections the most we could effectively do is kick their name off the ballot statewide. all the punishment is on the person running because that’s where the bribery has the most effect and that’s what needs to be dealt with first.
I think the flaw is how would you prevent this an election official from capture? Likely they need to be granted a bunch of powers they don’t have now. Otherwise they couldn’t enforce anything. Then the incentive to capture that official would be immense. How would you defray that inertia to capture?