has the citizen's united ruling backfired on republcans

We've got candidates lining up to kiss Sheldon Adelson's ring right now. Others will begin lining up in front of other billionaires while giving true lip service to the American public.

Power, influence and greed make one hell of a cocktail.

 

In a twisted way this actually isn't worse than it was before. This ruling makes it easier to contribute directly to candidates which is an actually transparent form of campaign contributions. These contributions would go through FEC disclosure and this money would be directly spent by candidates so there would be a level of accountability. You can't swift boat an opponent if you're spending the money directly (as opposed to a PAC which allows you to claim that you weren't affiliated)

Honestly if we're going to have citizens united we need to strike down all campaign finance restrictions. Either we tightly regulate or we dont regulate it at all. But the system we have now restricts the ability to donate directly to candidates and parties but places no limits on Super PACs and tax exempt organizations is probably the worst system imaginable. It actually encourages billionaires to donate to third parties since that is currently their only avenue to give massive donations

Obviously I would like to overturn citizens united and heavily regulate campaign contributions but that won't happen until this supreme court changes. So for now we might as well just scrap the whole system. It can't be worse than the status quo.

 

The majority's ruling in this case is atrocious. Sure, there is no quid pro quo. Let's go with that.

 

If the bills are unmarked, who's counting?

 

what's your legal basis for thinking it "atrocious?"

 

you're conflating "should" with "must"

 

You're right, this portends terrible things for Obama's reelection.

 

The legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts: expanding donor(rich) rights and limiting voter(poor) rights.

 

Money doesn't "produce" speech, it merely amplifies one's speech.

 

FTFY.

 

[rquoter]POLITICO answers six key questions surrounding the case.

1) Can anyone can give as much as they want to any candidate they want?

No.

McCutcheon did not strike down the limit on how much individuals can donate to candidates or parties.

Rather, the case struck down the aggregate limit on how much people can give in capped donations to campaigns and parties, which would have been $123,200 in 2014. That means that, instead of stopping when they hit that aggregate limit, donors can keep giving maximum donations to every candidate and party committee they desire.

Donors can now spread money around to more candidates, and no longer have a ready-made excuse (“sorry, I’ve maxed out to my aggregate limit”) for the next candidate-fundraising call. But the most any given donor can give to any given candidate or party committee is still capped. In 2014, the max donation is $5,200 per candidate and and $32,400 to a party committee. That figure is adjusted each election cycle based on inflation.


2) So how much can an individual give under McCutcheon?

That’s not entirely clear. The answer depends partly on how the decision is implemented by the Federal Election Commission and interpreted by political lawyers around the country, but also on variables like how many candidates are running for Congress and how many politicians set up PACs.

Some analysts predict that the ruling could allow a single donor to write checks totaling as much as $6 million to candidates and committees.

Of course, there’s still no limit on how much people can give to super PACs and 501(c)4 nonprofits. That’s where donors like the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer have directed tens of millions of dollars.

3) Do donations have to be disclosed?

Yes.

The ruling does not affect rules requiring donations to candidates and party committees be disclosed to the FEC. If donors want their contributions to be secret, nonprofits are still the only way to go.

4) Is McCutcheon the 2.0 version of Citizens United?

No.

Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court’s monumental 2010 decision, cleared the way for unlimited spending on political ads by corporations and unions, and a subsequent lower court decision allowed individuals to donate unlimited sums to super PACs. The decisions are what allowed Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg to donate $3 million to a super PAC supporting President Barack Obama in 2012 and also empowered the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity to spend millions on ads directly opposing Obama’s reelection.

McCutcheon, on the other hand, does not allow unlimited donations to any candidate or group, nor does it clear corporations and unions – the focus of Citizens United – to donate to campaigns or parties.

Lisa Gilbert, director of Congress Watch for the advocacy group Public Citizen, which blasted Wednesday’s ruling as “a devastating blow at the very foundation of our democracy,” said that even though McCutcheon and Citizens United deal with different issues, they’re part of a trend towards more big money in politics.

“When the rulings are combined, it has a 1-percent feel of further empowering the same donors in elections, whether writing a check from the corporate account or their own,” Gilbert said.

For campaign professionals, the key distinction between the two decisions is that the spending cleared through Citizens United cannot be coordinated with the candidates or party committees it seeks to help, whereas the new money flow made possible by McCutcheon will be controlled directly by candidates and parties, likely making it more useful to them.

5) So, does McCutcheon mean that parties will be able to claw back some of the power and money that has migrated to super PACs and other outside groups since Citizens United?

Probably at least some.

The unanswered question is how much control the parties will have over the new cash flow.

They’re expected to try to maximize the decision by setting up so-called joint fundraising committees comprised of a number of state and national party committees – including the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, their respective congressional campaign arms and various state party committees – as well potentially hundreds of congressional candidates. The idea would be that the joint committees could then accept a single check that encompassed the maximum donation to each component candidate and committee.

It’s unclear, though, how much leeway the joint committee would have in disseminating money that’s earmarked for its component committees.
Plus, no matter how the law is interpreted and implemented, super PACs and other outside groups still offer one major advantage to ultra-wealthy donors with which parties are unlikely to able or willing to compete: playing big in primaries. If major donors wants to spend really big helping a favored candidate, they’re likely to write their biggest checks to super PACs expressly devoted to that candidate – like Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose family donated $20 million to a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC in the 2012 GOP presidential campaign – rather than to a joint fundraising committee that may or may not devote its biggest cash to their favorite candidate.
Still, top GOP campaign finance lawyer Jason Torchinsky predicted “this decision will restore some balance between the super PACs and the candidate-party structure.”

6) What’s next?

The FEC could proactively write rules clarifying what is – and what is not – allowed under the ruling, while campaigns and committees could file requests for advisory opinions from the agency seeking clearance on specific plans to take advantage of it.

But don’t expect the FEC to act swiftly or decisively.

The independent agency, which is comprised of three Democratic appointees and three Republican ones, has in recent years been mired in partisan gridlock that has stymied efforts to address unfolding campaign finance trends.
Given the proximity to the impending midterm elections, it’s possible that some swashbuckling campaign finance attorneys could move ahead with envelope-pushing joint fundraising committees without clear guidance on what’s permissible under McCutcheon.

And expect the decision to embolden opponents of campaign finance reform to ramp up challenges to other parts of campaign finance laws, including the individual limits and potentially disclosure rules.


[/rquoter]Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/mccutcheon-supreme-court-ruling-105303.html#ixzz2xkuoDHwd

 

Yes, Roberts' legacy will be his decision to agree with the Solicitor General that Obamacare is a tax -- thereby making it "legal". The hilarious hypocrisy of this position is that Obama himself vehemently disagreed that the individual mandate was a tax. Then he shamelessly sends the Solicitor General in front of the SCOTUS to argue that it is a tax, in order to save the law. Can you say two-faced liar? Of course the American public is far too ignorant to have followed all of this. Instead they are gleefully celebrating selfies and Michelle Obama's new hair color.

 

He engages! Hey there, Ketchup Bot. Could you please keep your diatribes against Obamacare to its respective thread?

 

A more elegant (and perhaps constitutional) scheme would be limiting how much a candidate can raise, rather than how much a donor can donate.

Like a salary cap.

 

Exactly. Upheld ACA, SAVIOR!

 

And? Could that not be said for say, the Internet?

 

Or, say, a microphone?

 

But that would be the role of the superPACs no? As in the PACs can't be directed by the candidates, and if the candidates are limited in how much they can raise, then even more money will flow to the SuperPACs.

 

Let's just face it, money always means influence. It was true 3000 years ago and it is true today. It will be true 3000 years from now if humans are still there. It is true in the US, in Europe and in Asia. It is true under any form of government. Money means power, this is the third truth behind death and taxes.

 

The way to run elections is to qualify a reasonable number of candidates, per a reasonable number of parties and independents, based on verifiable signed petitions, give them all the same amount of funds from government coffers and see how efficiently they can use it.

There will come a day, given the democratic power of the internet, when taking money or not will be an issue if not the issue. If all wars are economic, all elections will be economic. And historically, when the economic balance between the Halves and Halve-nots reaches a point, the Halve-nots revolt.

The designed and bought fake revolt of the Tea Party will be exposed and the working class that are losing quality of life, and the young people who will not live as well as the generations before them will come and take it.

The cycle will come around.