Anonymous campaign donations

I am a recovering political activist. I am also enjoying rereading the Honor Harrington series. There have been several references to the rules of political campaign donations, to the effect that unlimited donations are permitted as long as the source is named. I WAS of the opinion that that was the proper method of handling campaign donations. However, due to the tactics currently employed I believe that unlimited anonymous donations should be the rule of law. I understand that it would be nice to know the obligations that a officeholder has to his donors but that will that each donation be driven by a single issue. For example a well-known pro-choice donor might support a pro life candidate based upon his position on gun control, thus making it APPEAR that the candidate has been bought by pro-choice money.

There are two other problems with forcing a donor to be public. The first is the assumption it would ever be possible. Having been an active participant in numerous campaigns, I can assure you that there are countless ways of getting money into a campaign that never show on anyone's books. If a politician's vote is for sale and has any value, I can assure you that a method of paying for it will be found.

There are three types of campaign donations: the pure, the gray, and the bribe. For any intelligent politician it is only the gray that is of concern. Generally this consists of issues which the politician has no particular position and can't be influenced by the arguments and or the money of a contributor. For any intelligent politician, if that's not an oxymoron, the gray will be completely disguised and almost impossible to identify.

Thus it would be impossible to know which donations were actually influencing the candidate and which were supporting the position he might take. It could be argued that it would be nice to know what all of those positions are, but in the real world that is never going to be possible. Besides, I believe that the pure donations should not be hampered unless you wish to control political speech. I should be allowed to give as much money to support an issue as I wish. The candidate should be able to accept as much money as he wishes to support his authentic positions.

The second reason is not intellectual but where the current problems lie. Our politics has taken a dangerous turn in the attempts to silence speech through intimidation. Political correctness on "hate speech" on the campus is merely a canary in the mineshaft for where free-speech is headed. We are already seeing the first steps of a campaign to make "hate speech" illegal. We also see boycotts and actual physical intimidation of people who make politically incorrect statements in public. Some of this, of course, is not new. My family had a cross burned in our front yard back in the 60s because of our position on desegregation.

Personally, I have always been prepared to accept the financial and social consequences of any position I take. However, many businesses and businessmen are not prepared to see their finances ruined because of their beliefs. Examples like Wendy's and Hobby Lobby are most chilling. Attempting to ruin a business with thousands of employees because of the position of a shareholder or or owner is new and extremely destructive.

If we are entitled to a secret ballot, our support of a position or candidate deserves the same confidentiality.

Reb Bacchus (Yes, that's my real name and since I believe I'm the ONLY one you can find me where I live. )

The problem with unlimited donations is that they mean that wealthy donors can exert disproportionate influence on an election. In addition, it means that it's more logical for a candidate to court a small number of very wealthy donors rather than a larger number of less-wealthy supporters.

To make an analogy, you already have an issue where numerous states are ignored come Presidental elections as they are "sure things" for one party. In this case, you have everyone except the upper class being ignored.

With public donations, at least you have some inlking who the candidate is beholden to, and hopefully embarresment will prevent him from favoring them too blatantly.

"The United States has the best government that money can buy but, unfortunately we're all poor folks" Will Rodgers. Taking the corrosive influence of paid influence is nigh on to impossible. Decreasing the single contributor donation just makes the blunders more powerful, you can't win. Not to mention politicians buying votes with other people's (IE taxpayers') money:



Poker

pokermind wrote:Decreasing the single contributor donation just makes the blunders more powerful, you can't win.

How so?

Eyal wrote:

pokermind wrote:Decreasing the single contributor donation just makes the blunders more powerful, you can't win.

How so?

Simple those who can bundle many small contributions to make large contributions get access and power with politicians, duh.

Poker

Uh Pokermind. There was a spelling error in your first post that may be contributing to the confusion.

You typed "blunders" instead of bundlers.

pokermind wrote:Decreasing the single contributor donation just makes the blunders more powerful, you can't win.


How so?


Simple those who can bundle many small contributions to make large contributions get access and power with politicians, duh.

Poker

Whether you call them bundlers or Whales, there will always be people who are responsible for large donations. Frankly, so long as campaigns require money to sell their candidate money will be available. As I said earlier it is a question of which kind of money it is to some degree.

However, since somebody has brought up the idea of single contributors having undue influence on candidates, I would bring up the campaign of Eugene McCarthy. For those of you who don't remember McCarthy, I am not talking about the Republican Senator from the 50s. I'm talking about the man who challenged Lyndon Johnson back in the 60s and caused him to withdraw from Democratic primaries.

He did not get the Democratic nomination for president, that went to Hubert Humphrey. Still, he changed the course of the Democratic Party to a large degree. His campaign would not have been possible if not for the backing of one or two very large contributors. The point here is really not about money, but about passion for a cause.

His supporters were passionately antiwar. His backers felt that it was worth their fortune to support that position. Again if some of those people might have seen their businesses destroyed they would not be as forthcoming with their donations.

We tend to think of secret donations as having some nefarious corrupting tint. I suspect that there are an equal number of cases where someone feels passionately about an issue but does not wish to have that splash all over their personal or professional lives.

To give a military example, what would it do to the career of a senior officer if it was known that he was making significant donations to antiwar group?

We effectively have this system now with the 503(c) where donor lists are kept confidential. For those who don't know why they are allowed to keep their donor list confidential the cases arose out of attempts to force the NAACP to release their list of donors back in the 60s. Of course the group has to prove that its primary purpose is not political cynical anybody?

biochem wrote:Uh Pokermind. There was a spelling error in your first post that may be contributing to the confusion.

You typed "blunders" instead of bundlers.
.

Poker

Since I'm dictating this on my iPhone I don't think I have any spelling errors, although I have always been of the opinion that those who spell correctly lack creativity, but there might be strange word substitutions.

pokermind wrote:Simple those who can bundle many small contributions to make large contributions get access and power with politicians, duh.

Poker

The bundlers at least have to convince a significant number of people rather than one.

Rebbacchus wrote:His supporters were passionately antiwar. His backers felt that it was worth their fortune to support that position. Again if some of those people might have seen their businesses destroyed they would not be as forthcoming with their donations.

We tend to think of secret donations as having some nefarious corrupting tint. I suspect that there are an equal number of cases where someone feels passionately about an issue but does not wish to have that splash all over their personal or professional lives.

But if only one or two people made it possible for him to run at all, wouldn't you agree his victory would have a distorting effect on democracy?

I don't actually have much of a problem with anonymous donations, my issue is when theya re both anonymous and uncapped (I suppose you could sipulate that donors only need to be revealed if their contribution exceeds a specific amount).

In effect, one man did change the outcome of the race for the presidency, even though he wasn't a candidate. Without his contributions, Johnson might have continued to run, with who knows what outcome. If an individual is that passionate about a cause, he should run for office himself. If he is willing to spend his own money on his own campaign to support his own ideals, I don't care how much he spends. But when I vote for someone, I want to know that my views are being respected, not the views of a single individual I have no idea about. As long as contributions remain anonymous, the idea of that possibility is always there. If the individual is afraid of the consequences to his business, then maybe he should rethink his position.