I am a political fund raising consultant. The SCOTUS ruling CHANGES NOTHING.

oiccool · 2 years

Thats what I thought at first, but this ruling really lowers the amount of hassle that corporations had to go through in order to influence the election:

Before this ruling:

Ceo: Man, the environmental regulations that congressman is proposing is going to kill the profitability of our california plant. What can we do?

Advisor: Well we would have to set up a 527 group to oppose these regulations, we would have to find some guys to staff it that aren't employees of our corporation, we would have to be careful to distance ourselves from this organization, and we would have to walk a fine line between issue and candidacy advocacy.

CEO: fuck it, lets go golfing

After this ruling:

Ceo: Man, the environmental regulations that congressman is proposing is going to kill the profitability of our california plant. What can we do?

Advisor: I'll have our ad team throw up some billboards saying congressman Joe is destroying jobs. Should be up by next week.

Ceo: cool, lets go golfing.

winstonsmith · 2 years

The SCOTUS ruling CHANGES NOTHING.

John Paul Stevens in his dissent:

It will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the States to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process.

dVnt · 2 years

Are you suggesting that this actually provides greater transparency?

Reasoning: A corporation can now directly fund their own political marketing. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad would display the true funders of the add instead of the 527 that was set up to create it.

I doubt this will happen.

SpiderMurphy · 2 years

Thanks for the insight. It softens the blow... a bit. It is still very worrying fact that what in Europe is considered bribing, is defined as legal campaign donation in the USA.

obscurerefference · 2 years

I understand your point, but I think you misunderstand people's reaction to it- we're not running around like "chickens with our heads cut off" because we thought that before this ruling we had a true representative democracy without any corporate influence and now have a government comprised of those most able to whore themselves to the highest bidder. In truth most of us see this as the final legitimization of what we've been fearing and fighting against for as long as we can remember, and brings to a head all these emotions we've had about.

Furthermore I'd like to say, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but until people like you (even though you work in support of progressive candidates) can not make a living doing what you do, we will be outraged by this issue and continue to, 'run around like chickens with our heads cut off'

otherwiseyep · 2 years

Instead of owners or CEO's of corporations funding 527's, the company will just do it - Which is what was really going on before, it was just easy to hide.

this IS a difference, though. Because the "owners" of Exxon are basically everyone with an IRA or 401k. And Exxon has a much bigger treasury than the CEO's personal checking account.

akatsukix · 2 years

The real problem with the ruling is that it is designed to prevent any sort of effective reform.

political · 2 years

The fact that your second sentence says that it changes NOTHING makes me doubt your credebility. Are you brought to us by EXXON?

trivial · 2 years

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the idea of a 527 also change yesterday. Sure Corporations, or anyone with lots of money could contribute soft money to a 527 but I was under the impression that a 527 could not directly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate or participate in electioneering? Now 527s are free to do just that as long as they don't coordinate with a candidate, just as corporations are free to do so. Doesn't this really change the game then?

redna · 2 years

RECLAIM DEMOCRACY: CORPORATE PERSONHOOD, A PRIMER

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/pdf/primers/hidden_corporate_history.pdf

SA1L · 2 years

through a PAC, corporations can spend unlimited dollars on attack ads within 30 days of an election. That's a pretty big fucking difference !

fangolo · 2 years

Yep, that's why they made the ruling. As it does nothing, they might as well...

BadBoyNDSU · 2 years

Nice try, Exxon.

footsold · 2 years

You can say we overreacted but this is still not good. Not good at all. We should have all been acting like this for years.

I_divided_by_0- · 2 years

Ahh, that's funny, because the campaign office that I work at says different. You just raise funds, the problem that we are going to have is the message that we want to put out to the voters could become convoluted if some company wants to put out their own ad. So yes, it does change something.

transgenmom · 2 years

There is one difference.

Oliver Stone could have made the first 4 years of W and shown it before the 2004 election now.

lobstah4 · 2 years

My cousin is a PAC manager for a very large financial services firm, and he said precisely the same thing when he talked to him yesterday-- emphasizing the part about being blatantly in one political camp and the negative implications thereof. He and I tend to have different sociopolitical philosophies, but what he (and you) said makes sense. Status quo ante.

wootastik · 2 years

What is your opinion on Canada's Election Expenses Act? This Act requires political parties to limit their election spending and report the sources of their contributions, and allocates equal airtime on television and radio broadcasts. Do you think something like this could ever work in the US? And as a fund raising consultant are you against a system like this?

I know this isn't an AMA but I couldn't find this question in your old post. Thanks.

killbrad · 2 years

This is a great post, and answers some of the questions I had in the post I just made about this very thing. Thank you very much.

OrthogonalThoughts · 2 years

Everyone seems to be missing the point that they used a FREE SPEECH argument in relations to a corporation, and defended their actions as protected free speech. It sets a dangerous precedent to start treating corporations under the same laws as people when its convenient, and ignoring them when its not. However if companies, somehow, cause harm or actions that lead to death, then hold them responsible in criminal court! That'd be something

shamanicspacebum · 2 years

Fuck voting. The only people running a current corporate shills and future corporate shills. Why the hell should I waste my time?

kolm · 2 years

Well.. if you legalize theft, this would change nothing because people already steal, but now they are allowed to do it openly, but they won't because of social stigma. I mean, this is the same line of reasoning, isn't it?

The main change is that the court gave an official okay to a possibility. What is and what is not allowed shapes a country's soul like nothing else.

cojoco · 2 years

What they will be able to do is fund commercials or mailers or billboards or whatever the hell they want to support or oppose a candidate.

The only thing that has changed is that it will make the corporation less paranoid about hiding it

Does this mean that they (the companies) have to identify themselves on every piece of advertising, or are you just assuming they will be less likely to hide it?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your sentiments, but unless companies must identify themselves, what I see is simply much more deviant/suspicious advertising, with less clarity as to who produced it and is paying for the run time.

Morans · 2 years

Okay, America, go back to sleep. Your representation in government is no more absolutely corrupt that it has always been. No need to really press for campaign finance reform. The politician-for-hire status quo remains intact.

oblivious_human · 2 years

Money is like water - it finds a crack.

:|

cojoco · 2 years

Thanks.

ValekHawke · 2 years

OK, I know I'm missing something here. When I Google for PAC Campaign Contribution Limits everything I find says that they can donate between $2400 or $30400 depending on who it's going to and whether they are multicandidate or not multicandidate. I haven't found anything in writing that says that they can donate any amount that they want to yet I keep hearing that on various news broadcasts and reading it on sites like Reddit. Can someone please explain to me how they are able to legally circumvent the FEC limits and provide links to illustrate?

Here's the link I used to cite these numbers...

Contribution Limits for 2009-2010

bobcat_08 · 2 years

Thanks for posting this. I don't understand why everyone is freaking out -- it's like they're paranoid we're all going to experience the apocalypse compliments of Big Brother corporations with every apparent pro-business ruling, no matter how slight or superficial.

shriverd · 2 years

But by your very explanation it changes things. Hey corporations all that semi-legal shady shit you did yea don't bother hiding it you're off the hook from now on.

I view it in the same way the whole phone companies handing over records fiasco went down. People know that that the gov't would do this regardless of whether it was legal. But its one thing to know its happening and quite another to come out and outright condone(?) it.

sui_juris · 2 years

Yea, you really don't understand.

Google currently has a $25+ billion dollar war chest. That is liquid money available for direct political speech by the company. Previously if Sergey Brin wanted to say something, and his political speech was in line with the the companies, he could have set up a 527, then donated to it directly from his own pocket. Google's pockets are a lot deeper than Brin's.

qarl · 2 years

i hear you - i understand your logic - it seems reasonable -

and yet i've watched this bizarre case wind it's way through the court - with fierce fighting - i can't help but wonder why, if it's no big deal.

both sides are treating it like a big deal.

qarl · 2 years

i hear you - i understand your logic - it seems reasonable -

and yet i've watched this bizarre case wind it's way through the court - with fierce fighting - i can't help but wonder why, if it's no big deal.

both sides are treating it like a big deal.

jk0927 · 2 years

The point is, the fact that corporations are allowed to in any way change the mind of a politician to vote yay or nay on any subject is WRONG! Polititians are supposed to represent the masses. MASSES> middle class majority. AS IN THE MOST FUCKING PEOPLE! not the companies who prey on us. the companies that make money on our misfortune. Like when we are sick or need to buy gas for our cars to get to work, so we can pay off our hugr debts. Its just fucking wrong. and its bullshit!

edwardmolasses · 2 years

re: money being like water and finding cracks:

better a crack than a dam burst

TruthHammer · 2 years

So now, rather that creating a 527 (or having someone create one for them), they can just create their own shell corporation and us it for attacks?

tinklebear · 2 years

What I'm most concerned about here is what affect this decision has on the subject of corporate personhood. Can anyone speak to that point?

Maybe it's too specific to directly set any precedents but the implication is that this ruling implicitly accepts as fact that corporations are entitled to the same rights as individual citizens.

Corporations are not people with inailenable rights endowed by their creator. They were created by people and therefore have only the rights we choose to give them. PERIOD! End of story!

Why have we chosen to give them this right and the power that follows from it?

nickellis14 · 2 years

They won't need to give money to the campaigns when they can just campaign for the candidate themselves. So, respectfully, you're completely wrong.

adam1304 · 2 years

So best case scenario, as your argument goes, it's legitimizing something that was a circumvention of the law (things like 527s), that shouldn't be legal anyway.

Oh, and it overthrows previous SCOTUS precedent for another corporate handout - in this case, saying that corporations are ̶s̶o̶y̶l̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶g̶r̶e̶e̶n people. F**king right-wing judicial activists.

nessi · 2 years

The one thing that goes through my head when I read these "nothing will change" comments: Why then, if this doesn't really change anything, did the SCOTUS gang of five (Bush loyalists to the end) change a rather minor case into something that overturned decades of regulations surrounding campaigns and elections? Cui bono, I guess is the question.

The other thing that I'd like to mention: Corporations don't even HAVE to spend any money after this ruling to exert pressure. The sole fact that they CAN will make candidates think twice before they take a stand on certain issues, because they know what happens if they do - they will get slammed and lose. It promotes, even more than before, the emergence of uniform, corp-friendly politics and candidates. Call it a psychological control measure: Do our biding, or else.

vat0r · 2 years

It changes people's perception at the very least.

[deleted] · 2 years

Republican?

Mad-n-fl · 2 years

"I am a political fund raising consultant. The SCOTUS ruling CHANGES NOTHING. "

And we believe you, because you never lie.

modernprogressive · 2 years

Amen. Exactly right. For example, Obama got almost $1B in donations. It wasn't from the grassroots.

I say we use this to make campaign financing extremely transparent. The McCain Fiengold Act was nothing but the Incumbency Protection Act.

The beltway Dem's are bitching in moaning for two reasons:

a.) they've always been heavily funded by corporations, but the perception has been Rep's are pro-corporation. Transparency will dispel myth.

b.) they desperately, and I mean desperately need something to get their base riled up about. So the hyperbole is set to 11.

Eviljim · 2 years

We already realize this.

asakuj · 2 years

So are you a person or a corporation?

Il128 · 2 years

Hi, I'm Pfizer.

I don't want to pay taxes any more. I'm going to spend a 100 million dollars on billboards claiming one party is killing jobs. Who doesn't want to be on that billboard?

elink88 · 2 years

Sign our petition to end the wasteful research on cell phones causing cancer. Text "NORES" to 54545 No charges will be applied. Brought to you by Verizon Wireless.

Janus_Grayden · 2 years

What I'm more concerned about is the precedent this sets for applying the Bill of Rights to corporate entities. Everyone knows their money finds its way into the coffers of politicians, but now it's considered freedom of speech. Not only is that a royal fuck you to the American people, but the geniuses behind the credit default swaps are going to abuse this privilege to the fullest.

pemmet · 2 years

You might be able to help me understand something (if you're still scrolling down this far). One argument I've heard in defense of lifting/raising caps on donations is that to squeeze them too much would stifle a candidates ability to get their name out (such as in not being able to afford TV spots or Billboards and whatnot). I'm wondering, though, with the advent of the ridiculous array of tools now available through social networks and such, have costs really stayed this high? I'm sure that TV spots cost more than ever, but we're seeing more and more cases of financial underdog candidates beating out the better funded candidates using such methods. Does campaigning have to be as expensive as all that these days, or is my perception just warped because of the way this is portrayed?

I suppose a followup question would be: In your professional opinion, do you think that regardless of the ever growing financial corporate efforts, such grassroots efforts might still edge out the competition?

zsgar · 2 years

Hmm, would anyone be able to explain what a '527' is by any chance? For those of us not in the US.

culbeda · 2 years

That's a pretty rosy view of the decision. They don't need to make huge campaign contributions. They just have to overwhelm us with political ads and peddling their considerable influence. It's enough to turn several key races towards candidates that are in their back pockets and the influence is about the same as if they'd donated it directly to the campaign. You're just arguing semantics.

dvogel · 2 years

PACs created by a company still have to be funded by individual contributions, limited to $5k per year. The owner of the company is not able to donate $100mm to the PAC (they would have to live 20,000 years to do so).

aselbst · 2 years

It's a huge problem if we ever had a Congress that was willing to actually crack down on financing. I mean, say they tried to implement a public financing system as they're discussing, which would limit everyone equally because candidates could only take public money. This would pretty clearly be unconstitutional at this point.

All you're saying is that the McCain-Feingold law was mostly worthless, so striking that down doesn't change much. I can almost buy that, but this Supreme Court decision is certainly not meaningless. It's the difference b/w bad legislation and a bad Constitutional precedent. It's a terrible decision for democracy.

bobobo · 2 years

Well, that makes it all ok then.

crazyyellowguy · 2 years

It will be interesting to see what companies will do now that they are able to openly fund certain aspects of campaigns. I'm pretty sure if the candidate they supported won, they wouldn't be shy about stating it, but at the same time, if the candidate seems to vote in the interests of the company, they may not want to publicly support the hidden agenda.

TMI-nternets · 2 years

Those $100,000 officials.. are they any good?

n3tm4n · 2 years

I think the problem that some, if not most, redditors have is that this ruling does maintain the status quo. A striking, thorough rebuke by SCOTUS stating that corporations do not have first amendment rights just like a person would make this community very happy. Another redditor (I can't find who or where) said it better - Because this was fought on 1st amendment grounds, it gives corporations the same benefits of a citizen of the US without any of the responsibilities. Corporations are having their cake and eating it, too.

gguy123 · 2 years

Why the heck isn't there a rule FORCING Exxon to put "Paid for by Exxon" on political commercials? I think corporations and politics need to be wide open about that. If a corporation backs a candidate/bill the people should have every right to know. Just how candidates have to say "I approved this message." Exxon should say "we at Exxon paid for this commercial".

snsr · 2 years

Awesome info, thank you

OscarsGoneWilde · 2 years

I was under the impression that, as of a few years ago, a 527 couldn't promote (or attack) a candidate even in the roundabout Swift Boat way. They can only advocate for or against issues. If that's true, elections have changed in a major way with the ruling and its implications are more widespread and insidious than you're making them out to be.

This ruling essentially puts an end to the facade that America has a functioning democracy, as campaign donations themselves are still regulated. Expenditures for media advertising dwarf those of on-the-ground party infrastructure, and the only thing keeping 527s in check were the regulations regarding advocacy. With this change, the voices of millions of people have effectively been neutered, as the parties won't need your $10 anymore.

SCOTUS just allowed political parties to offload their media budgets onto private corporations in return for advocacy, which is utterly horrendous for anyone who ever had faith in democracy. If you were the chairman of a political party, would you even bother trying to solicit a million people -- all with varying pet projects and issues -- for $10 a pop if you could call up Walmart and say "We've got some pending issues coming up that you might be interested it, and $10,000,000 in attack ads against the other candidate would go a long way towards making us see your side of the issue?"

This ruling is absolutely disgusting.

dirtydee000thedi · 2 years

"The SCOTUS ruling CHANGES NOTHING." - this is the problem and why any citizen that cares about who controls YOUR government should be upset and concerned. Business as usual is bad business. Something has to give, and the citizens have given a LOT over the last decade. It is time to fight back. The people need their government back.

turningtime · 2 years

I disbelieve that you are a political fundraising consultant. Unless I witness that firsthand, I consider your claim entirely false.

sunamumaya · 2 years

Ah, the SCROTUS ruling...

StOnge · 2 years

The Constitution was written by the business leaders of the time - why do people find this kind of thing to be surprising???

We elect politicians instead of leaders - we've always been screwed.

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