Monday, January 07, 2019


A devious Attack on  Free Expression from Nancy Pelosi

One of Nancy Pelosi’s first projects as the new speaker of the House will be passing a government overhaul of campaign finance and ethics rules that would, among other things, “expand voting rights.” One of the new bills — specifics are still cloudy — reportedly would allocate a pool of taxpayer money to match small-dollar donations 6-to-1, as a way of encouraging “grass-roots campaigning,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

The package, fortunately, wouldn’t pass the Senate. But creating government-financed campaigns — empowering the state to allocate money to preferred donors and dissuading non-preferred donors — has been something of a hobbyhorse in progressive circles. Setting aside the many constitutional concerns, the recent abuses by the IRS when tasked with regulating political speech demonstrate just how easy it is for bureaucrats to manipulate rules meant to govern speech. These are rules that shouldn’t exist, period.

Some big cities have already begun handing out tax-funded “democracy vouchers.” In other words, politicians have passed legislation that subsidizes the speech of people who will, for the most part, support them. It’s quite the racket. Pelosi wants to take this corruption national.

Democrats will also include a provision in their package that would make tax-exempt 501(c)(4) charitable groups disclose donors who’ve given $10,000 or more during an election cycle. As I’ve written elsewhere, this obsession with eliminating anonymity is also a transparent attempt to chill speech and undermine minority opinions.

SOURCE

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Liberals want more power.

Bird of Paradise said...

As usial the Liberal Democrats want to abolish the Constitution have it replaced with various UN Treaties they want Open Borders and a totaly Disarmed Public all stupider then a Stump liberals and Liberal Democrats want

Anonymous said...

True Campaign Finance Reform:

We need a Constitutional Amendment setting a single qualification for how campaigns are financed.

Because incumbents can press for donations in exchange for favors we also need this.

Proposed amendment:


i) Only people who can vote for a candidate in an election for public office at any level can contribute to that candidate. No organizations may contribute at all, they can express their preference in communications to the members, employees, stockholders and contributors of their organization but they may not contribute in any material fashion outside of their organization.

ii) A campaign cannot borrow money, funds must be available to cover all purchases during the campaign so no debt exists at the end of the campaign.

iii) All money collected for a campaign that is not spent during the campaign or to close down and clean up after the campaign must be donated to charitable organizations.

iv) No money or contributions may be solicited by or pledged to the holder of a public office for a campaign to keep the office until it is possible for a challenger to declare their candidacy for that office by whatever method is chosen to allow candidates for that office to run a campaign.


What would change by adopting this?

Organizations be they corporations, unions, charities etc. would not longer be able to overpower the voice of the people by using their ability to contribute to campaigns. They would be allowed to inform their members their preferences and suggest that contributions be made but they cannot make them directly or indirectly.

Incumbents would no longer be able to build and maintain "war chests", being an incumbent they will still hold a superior position relative to a challenger but it will be not be as large an advantage.

This is the true campaign finance reform as opposed to all the previous bills that were claimed to be such but really were just vehicles to attempt to leverage the advantages of whichever party was in power while reducing the power of the party out of power.


Anonymous said...

Anon 8:20 the right to peaceably assemble, to form groups, and to collectively petition and lobby for political causes are generally considered fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution.
So fundamental are they this very right is contained IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!! You know, the amendment this whole site is about?!?
If you don't support that right, what are you doing here?

Spurwing Plover the fighting shorebird said...

POWER CORUPS AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORUPS ABSOLUTLY thats what the Democrats want along with the UN which was never realy created for World Peace

Anonymous said...

The Democrats cannot pass anything bad because the Republicans will not agree in the Senate,

Anonymous said...

the right to peaceably assemble, to form groups, and to collectively petition and lobby for political causes are generally considered fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution.
So fundamental are they this very right is contained IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!! You know, the amendment this whole site is about?!?
If you don't support that right, what are you doing here?


Trying to plug the gaping hole that lets our politicians who are supposed to be servants of the public become puppets of special interests. Did you not understand the simple reasons behind my suggestions?

The right to collectively work together is not denied by my suggestion but it will have to be done by persuasion, not coerced speech as it is today and there should never be a right for outsiders to insert their money into an election.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:20 and 5:16 - your very first point prohibits groups/organisations/non-individual entities from financially participating in our democracy.
Your reasons may be simple (along with your reasoning) - but prohibiting groups from contributing to causes violates the FIRST AMENDMENT!
It does not take much thought to understand that a group of like-minded individuals are going to be better able to have their voice heard and influence politics than each individual on their own. That applies equally to every group advocating every position. The right to peaceably assemble and petition is a fundamental right guaranteed in the constitution.
If you hate that right so much there are plenty of other countries that do not have that right you can live in.

Anonymous said...

No the proposed amendment does not prohibit groups and organizations from participating in our Republic. It explicitly allows them to persuade their members about who to vote for, what it prohibits is their directly or indirectly funding specific candidates.

It does not prevent them from spending on issues advocacy but it does prevent them from buying candidates which is a singularly huge problem.

Stymphalian Bird the man eating bird witha brass beak and shoots his feathers said...

Ninny Nancy WHINE WHINE WHINE' Lets hear lets hear her not feeling fine,snow flake snowflake falling from the sky,Lands on ground and quickly dies,So little snowflake you melt away,and there starts a brighter day