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Thread: Do Campaign Finance Reforms Insulate Incumbents from Competition?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Flash View Post
    So, she wasn't bribed by wealthy donors? That just destroyed your entire argument.
    But none of this actually answers the non-rhetorical question of; if a candidate or elected representative didn't have to spend 90% of their time raising money, what would they do to attract voters and increase voter turnout?
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    CONGRESS SPENDS MORE TIME DIALING FOR DOLLARS THAN ON LEGISLATIVE WORK
    This past Sunday, April 24th, 2016, 60 Minutes broadcast an exposé unveiling the outrageous phone banking operations of an uncontrollable D.C. political machine. It couldn’t be clearer that Washington is more about making money than it is about effective governing. The American public already has a low opinion of Congress. At last check, they had a 14% approval rating yet 90% of them get re-elected.

    During the broadcast, David Jolly, a Republican Congressman from Florida, claims he was told that his responsibility, as a sitting member of Congress, was to raise $18,000 per day. While legislators and staff are prohibited by law from making fundraising calls from their offices, both Republicans and Democrats are free to do so at party owned call centers down the block.
    60 Minutes took a hidden camera into the private backrooms of National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) operations. Jolly describes these offices as “sweat shop phone booths that compromise the dignity of the office.” (<---and he's a Teabag Republican Asshole)
    https://www.termlimits.com/congress-...sing-priority/

    TIME SUCK: HOW THE FUNDRAISING TREADMILL DIMINISHES EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE
    For federal elected officials, one of the causes of the lack of time to craft policy (the job they are elected to do) is caused by political fundraising burdens (the distraction). As one Congressman put it bluntly: "campaign fundraising has become an incredible “time suck” for lawmakers."
    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e1...21d18f6cfd.pdf

    AN INSIDE LOOK AT CONGRESSIONAL FUNDRAISING
    It also requires a lot of time. Incoming lawmakers are instructed to spend upwards of four hours per day raising money
    https://gai.georgetown.edu/an-inside...l-fundraising/
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  3. #153 | Top
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    An actual study:

    Campaign Contributions Influence Public Policy, Finds Study of 50 State Legislatures
    What voting studies cannot detect are the important, but less observable, opportunities to shape legislation that occur earlier in the legislative process.
    https://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=4060
    Paper here: http://www.cfinst.org/pdf/papers/02_..._Influence.pdf

    It goes on to say:

    Early studies focused on the linkage between PAC donations and roll call votes in Congress. Some of these studies found contributions influenced votes, but many others did not. While methodologically it is difficult to estimate the causal influence of donations, the larger problem is that much of the influence of donations is likely to occur earlier in the legislative process, when decisions are made about earmarks and other details of legislation that matter greatly to donors.

    That's what they're talking about at their high-dollar fundraisers, Flash. The same ones most of them attend every evening. And we know this to be true because of this:

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    Your link at the top of this thread doesn't speak to the influence donors have on the political process...it just theorizes that in a public campaign system, incumbents would be more likely to win...which isn't surprising because an incumbent that doesn't have to spend 90% of their time raising money can instead use that reclaimed time to do their legislative and representative duties.

    Doing that kind of thing will reward the candidate with votes.

    Or, if the candidate writes and passes legislation their constituents don't like, has to defend that record in order to retain those voters or gain more.

    Now, isn't that way more representation than going to a "sweat shop" to call rich people for money?
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    Some more, because I know how much Flash loves multiple sources:

    Issue One CEO Nick Penniman talked about the amount of time that members of Congress spend fundraising. He recounted anecdotes from members of Congress, explained how fundraising has changed and how it affects their ability to legislate.
    https://www.c-span.org/video/?c47067...ising-congress

    How Much Time Do Congress-Members Spend Fundraising?
    2/3 according to Tom Daschle
    https://bulletin.represent.us/much-t...d-fundraising/

    Can the internet save Congress from “call time”?
    In politics, the fundraising really never ends, with new campaigns often beginning as soon as the last one ends. But some politicians are trying to disrupt the traditional fundraising model, leveraging small online donations to avoid the practice of courting big donors.

    Several presidential candidates have said they will avoid corporate political action committee money, and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has promised to avoid “call time,” when candidates can spend hours a day on the phone with donors to raise money for their campaign and the party. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, has also said she won’t take time out of her day to work the phones.
    https://www.marketplace.org/2019/03/...ess-call-time/

    ^GEE, ISN'T THIS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING??????

    Will Flash change his mind in light of all this evidence? Of course not, because Flash is a lazy arrogant turd who makes shit up about himself, and can't bring himself to admit that someone else might actually know more about something than him.
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    John Oliver did an entire segment about this:

    HBO’s John Oliver Exposes the Absurd and Awful Ways Congress Members Raise Money:



    He works for HBO, so he doesn't have to worry about pissing off advertisers.
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    Yet another retiring member of congress complains about the misery of fundraising
    The latest to follow this pattern is Steve Israel, the Democratic New York congressman and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (the Democrats' main fundraising committee for House races). By his own estimate in a New York Times op-ed, he "spent roughly 4,200 hours in call time, attended more than 1,600 fund-raisers just for my own campaign and raised nearly $20 million in increments of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 per election cycle."

    "I attended political action committee fund-raisers, which are like panhandling with hors d'oeuvres. There were hours of "call time" huddled in a cubicle, dialing donors. Sometimes double dialing and triple dialing. Whispering sweet nothings and other small talk into the phone in hopes of receiving large somethings. I'd sit next to an assistant who collated "call sheets" with donor's names, contribution histories and other useful information. ("How's Sheila? Your wife. Oh, Shelly? Sorry.")"

    https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/1...sing-miserable

    Just because you're woefully ignorant of money in politics, and don't care to educate yourself or put in the work, doesn't mean it isn't the single corrupting factor in it.

    It just means you are either being willfully ignorant or you're just the most naïve and dense person in America.
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    And it's not just liberals who see the problem for what it is...even Conservatives know it's a problem:

    Being in Congress is still all about fundraising, and voters are tired of it
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/b...re-tired-of-it

    Campaign cash trumps work in Congress, ex-members say | Secrets of the Hill
    https://www.courierpress.com/story/n...ll/1457433002/

    Why Do Congressmen Spend Only Half Their Time Serving Us?
    https://www.newsweek.com/why-do-cong...ving-us-357995

    Congress has collectively spent 94 years fundraising since 2015
    Just 0.29 percent of Americans have contributed more than $200 to political campaigns this election cycle. This matters because when members of Congress dial for dollars, they aren’t calling people who can only give $5 or $10—they’re often not even calling people in their districts or home states. Instead they’re talking to a tiny sliver of the population that has a very different set of concerns than the average voter. The result is a congressional agenda bent heavily in favor of the priorities of the wealthy.
    https://www.issueone.org/congress-co...ng-since-2015/

    Flash sees no problem with any of this.
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    It just goes on and on...

    Insight: In Washington, lawmakers' routines shaped by fundraising
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...95B05520130612

    Bullock calls to limit fundraising of lawmakers, president
    “Expecting our elected leaders to spend at least half of their time actually doing their jobs might sound radical in D.C., but for the rest of us it’s just common sense,” Bullock said in a statement. “Washington hasn’t passed a budget on time in more than 20 years, yet members of Congress spend half their days soliciting donations from wealthy donors and big corporations. It’s time for our elected officials to do their job instead of spending their time on a never-ending re-election campaign.”
    https://apnews.com/fb8dc7ff6e3e41f68ed5721f9bc1e98e

    WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE ROLODEXED: ONE CANDIDATE’S JOURNEY INTO THE REALITY OF POLITICAL FUNDRAISING
    "The time spent courting donors disconnects you from voters"
    https://theintercept.com/2018/01/31/...draising-dccc/

    This is what "putting in the work" means, Flash...not attempting to glide by on your unearned and underserved privilege of fake anecdotes and broad assumptions.
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    I'm realizing that Flash won't read a single thing I posted because if he did, he'd have to change his mind and agree with me, and that is something he simply cannot do on a personal level.

    So to summarize:

    1. Incumbency isn't bad if it's in a system where the incumbent doesn't have to solicit cash from out-of-state wealthy donors and corporations, forcing the incumbent to do constituent outreach and accomplish legislative goals.

    2.
    Most politicians spend at least half of their time calling those big out-of-state donors for money

    3. While attending these high-dollar fundraisers and receptions, the candidate are inundated by elites with different political values than the majority of their constituency. That influence then carries its way early into the political process, as the study I linked to showed.

    4. AOC and Warren both refused to do "call times", choosing instead to appeal to small donors on social media, not getting funding from unnamed, ambiguous "liberal groups" as Flash alleged.

    5. The corrupting influence of money in politics is precisely why the system is so fucked...which is why most representatives spend little time engaging with their constituents...which is why 50% of voters don't even show up to vote.

    So, I'm not sure how any of that is an indictment of a public campaign finance system, which based on all the above, seems a much better, more efficient, less costly way to do it. One that actually increases civic engagement, letting politicians do their actual jobs which is to legislate and represent the people in their district/state.
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    The other part of the equation is who gets that money. It goes to TV networks to run ads, to companies that produce them, newspapers and the internet for ads. It is unlikely that TV and other media will come out for changing the system. It is a dependable cash cow.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nordberg View Post
    The other part of the equation is who gets that money. It goes to TV networks to run ads, to companies that produce them, newspapers and the internet for ads. It is unlikely that TV and other media will come out for changing the system. It is a dependable cash cow.
    Yep.

    But also, a lot of that money goes to lobbyists, campaign officials, and "consultants" like Paul Manafort, a compromised Russian asset.
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    Quote Originally Posted by LV426 View Post
    But none of this actually answers the non-rhetorical question of; if a candidate or elected representative didn't have to spend 90% of their time raising money, what would they do to attract voters and increase voter turnout?
    They don't spend 90% of their time. And that was not the issue. You said the legislative votes of members are determined by campaign contributions. Now you have backed off that claim by claiming "but not for AOC." Partisanship determines your facts.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LV426 View Post
    Early studies focused on the linkage between PAC donations and roll call votes in Congress. Some of these studies found contributions influenced votes, but many others did not. While methodologically it is difficult to estimate the causal influence of donations, the larger problem is that much of the influence of donations is likely to occur earlier in the legislative process, when decisions are made about earmarks and other details of legislation that matter greatly to donors.
    This is what I said from the very beginning. Most of the studies find little or no relationship between legislative votes and campaign contributions.

    I never said the time they spend fundraising is not a problem, but that was not the topic. When you found the studies agreed with my original point you switched the argument to calling time. Calling time could easily be eliminated without public financing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LV426 View Post
    You seem to think that money is speech.

    And if we go with that premise that money is speech, then we can't say that we have free speech. Because some people will have more speech than others. Does that sound democratic to you?
    Money is speech, even you agree when it is Unions supporting a candidate that it is so. Everything they do costs money, and the money they are spending is covered by the First Amendment because they use it to buy ads, etc. which is Free Speech...

    You can make laws that say you have to tell people who bought the ad, but you cannot make a law saying you can only say "this much" because money. The First Amendment applies...

    The people with less money get to assemble and spend the money of the assembly on ads, etc. (unions, PACs).
    Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
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    Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.
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