Finally agree with Josh Hawley on something

[archives]

”Hawley sparks McConnell battle over push to gut Citizens United ruling”

“Senator Josh Hawley is drawing the ire of top Senate Republicans after he proposed legislation that would end unlimited corporate donations to PACs, a key item in the Citizens United decision that has helped bankroll top GOP groups for more than a decade.”

“The bill caught the attention of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who criticized Hawley during the Senate GOP lunch Tuesday, multiple senators told The Hill, and warned Republicans that they shouldn’t join Hawley’s push. One senator added that the bill landed with a thud among the Senate GOP conference.”

“The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a group run by McConnell allies, was partially born out of the Citizens United decision and has been one of the most prominent groups supporting Senate GOP incumbents and candidates with funds of this sort.”

“He doesn’t like my bill,” Hawley said. “As an originalist, there is no original meaning giving corporations the right to make political contributions, and it’s warping our politics. It is giving them incredible power, and I just think it’s a big mistake.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4288563-hawley-mcconnell-battle-gut-citizens-united-ruling/

The irony, or I should say hypocrisy, here is that Hawley himself has accepted funding from SLF, and he does not want to eliminate secret donors, just corporate money. His motivation isn’t altruistic, rather he is pissed because companies pulled back funding for those GOP politicians as himself who echoed the 2020 Big Lie

But regardless of his idiocy and hypocrisy, the dimwit has a good idea, end corporate funding of politicians, although unless one did away with the secret donors also, it would be a useless effort. Hard to deny that Citizens United f*cked up America’s elections, these days one can buy a legislator if the price is right

 

[QP!]

This is an attempt by Maga to begin the process of trying to capture the Senate, now they have the House.

Mitch McConnell has been able to maintain the Senate as he raises massive amounts of money (thanks to Citizens United) and he doles it out, in election campaigns to get his chosen key Republi'cans' elected. Those Republi'cans' are loyal to him, whether they like him or not as he controls them thru that money.

Josh Hawley is the Maga face in the Senate and he is posturing to depower Mitch and get power in to the small donor, 'BASE' hands, which tend to be dominated by MAGATs.


That said i still think Citizen United should go.

 

[archives]

This is an attempt by Maga to begin the process of trying to capture the Senate, now they have the House.

Mitch McConnell has been able to maintain the Senate as he raises massive amounts of money (thanks to Citizens United) and he doles it out, in election campaigns to get his chosen key Republi'cans' elected. Those Republi'cans' are loyal to him, whether they like him or not as he controls them thru that money.

Josh Hawley is the Maga face in the Senate and he is posturing to depower Mitch and get power in to the small donor, 'BASE' hands, which tend to be dominated by MAGATs.


That said i still think Citizen United should go.

MaraLago didn’t have a lot of success in its Senate efforts in 2020, and continuing along the same lines won’t defeat Mitch

And it should go, it was a stupid decision, one of several of the Robert’s Court, as Breyer asked at the time, can corporate vote

 

[cawacko]

This is an attempt by Maga to begin the process of trying to capture the Senate, now they have the House.

Mitch McConnell has been able to maintain the Senate as he raises massive amounts of money (thanks to Citizens United) and he doles it out, in election campaigns to get his chosen key Republi'cans' elected. Those Republi'cans' are loyal to him, whether they like him or not as he controls them thru that money.

Josh Hawley is the Maga face in the Senate and he is posturing to depower Mitch and get power in to the small donor, 'BASE' hands, which tend to be dominated by MAGATs.


That said i still think Citizen United should go.

But it's pretty much always been that way (pre CU) at least as long as I've been following politics. Pelosi is my rep and she is a prodigious fund raiser which is a big reason she's been able to maintain power for so long because it really does help buy loyalty whether we like it or not.

This is random but came across some old video of George Carlin recently and him referencing all politicians being bought and paid for and this was decades ago. Even if we got rid of CU it's not like our system would really change.

 

[QP!]

MaraLago didn’t have a lot of success in its Senate efforts in 2020, and continuing along the same lines won’t defeat Mitch

And it should go, it was a stupid decision, one of several of the Robert’s Court, as Breyer asked at the time, can corporate vote

Republi'cans' are increasing pushing the right of Corporations to vote.

The goal is that since the republi'cans' and uber rich are losing the popular vote increasingly and facing future legislative shifts they may not be able to control, that if they can get corporations a right to vote, then rich people can just create a massive number of corporations, all with the right to vote, to counter the 'liberal' shift.

The below is not the only such case...

Corporations Are People. Voting Laws Should Follow.

Corporations are people, or at least people-adjacent, and as such, we are guaranteed certain unalienable rights, including the right to vote (see 26th Amendment).

During this past legislative session, the Delaware House of Representatives passed a bill that allows corporations the right to vote in Seaford municipal elections (House Substitute 1 for House Bill 121), and it’s about time. ...

 

[QP!]

But it's pretty much always been that way (pre CU) at least as long as I've been following politics. Pelosi is my rep and she is a prodigious fund raiser which is a big reason she's been able to maintain power for so long because it really does help buy loyalty whether we like it or not.

This is random but came across some old video of George Carlin recently and him referencing all politicians being bought and paid for and this was decades ago. Even if we got rid of CU it's not like our system would really change.

yes. But Bernie first and many Progressives, followed by Trump and many like Matt Gaetz, were able to get money via the base directly via smaller dollar donations.

That allows them to defy the old guard leadership more, as they are not reliant on their cash to stay in their seat.

Mitch still has tight control over the Senate for that reason. Take away his fund raising and instantly he loses that and that is what Trump wants.

 

[cawacko]

yes. But Bernie first and many Progressives, followed by Trump and many like Matt Gaetz, were able to get money via the base directly via smaller dollar donations.

That allows them to defy the old guard leadership more, as they are not reliant on their cash to stay in their seat.

Mitch still has tight control over the Senate for that reason. Take away his fund raising and instantly he loses that and that is what Trump wants.

Not a rhetorical question, does getting rid of CU change that? It’s not like money in politics is a new thing, just how it flows has changed.

In the past the Chamber of Commerce and many corporations were seen as more supporters of Republicans. In recent times, not as much. The #MAGA types see corporations today as more woke etc. and corporate dollars no longer have the same appeal (and aren’t coming their way).

Will be interesting for the more “corporate” Dems who may speak out against CU but actually like being the recipient of new corporate dollars coming their direction.

 

[QP!]

Not a rhetorical question, does getting rid of CU change that? It’s not like money in politics is a new thing, just how it flows has changed.

In the past the Chamber of Commerce and many corporations were seen as more supporters of Republicans. In recent times, not as much. The #MAGA types see corporations today as more woke etc. and corporate dollars no longer have the same appeal (and aren’t coming their way).

Will be interesting for the more “corporate” Dems who may speak out against CU but actually like being the recipient of new corporate dollars coming their direction.

Ya it would take way more than that to get money out of politics...or the Supreme Court... or the Main Stream media... etc. BUt it would be a good start.

 

[cawacko]

Opinion piece from today's Journal:




Josh Hawley’s Unoriginal Constitution

The Missouri Senator wants to rewrite Citizens United and the First Amendment.


Since the Supreme Court unleashed independent political spending in 2010’s Citizens United v. FEC, progressives have forecast the ruin of American politics by corporate spending. More than a decade on, elections are competitive and no doom has come to pass, but the same false alarm is now making the rounds on the political right.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has introduced legislation to reverse Citizens United as a way to punish corporations whose progressive politics he dislikes. He told RealClearPolitics that his “goal is to get corporate money out of our politics,” and to stop companies from “controlling our elections.”

So big government to the rescue. The Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act would ban contributions or donations by publicly traded corporations. That includes donations to political committees, independent expenditures and any “disbursement for an electioneering communication.”

The bill proposes no changes to the political activities of labor unions, which also had their speech rights affirmed by Citizens United. That’s a telling omission that suggests Mr. Hawley is looking for allies on the left. Mr. Hawley knows the bill has little chance of becoming law in the current Congress and that the Supreme Court wouldn’t look fondly on this rewrite of the First Amendment. But the current Court majority may not last, as Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are both in their 70s.

Mr. Hawley’s exercise aligns with the progressive notion that money is corrupting and that too much of it rigs elections and leads hapless voters to the wrong decision. In April 2022, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) tweeted that Citizens United “super-charged the schemes of big corporate and right-wing donors to rig our government in their favor.”

The Supreme Court addressed that conceit directly in Citizens United. In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that “when Government seeks to use its full power . . . to command where a person may get his or her information, or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought.” That’s “unlawful” because the First Amendment “confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

Mr. Hawley says he’s the real constitutional “originalist” because he believes there is no independent personhood for corporations. That was the argument made in the Citizens United partial dissent by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. He wrote that corporations “have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires” and that corporate personhood is a “legal fiction.”

It’s not that simple. Corporations are made up of citizens, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in his Citizens United concurrence. The Framers guaranteed free speech for individuals, Justice Scalia wrote, but “the individual person’s right to speak includes the right to speak in association with other individual persons,” and that is as true for a corporation as for a political party. Corporations are assemblies of employees and shareholders who share an interest in political decisions that could harm their business.

Mr. Hawley knows this, but he is picking up the issue because he also knows corporations are unpopular these days. Some corporations have rightly earned conservative disdain, but there are other ways to pick a fight with woke America than by selling out basic conservative values such as free speech and the First Amendment’s explicit right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Mr. Hawley wants to deny corporations their right to influence laws or regulations that affect them. Bernie Sanders goes to sleep at night dreaming of such a political world.

Campaign spending is a form of political speech, as the Supreme Court has ruled in multiple cases. The left wants to rewrite the First Amendment so it can limit who can speak. “If speech can be prohibited because, in the view of the Government, it leads to ‘moral decay’ or does not serve ‘public ends,’” Justice Scalia wrote, “then there is no limit to the Government’s censorship power.”

This is the philosophy that Josh Hawley now embraces.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/josh-h...eme-court-2bc23f4d?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

 

[Damocles]

It seems it would limit donations to PACs that Billionaire Dems have used constantly in every election in places like Colorado to try to take over Secretary of State offices, AG offices, etc. Hawley may be trying to limit Soros' donations and getting pats on the back from Dems who pretend that they've never had anyone give some unlimited funds to PACs in their favor.

However, organizations of folks do have a first amendment right... There is nothing in the First Amendment limiting the right to solely individuals, you have a right to assemble (that's what a corporation is, an assembly of owners), and the assembled have a right to petition their government and to free speech... So. I think Hawley will find he's gone and supported something that would be overturned.

 

[QP!]

It seems it would limit donations to PACs that Billionaire Dems have used constantly in every election in places like Colorado to try to take over Secretary of State offices, AG offices, etc. Hawley may be trying to limit Soros' donations and getting pats on the back from Dems who pretend that they've never had anyone give some unlimited funds to PACs in their favor.

However, organizations of folks do have a first amendment right... There is nothing in the First Amendment limiting the right to solely individuals, you have a right to assemble (that's what a corporation is, an assembly of owners), and the assembled have a right to petition their government and to free speech... So. I think Hawley will find he's gone and supported something that would be overturned.

Ahahahahaha.

Every time you post you prove what a partisan hack you are while always trying to pretend you are not.

And i have no issues with partisans. Argue your side. It is the abject cowardice of those who feel the need to lie and hide it that i object to.

Both Dem's and Republi'cans' have dark money Billionaires but it is overwhelmingly the republi'cans' billionaires who pile in the most money at all levels.

The SC, the Lower Courts, Andrew Yangs run, Robert Kennedy's run, No Labels, Cornell West run, all funded by Republi'can' dark money Billionaires