2017.12.14:
. representatives should be more of a lobbyist,
representing my group's particular interests
rather than the interests of
the group I'm geographically with;
the key to proper representation
is moving to a virtual city
where everyone thinks like you
and your wishes are not nullified
by an opposing majority.
. so, how to find your lobbyist?
learn the issues;
locate your position in multi-dimensional issue space,
place your issues into essential vs nice-to-have categories;
computer shows space of group you're in
and shows larger groups you are close to but not exact match;
the larger your group the more votes your rep has;
eg, for every 1000 people in your virtual city,
your virtual city's rep gets 1 vote.
2018.7.31: web:
represent.us`intro to Lobbyists:
Lobbyists are hired by a special interest group
to represent their interests to Congress.
Lobbying encourages people to
play an active role in their government
— it’s protected by the First Amendment
as our right “to petition the government.”
Those of us who can’t afford to hire a lobbyist
or make big campaign contributions are out of luck.
Getting into and staying in Congress
requires a lot of money these days:
sometimes $1.6 million to win a seat in the House.
Lobbyists sponsor fundraisers
that raise tens of thousands of dollars
in a single afternoon.
Let’s say you’re a bank
and you want a senator to vote your way.
You can’t just give him a $100,000 bribe.
Instead, you hire a lobbying firm.
Your lobbyist can now throw a fundraiser
and collect $100,000 for the senator’s campaign.
For every dollar top companies spend lobbying,
they get an average $220 in federal support and tax savings.
So the Return On Investment For Lobbying is 22,000%.
Lobbyists can offer a member of Congress
a future multi-million dollar salary
working at their lobbying firm.
--known as “the revolving door”
Members of Congress who become lobbyists
see their salaries increase on average 1,452%.
The Citizens United court ruling in 2010
allowed for the creation of
independent political organizations
(now called “super PACs”)
that are allowed to raise unlimited amounts
of money to promote a candidate,
as long as they don’t coordinate with
the candidate’s official campaign.
Overturning Citizens United — reinstating
the same limits and disclosure laws
that apply to official campaign funds
— wouldn’t stop lobbyists’ ability to
donate hundreds of thousands of dollars
to congressmembers’ election funds,
throw them massive fundraisers,
and offer them future high-salary lobbying jobs.
intro to Super PACs:
Super PACs, officially known as
"independent-expenditure only committees",
may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties,
but may engage in unlimited political spending
independently of the campaigns.
Unlike traditional PACs, they can raise funds from
individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups
without any legal limit on donation size.[19]
The result of the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org decisions
was the rise of a new type of political action committee in 2010,
popularly dubbed the "super PAC".[20]
The term "Super PAC" was coined by reporter Eliza Newlin Carney.
writing on June 26, 2010, of a group called Workers’ Voices,
that it was a kind of '"super PAC" that could become
increasingly popular in the post-Citizens United world.'"[24]
According to FEC advisories, Super PACs are
not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties.
This restriction is intended to prevent them from
operating campaigns that complement or parallel
those of the candidates they support
or engaging in negotiations that could result in
quid pro quo bargaining between donors to the PAC
and the candidate or officeholder.
However, it is legal for candidates and Super PAC managers
to discuss campaign strategy and tactics through the media.[25][26]
Super PACs may support particular candidacies.
In the 2012 election campaign, most of the money given to super PACs
came from wealthy individuals, not corporations.[27]
According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics,
the top 100 individual super PAC donors in 2011–2012
made up just 3.7% of contributors,
but accounted for more than 80% of the total money raised,[30]
while less than 0.5% of the money given to
"the most active Super PACs"
was donated by publicly traded corporations.[31]
Super PACs have been criticized for
relying heavily on negative ads.[32]
Disclosure rules
By January 2010, at least 38 states and the federal government
required disclosure for all or some independent expenditures
or electioneering communications.[34]
These disclosures were intended to deter
potentially or seemingly corrupting donations.[35][36]
Yet despite disclosure rules, it is possible to
spend money without voters knowing
the identities of donors before the election.[37]
In federal elections, for example,
political action committees have the option to
choose to file reports on a "monthly"
or "quarterly" basis.[38][39][40]
This allows funds raised by PACs in the final days of the election
to be spent and votes cast before the report is due.
In one high-profile case, a donor to a super PAC
kept his name hidden by using an LLC formed for the purpose of
hiding their personal name.[41]
One super PAC, that originally listed a $250,000 donation
from an LLC that no one could find,
led to a subsequent filing where the
previously "secret donors" were revealed.[42]
However, campaign finance experts have argued that
this tactic is already illegal,
since it would constitute a contribution in the name of another.[43]
impact of Citizens United v. FEC:
At least in the Republican Party,
the Citizens United ruling has weakened
the fund raising power of the Republican "establishment"
in the form of the "three major" Republican campaign committees
(Republican National Committee,
National Republican Congressional Committee,
National Republican Senatorial Committee).[153]
Columnist Thomas B. Edsall notes that in 2008,
"the last election before the Citizens United decision",
the three campaign committees "raised six times" the money
that "nonparty conservative organizations" did
— $657.6 million vs. $111.9 million.
By 2016 those party committees raised
less than the independent groups
— $652.4 million v. $810.4 million.
The Citizens United ruling "opened the door" for
unlimited election spending by corporations,
but most of this spending has "ended up being funneled through
the groups that have become known as super PACs."[141]
Critics predicted that the ruling would
"bring about a new era of corporate influence in politics,"
allowing companies and businesspeople to "buy elections"
to promote their financial interests.
Instead large expenditures, usually through "Super PACS,"
have come from "a small group of billionaires",
based largely on ideology.
This has shifted power "away from the political parties
and toward the ... donors themselves.
In part, this explains the large number and variety of
candidates fielded by the Republicans in 2016."[141]
The ability of individuals to spend unlimited sums
was first affirmed by the Supreme Court,
however, not in Citizens United,
but in Buckley v. Valeo, decided in 1976.
Super PACs
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
has often been credited for the creation of "super PACs",
political action committees which make
no financial contributions to candidates or parties,
and so can accept unlimited contributions from
individuals, corporations and unions.
Certainly, the holding in Citizens United
helped affirm the legal basis for super PACs by deciding that,
for purposes of establishing a "compelling
government interest" of corruption
sufficient to justify government limitations on political speech,
"independent expenditures, including those made by corporations,
do not give rise to corruption
or the appearance of corruption".[142]
However, it took another decision, by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,
Speechnow.org v. Federal Election Commission,
to actually authorize the creation of super PACs.
While Citizens United held that corporations and unions
could make independent expenditures,
a separate provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act,
at least as long interpreted by the Federal Election Commission,
held that individuals could not contribute to a common fund
without it becoming a PAC.
PACs, in turn, were not allowed to accept corporate or union contributions of any size
or to accept individual contributions in excess of $5,000.
In Speechnow.org, the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, held 9–0
that in light of Citizens United,
such restrictions on the sources and size of contributions
could not apply to an organization that made only
independent expenditures in support of or opposition to a candidate
but not contributions to a candidate's campaign.
In addition to indirectly providing
support for the creation of super PACs,
Citizens United allowed incorporated 501(c)(4) public advocacy groups
(such as the National Rifle Association,
the Sierra Club, and the group Citizens United itself)
and trade associations
to make expenditures in political races.
Such groups may not, under the tax code,
have a primary purpose of engaging in electoral advocacy.
These organizations must disclose their expenditures,
but unlike super PACs they do not have to include
the names of their donors in their FEC filings.
A number of partisan organizations such as Karl Rove's
influential conservative Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies
and the liberal 21st Century Colorado
have since registered as tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups
(defined as groups promoting "social welfare")
and engaged in substantial political spending.[144][145]
This has led to claims[146][147][148] of
large secret donations,[6][149]
and questions about whether such groups
should be required to disclose their donors.
Historically, such non-profits have not been required
to disclose their donors or names of members.
In an August 2015 essay in Der Spiegel,
Markus Feldkirchen wrote that
the Citizens United decision was "now becoming
visible for the first time" in federal elections
as the super-rich have "radically" increased donations
to support their candidates and positions via super PACs.
Feldkirchen also said in the first six months of 2015
the candidates and their super PACs received close to $400 million:
"far more than in the entire previous campaign."
He opined that super-rich
donating more than ever before to individual campaigns
plus the "enormous" chasm in wealth
has given the super-rich the power to steer the
economic and political direction of the United States
and undermine its democracy.[150]
In October 2015, the New York Times observed that
just 158 super-rich families each contributed $250,000 or more,
while an additional 200 families gave more than $100,000
for the 2016 presidential election.
Both groups contributed almost half of the
"early money" for candidates in the 2016 presidential election
as of June 30, 2015 through channels like super PACs
legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.[151][152]
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