How important is the Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett case from 2011?
In my view, the decision to overturn the Clean Election law in this case was far worse than Citizens United.
By ending the speech subsidies for outspent candidates and saying that a right to respond went against the 1st amendment, the Court seemed to have created a doctrine of "freedom FROM speech" for the rich.
The voucher system you're proposing will give money directly to candidates...but I'm afraid that this won't work unless candidates can ONLY spend vouchers. Unfortunately, the court has opposed limiting candidate spending in the interest of "fairness" since Buckley. They also think that "corruption" isn't related to spending, only campaign donations .
The Court has been controlling campaign finance reform since Buckley in 1976. Maybe as their decisions get increasingly worse they will cause a response from the general public. So, hey, maybe there's an upside to (inevitable?) bad decision that we'll see with McCutcheon. I gotta hope!
Anyway, thanks for all your work! You inspired me to learn about this very serious and fundamental problem with our democracy.
shaokingkong1 karma
How important is the Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett case from 2011?
In my view, the decision to overturn the Clean Election law in this case was far worse than Citizens United.
By ending the speech subsidies for outspent candidates and saying that a right to respond went against the 1st amendment, the Court seemed to have created a doctrine of "freedom FROM speech" for the rich.
The voucher system you're proposing will give money directly to candidates...but I'm afraid that this won't work unless candidates can ONLY spend vouchers. Unfortunately, the court has opposed limiting candidate spending in the interest of "fairness" since Buckley. They also think that "corruption" isn't related to spending, only campaign donations .
The Court has been controlling campaign finance reform since Buckley in 1976. Maybe as their decisions get increasingly worse they will cause a response from the general public. So, hey, maybe there's an upside to (inevitable?) bad decision that we'll see with McCutcheon. I gotta hope!
Anyway, thanks for all your work! You inspired me to learn about this very serious and fundamental problem with our democracy.
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