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WillAdams 4 hours ago

My solution for this is to rate-limit political contributions --- they may only be made in an amount equal to what a minimum-wage worker might reasonably be expected to donate from a week's wages (say 10% of hourly min. wage * 40), as a physically written out check or money order physically signed by hand (at least an "X" mark) and mailed in a first-class envelope with at least a similarly signed cover letter explaining the reason for the donation.

If this causes the extinction of the political lobbyist, I'm fine with that.

malfist 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Most of the money in politics isn't direct contribution to candidates, it's PACs.

PACs are just groups that do advocacy of some sort. Some do things like advise congress people on legislation they'd like passed, some run ads to campaign for positions or candidates, some advocate for movements.

What they're not supposed to be doing is directly coordinating with a candidate, or running ads just for a candidate. But that's a line that has been continually fuzzed.

An example of a good PAC might be something like the HRC (human rights commission) that campaigns for LGBTQ rights.

ashleyn 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is the central problem with Citizens United. The supreme court tends to be unusually deferential with 1A cases and ruled that infinite money can go into formally unaffiliated PACs. Undoing this would require activist judges or a constitutional amendment.

uncletscollie 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Activist judges?

The supreme court is majority activist judges. Why cant new judges undo the old activist judges wrongly decided law? Why are the other new judges suddenly activists?

jmcgough 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

PACs and dark money have been a disaster for this country

reddozen 22 minutes ago | parent [-]

must be pretty upsetting that sitting president Trump has tens of billions in 2 dark money shitcoins and owns a majority stake in crypto company World Liberty Financial. Just 0.001% of the total sum Hunter Biden was allegedly corrupt over (no evidence).

who could have seen this coming.. twice.

Gigachad 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

These days instead of paying out politicians you just buy social media bots or even the whole platform to push propaganda to the general public so they start agreeing with you.

root_axis 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What's to prevent them from just ignoring those restrictions?

CGMthrowaway 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Bundling would get around that to some extent

WillAdams 3 hours ago | parent [-]

1 check would require 2 x marks and 1 envelope and 1 stamp (or other indicia) --- just paying minimum-wage folks for stuffing envelopes and making "X"s would probably result in this being equivalent to a job creation program, and it would probably save the USPS.