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When Lobbying was Illegal

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Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#111

Post by BurningFrog »

tomp wrote: post #38
BurningFrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious solution to this is to make it easier for politicians to raise money. Instead everyone is demanding to make it harder. The lack of Economics instinct is costly for our society.

Advertising, in any market, is a race to the bottom (to the top, really, in terms of cost). If everyone spends 100% on advertising, only the advertising platforms benefit, not the advertisers themselves. It would be much better to ban all lobbying, so each candidate would only have a very small amount o fmoney to spend on elections, and people would be less manipulated into voting them.

A system where no candidate has campaign money does not produce an even playing field. It gives the incumbent and/or famous candidate an even bigger advantage than now.

Indeed, I think the best explanation for the campaign finance laws of the recent decades is that they're intended to protect the incumbents that enacted them.

Your argument rests on the idea that the candidate with the most money always wins. This is the "common sense" model, but it's not supported by empirical data.

In reality election victory is related to money the same way individual happiness is:

Without money a person will not be happy, and a candidate will not be elected. But once you have enough money for a comfortable life/campaign, more money does little to improve things.

Once you've made all voters aware of who you are and what you stand for, your campaign has done the advertising it needs. Telling them again and again will change very little. Jeb Bush is the latest of many well funded failed candidates showing this.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#112

Post by BurningFrog »

int_19h wrote: post #35
jeffdavis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralizing power makes corruption much more efficient.

It also makes it more expensive. A freight train is more efficient in terms of cost per unit of mass moved, but few can afford one, and you'd need to have a lot of things in need of moving to even bother. Decentralized power is cheaper, not on the per-"unit of power" basis, but in terms of absolute numbers for real (albeit small and local) problems that it can solve for a price. Such corruption, because it deals with…

No, it's cheaper to buy 1 legislature then 50.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#113

Post by jameshart »

newjersey wrote: post #50
danieltillett wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their staff. If you want to know more about this idea see [1]. 1. http://www.thirty-thousand.org

Smaller congressional districts could also help decrease the effect of gerrymandering. This is interesting. On the other hand, will we make ourselves even more vulnerable to "grassroots campaigns" like the tea party and lobbies like Alec? I'm not an expert but there are mathematically and sociologically sound alternatives that are better than what you and I can prescribe. I'd prefer one of those.

Not sure why smaller districts prevent gerrymandering. Small districts can be more easily targeted to homogenous communities - you could create a few almost 100% democrat districts in the center of a city, then surround that with 60% republican 40% democrat mixes of city suburb and exurb to turn a popular democrat majority into an entrenched republican majority (inverse gerrymanders are of course also possible). And you could do that without having to create long thin districts that wrap round cities if the districts were smaller making it harder to object to the gerrymander on the grounds that a district is not compact.

In fact any proposal which claims that making districts more homogenous in their voting behavior - "80% of people in this town vote republican so why don't we just make a district that reflects that commonality," for example - is effectively gerrymandering and disenfranchisement harming both sides. 20% of the population of that town will always be ignored. 30% of that town are casting republican votes that don't matter at a larger level, and which don't contribute to countering a democrat vote.

Seems to me smaller districts would be more likely to exhibit those alignments and disenfranchise more people?

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#114

Post by jokoon »

I wonder if we could agree that technology really allowed money to be transformed into speech, which is something the founding fathers could not have really envisioned. So maybe restricting political message in the media would be a solution? Although I don't really know as I am not an american.

Anyway, as long as unfettered free speech is put on a pedestal, it's never guaranteed to always benefit the public.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#115

Post by specialist »

danieltillett wrote: post #48
entee wrote: post #15

Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists for money. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f... The cost of congressional elections has…

The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their staff. If you want to know more about this idea see [1]. 1. http://www.thirty-thousand.org

increase the politicians you take away their staff

Respectfully disagree. It's not that easy.

Legislating is an information processing problem. The politics of attention. All the legislators I know can barely keep up with the torrent of information. Overwhelming them with info and votes and meetings prevents them from taking initiative. They need more staff.

All games have winners and losers. Weakening legislators -- thru term limits, cutting staff, whatever -- strengthens lobbyists and administrators (heads of departments, the silent state) and executives.

My baptism to the policy world flipped most of my positions.

Some measures that would strengthen legislators, give them more autonomy, would be public financing of campaigns (no more dialing for dollars), public disclosure commissions, pay raises and full time employment (so regular people, not just lawyers and retirees, could serve), full staffs, recording every vote (disallowing roll call voice votes), lengthen the legislative calendar, diffuse power thru more fair committee assignments (not just seniority), etc, etc.

There's no shortage of worthy reform proposals. Just mind the winners and losers with every rule change.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#116

Post by bmelton »

nxzero wrote: post #72
entee wrote: post #15

Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists for money. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f... The cost of congressional elections has…

Irony is that Congress could just pass a law providing the funds to run a campaign and ban lobbying.

Well, no, they probably can't. Under Citizens United and FEC v McCutcheon, the idea of banning lobbying (at least via SuperPac) is a non-starter with the courts. That may have changed with Scalia's passage, but under current precedent, you can't ban it, whether or not you replace it with something else for the party insiders.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#117

Post by specialist »

barrkel wrote: post #86
danieltillett wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their staff. If you want to know more about this idea see [1]. 1. http://www.thirty-thousand.org

Ireland works this way; there are about 25k voters per representative. What happens is clientilism: representatives become very concerned with local issues and neglect national issues. Corruption of a different, more local kind, is encouraged.

Corruption of a different, more local kind, is encouraged.

I'd love some of that where I live. I now fully embrace transactional politics. Quid pro quo.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#118

Post by bmelton »

ta0967 wrote: post #106
wildmusings wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ultimately a spending limit boils down to "you're not allowed to air this film" because you already spent too much. In fact, that's exactly what the Citizens United case was. We have a Bill of Rights which guarantees that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

have public tv "air this film"? of course, you need strong democratic institutions like said public tv.

What this amounts to is Michael Moore now has to make his movies for $2700 (assuming that's the limit) instead of the $20 million he's making them for now.

The reason Citizens United was decided the way it was is because it costs money to make movies, and even if you somehow allocate public money towards the distribution of the film on PBS or whatever, you're still insisting that the movie makers aren't allowed to spend more of their money to make the movie to their own standards.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#119

Post by specialist »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #88
entee wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea. One thing though, this won't work unless people vote. A major reason the system doesn't work well today is because only the most extreme voters turn out for primaries. Even if you reduce gerrymandering, it's hard to eliminate entirely. On the other hand, in smaller districts the electorate will be more likely to share opinions and interests so maybe that counteracts the problem?

Moving to proportional representation would greatly curtail gerrymandering or even eliminate it altogether, especially with some sort of ranked voting system. It also solves the third party problem; no longer does a vote for the Green party hurt the Democratic candidate or a Libertarian vote hurt the Republican candidate. IIRC Spain has a system along these lines. First past the post needs to go.

PR tackles assemblies, councils, houses. +1

Approval voting is best for executive positions, like governor, mayor, sheriff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting

--

FPTP is terrible. Among other reasons, per Duverger's Law, it begats a two party system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

People railing against duopolies (Democrats & Republicans) haven't yet learned it's the result of the form of elections, not a natural law.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#120

Post by specialist »

danieltillett wrote: post #71
entee wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea. One thing though, this won't work unless people vote. A major reason the system doesn't work well today is because only the most extreme voters turn out for primaries. Even if you reduce gerrymandering, it's hard to eliminate entirely. On the other hand, in smaller districts the electorate will be more likely to share opinions and interests so maybe that counteracts the problem?

Once you make the connection between the representatives and the votes more personal you will increase the likelihood of voting. As a voter you are not voting for someone you don't know, but for "good old joe" who you speak to every couple of months. The idea is to not solve every problem with democracy, but to remove the corrupting influence of needing to raise money from vested interests to spend on advertising so…

The number one driver for voting participation is competitive races. Hence the need for redistricting which maximizes competitiveness.

Unlike every other modern democracy, the US has opt-in voting. To the best of my knowledge, universal voting registration does not increase participation. But it does prevent disenfranchisement. Only compulsory voting would (otherwise) increase participation.

Some of our jurisdictions have switched to all postal balloting. This permits ballot chasing. In general, these campaigns no longer attempt to persuade. (Clinton vs Sanders is a notable exception, because most contests are face to face.) They spend most of the money on GOTV (get out the vote), turning out your base (supporters). Which has led to alienating voters. No one likes to be contacted 30 times per election (4 times a year) to be reminded to mail their ballot.

Postal balloting has also harmed the culture of voting. This intangible is very hard to measure. But some studies show that "I voted" style markers, visible to your friends and family, boost voter participation.

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