Reforming Campaign Finance Through Mutually Assured Destruction Nick Warshaw
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From the Desk of Lawrence Lessig Founder, Board Chairman
From the Desk of Lawrence Lessig Founder, Board Chairman August 2014 Dear New Hampshire Voter, I’m writing to ask for your help — not for me, or for the group I co-founded with Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, Mayday.US, but for our nation. If you’re like more than 95% of Americans, you believe it is important to reduce the influence of money in politics. Like the rest of us, you’ve seen our representatives become more and more focused on raising money rather than on representing us. And as that’s happened, you’ve seen our government become less and less able to get anything done. The politicians aren’t going to fix this on their own. The current system is too lucrative for them and their cronies. Too many plan on cashing out as they leave government — by becoming a lobbyist. The only way this system will change is if we, the citizens, make it clear to them, the politicians, that we will only support candidates who make a credible commitment to ending this corruption. In the Republican primary for United States Senate, you have a chance to do just that. Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown was a reformer — when he was in Massachusetts. As a state senator, he supported public funding of elections. As a United States Senator, he supported the “People’s Pledge,” which kept outside money out of his re-election campaign. But since his recent move to New Hampshire, Scott Brown has apparently given up on reform. He has chosen to go along with this corrupt system. -
Forget Congress: Reforming Campaign Finance Through Mutually Assured Destruction Nick Warshaw
Forget Congress: Reforming Campaign Finance Through Mutually Assured Destruction Nick Warshaw ABStract UCLA LAW REVIEW UCLA LAW Congress will not enact meaningful campaign finance reform. Under the nation’s current legislative, regulatory, and judicial regimes, remedies to the problem of money in politics appear unattainable. This Comment provides an entirely novel approach toward reducing the corrosive influence of outside money on the U.S political system. Aided by the power of the profit motive, this Comment proposes the creation of Super PAC Insurance, a nonpartisan private entity with one central goal: deterring outside Super PACs and 501(c)(4) organizations from spending money in elections. The Comment details the mechanics of Super PAC Insurance, addresses its legality, and proposes several variations on its basic model. Super PAC Insurance disincentivizes outside spending by applying the principle of “mutually assured destruction.” As demonstrated in the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts—when then-Professor Elizabeth Warren and Senator Scott Brown took The People’s Pledge—adding costs can effectively deter Super PACs from spending in elections. Once Super PACs know their spending will trigger a barrage of opposition spending by Super PAC Insurance, they should be less likely to spend against an insured candidate. Thus, Super PAC Insurance will reduce the influence of money in politics writ large. In the wake of Citizens United and its progeny, American political spending has skyrocketed out of control. Rather than produce despondency among reformers, this new reality must catalyze innovation. This Comment’s private ordering solution moves beyond government paralysis and offers a workable path forward toward reducing the influence of outside money in politics. -
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AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND THE 2016 ELECTION: REMARKS FROM LAWRENCE LESSIG INTRODUCTION: KEVIN A. HASSETT, AEI REMARKS AND CONVERSATION: LAWRENCE LESSIG, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL MODERATOR: NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN, AEI 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 EVENT PAGE: http://www.aei.org/events/campaign-finance-and-the-2016-election- remarks-from-lawrence-lessig/ TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY DC TRANSCRIPTION – WWW.DCTMR.COM KEVIN HASSETT: Hi. I’m Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies here at the American Enterprise Institute. And the title of this event is “Campaign Finance in the 2016 Election: Remarks from Lawrence Lessig.” Lawrence is an extremely distinguished professor of law at Harvard Law School. He has written widely on a zillion issues, always very thought provoking. He very often might be a little bit further to the left of me, but as someone who has clerked with Posner and Scalia and anticipates every objection I have to his argument before I raise it. And I was really startled and intrigued to see that Larry decided to run for president in a very unique and thought-provoking way. And he’s become extremely – or has been for many years extremely focused on issues of campaign finance, an issue that from my days on the McCain campaign, something that I’ve been fairly familiar with. As an economist, I could say that I’ve never written about campaign finance because it’s too difficult an issue for me. The last paper I remember is by Steve Coat (sp), in 2004, where he proved to me that I should take it seriously because campaign finance limits in Coat’s model, which was published in the American Economic Review, can be – (inaudible). -
Taxation Only with Representation
TAXATION TAXATION HIS BOOK IS THE FIRST COMPREHENSIVE DISCUSSION TOF CORRUPTION IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE FROM THE TAXATION VIEWPOINT OF A POLITICAL CONSERVATIVE. Liberals have talked about this problem for decades while raising millions of dollars in campaign contributions. ONLY WITH Many politicians who call themselves conservatives have ignored the problem, driving angry voters to support their opponents even ONLY WITH ONLY REPRESENTATION if those opponents don’t propose any solutions at all. In this book, Richard Painter discusses how OUR MONEY-DRIVEN CAMPAIGN SYSTEM UNDERMINES THE VISION OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS and just about every principle that conservatives believe in. This includes limiting government spending and regulation, upholding traditional values against industries that make money from moral decay, and protecting national security interests against an infl ux of foreign money into US political campaigns. Painter then lays out a plan for reform that conservatives, and REPRESENTATION the Supreme Court, will embrace: defi ning the government’s right to tax its citizens in a way that will give each citizen a real voice in funding campaigns for elected offi ce. In new laws, referendums, and constitutional amendments at the federal or state level, voters need to send a clear message: Americans who have no representation in campaign fi nance can no longer endure taxation by a government in which they have no voice. RICHARD W. PAINTER is a law professor at the University of Minnesota. From 2005 to 2007 Painter was associate counsel to the president and the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush. During 2014–2015, Painter was a residential fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J.