COMO COCOO VA A SOLUCIONAR LA DEMOCRACIA Y LA POLITICA MUNDIAL:
LITIGANDO CONTRA:
- EU,UN, WTO ETC…[ SUPRANACIONALES, NACIONES, GOVS, MINISTERIOS, Y ONGS ETC
FOR VIOLATIONS OF: CLP, ALP, ELP, ILP
HOW
USING THE TEACHINGS FROM QUANTUM MECHS. AND RELATIVITY, + SARCASTIC INTELLIGENT COMDEY + PHILOSOPHY = AN INOVATIVE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY, WHERE NOBODY IS GUILTY OF ANYTHING, BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY FINGERS OF THE UNIVERSE
Buckley v. Valeo
1976, the Supreme Court issued an opinion [per curiam = by the court: ” An appeal court opinion, silent on the identity of the specific judge who gave it] in Buckley v. Valeo:
involving the constitutionality of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) and the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act
<> COCOO WILL ISSUE THE SAME CLAIM!!
The Court upheld the constitutionality of certain provisions of the election law, including:
- The limitations on contributions to candidates for federal office (2 U.S.C. §441a);
- The disclosure and recordkeeping provisions of the FECA (2 U.S.C. §434); and
- The public financing of Presidential elections
The Court declared other provisions of the FECA to be unconstitutional, in particular:
- The limitations on expenditures by candidates and their committees, except for Presidential candidates who accept public funding
- The $1,000 limitation on independent expenditures
- The limitations on expenditures by candidates from their personal funds , and
- The method of appointing members of the Federal Election Commission
the plaintiffs filed an appeal: Supreme Court (appeal) decision:
Contribution limitations:
The appellants had argued that the FECA’s limitations on the use of money for political purposes were in violation of protections for free expression, since no significant political expression could be made without the expenditure of money. The Court agreed that the restrictions on political contributions/expenditures “necessarily reduce the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of the exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money…and that such restrictions on political speech could only be justified by an overriding governmental interest
[<> cocoo: wpi/ew]
The Court upheld the contribution limitations arguing that they restrict the dependence of candidates on large campaign contributions” (the other weapon being the disclosure requirements). however, also held that, although the contribution limitations do restrict a particular kind of political speech, they safeguard t
held: The limitations on expenditures by Presidential candidates who received public funds, is legitimate, since the acceptance of public funds is voluntary. Therefore, with regard to publicly financed elections, the consequent societal and governmental benefits weighed more heavily in favor of expenditure limitations.
The Court acknowledged the potential disadvantage for minor parties that could result from the public disclosure provisions of the law, but it noted that none of the minor parties that were appellants in this suit had demonstrated that their contributors had been injured by the disclosure provisions. Therefore, the Court ruled a blanket exemption unnecessary. The Court left open the possibility, however, that minor and new parties might successfully claim an exemption from FECA disclosure requirements by showing proof of injury.
Presidential election campaign fund:
The appellants further claimed that the public funding provisions violated the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, arguing that the eligibility requirements for public funds were comparable to unconstitutionally burdensome ballot access laws. The Court found no merit in the argument; the denial of public funds to candidates did “not prevent any candidate from getting on the ballot or prevent any voter from casting a vote for the candidate of his choice.”
“In addition,”” the Court said, “the limits on contributions necessarily increase the burden of fundraising, and Congress properly regarded public financing as an appropriate means of relieving major-party Presidential candidates from the rigors of soliciting private contributions.”
The Court also rejected appellants’ contention that the public financing provisions discriminated against minor and new party candidates, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Specifically, the appellants had argued that Subtitle H favored major parties and their nominees by granting them full public funding for their conventions and general election campaigns, while minor and new parties and their candidates received only partial public funding according to a formula based on percentage of votes received.
Similarly, the appellants challenged the provision that restricted the payment of primary matching funds to only Presidential candidates who met certain requirements. These requirements included a provision for payments to candidates who had raised a minimum amount of contributions in at least twenty states . The Court found that such requirements for receiving public funds were reasonable; rather than preventing small parties from receiving public financing, the law only required them to demonstrate that they had a minimum level of broad-based support in order to qualify for federal subsidies. The Court concluded, “Any risk of harm to minority interests…cannot overcome the force of the governmental interests against the use of public money to foster frivolous candidacies, create a system of splintered parties, and encourage unrestrained factionalism.” Furthermore, the Court noted that the advantage of receiving public financing was balanced by the requirement to adhere to strict expenditure limitations. As mentioned above, the Court upheld the constitutionality of expenditure limits as they applied to candidates and parties receiving public funds.
alp
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. 2010
Citizens United was a blow to democracy … <> cocoo: Politicians are failing their duty to follow the overarching WPI [democracy and EW]
The Federal Election Campaign Act (“the Act”) prohibits corporations and labor unions (TAS = sindicatos) from using their general treasury funds to make electioneering communications or for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a federal candidate. An electioneering communication is generally defined as “any broadcast, cable or satellite communication” that is “publicly distributed” and refers to a clearly identified federal candidate and is made days after an election
In January 2008, Citizens United, a non-profit corporation, released a film about then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who was a candidate in the Democratic Party’s 2008 Presidential primary elections. Citizens United wanted to pay cable companies to make the film available for free through video-on-demand, which allows digital cable subscribers to select programming from various menus, including movies. Citizens United planned to make the film available within 30 days of the 2008 primary elections, but feared that the film would be covered by the Act’s ban on corporate-funded electioneering communications that are the functional equivalent of express advocacy, thus subjecting the corporation to civil and criminal penalties. Citizens United sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the Commission in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the ban on corporate electioneering communications was unconstitutional as applied to the film and that disclosure and disclaimer requirements were unconstitutional as applied to the film and the three ads for the movie. The District Court denied Citizens United a preliminary injunction and granted the Commission’s motion for summary judgment. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction in the case.
Supreme Court decision
The Supreme Court found that resolving the question of whether the ban applied to the film based on the narrow grounds put forth by Citizens United would have the overall effect of chilling political speech central to the First Amendment. Instead, the Court found that, in exercise of its judicial responsibility, it was required to consider the facial validity of the Act’s ban on corporate expenditures and reconsider the continuing effect of the type of speech prohibition which the Court previously upheld in Austin.
The Court noted that the prohibition on corporate independent expenditures and electioneering communications is a ban on speech and “political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence.” Accordingly, laws that burden political speech are subject to “strict scrutiny,” which requires the government to prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. According to the Court, prior to Austin there was a line of precedent forbidding speech restrictions based on a speaker’s corporate identity, and after Austin there was a line permitting them. In reconsidering Austin, the Court found that the justifications that supported the restrictions on corporate expenditures are not compelling.
The Court in Austin identified a compelling governmental interest in limiting political speech by corporations by preventing “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” However, in the current case the Court found that Austin’s “antidistortion” rationale “interferes with the ‘open marketplace of ideas’ protected by the First Amendment.” According to the Court, “[a]ll speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech, and the First Amendment protects the resulting speech.” The Court held that the First Amendment “prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.” The Court further held that “the rule that political speech cannot be limited based on a speaker’s wealth is a necessary consequence of the premise that the First Amendment generally prohibits the suppression of political speech based on the speaker’s identity.”
The Court also rejected an anticorruption rationale as a means of banning independent corporate political speech. In Buckley v. Valeo, the Court found the anti corruption interest to be sufficiently important to allow limits on contributions, but did not extend that reasoning to overall expenditure limits because there was less of a danger that expenditures would be given as a quid pro quo for commitments from that candidate. The Court ultimately held in this case that the anti corruption interest is not sufficient to displace the speech in question from Citizens United and that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”
The Court furthermore disagreed that corporate independent expenditures can be limited because of an interest in protecting dissenting shareholders from being compelled to fund corporate political speech. The Court held that such disagreements may be corrected by shareholders through the procedures of corporate democracy.
Finally, Citizens United also challenged the Act’s disclaimer and disclosure provisions as applied to the film and three ads for the movie. Under the Act, televised electioneering communications must include a disclaimer stating responsibility for the content of the ad. Also, any person who spends more than $10,000 on electioneering communications within a calendar year must file a disclosure statement with the Commission identifying the person making the expenditure, the amount of the expenditure, the election to which the communication was directed and the names of certain contributors. The Court held that, although disclaimer and disclosure requirements may burden the ability to speak, they impose no ceiling on campaign activities and do not prevent anyone from speaking. As a result, the disclaimer and disclosure requirements are constitutional as applied to both the broadcast of the film and the ads promoting the film itself, since the ads qualify as electioneering communications.
the citizens case decision reversed campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections..wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have always had too much influence in elections, and that was even more expanded with this case, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.
the conservative ngo Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton….the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, ruling :
that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections….limiting “independent political spending” from corporations and other groups violates the constitutional right to free speech. the court falsely assumed that independent spending cannot be corrupt and that the spending would be transparent, but both assumptions have proven to be incorrect.
With its decision, the Supreme Court overturned Buckley v. Valeo [upheld certain spending restrictions, arguing that the government had a role in preventing corruption]. But in Citizens United, held that “independent political spending” did not present a substantive threat of corruption, IF it was not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.
As a result, corporations can now spend unlimited funds on campaign advertising if they are not formally “coordinating” with a candidate or political party. The ruling has ushered in massive increases in political spending from outside groups, dramatically expanding the already outsized political influence of wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups.
the Supreme Court designated corporate spending on elections as free speech. Citizens United case have allowed the creation of super PACs, which empower the wealthiest donors, and the expansion of dark money through shadowy nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors.
in this time of historic wealth inequality, a small group of Americans now wield “more power than at any time since Watergate, while many of the rest seem to be disengaging from politics because democracy serves the interests of the wealthy few, and that democratic participation for the vast majority of citizens is of relatively little value
An election system that is skewed heavily toward wealthy donors also sustains racial bias and reinforces the racial wealth gap. Citizens United also unleashed political spending from special interest groups.
Political action committees, or “PACs,” are organizations that raise and spend money for campaigns that support or oppose political candidates, legislation, or ballot initiatives. PACs are permitted to donate directly to a candidate’s official campaign, but they are also subject to contribution limits, both in what they can receive, and what they can give to candidates. For example, PACs are only permitted to contribute up to $5,000 per year to a candidate per election.
In the 2010 case Speechnow.org v. FEC, however, a federal appeals court ruled — applying logic from Citizens United — that outside groups could accept unlimited contributions from both individual donors and corporations as long as they don’t give directly to candidates. Labeled “super PACs,” these outside groups were still permitted to spend money on independently produced ads and on other communications that promote or attack specific candidates…iow: super PACs are not bound by spending limits on what they can collect or spend. Additionally, super PACs are required to disclose their donors, but those donors can include dark money groups, which make the original source of the donations unclear. And while super PACs are technically prohibited from coordinating directly with candidates, weak coordination rules have often proven ineffective.
Super PAC money started influencing elections almost immediately after Citizens United. From 2010 to 2018, super PACs spent approximately $2.9 billion on federal elections. Notably, the bulk of that money comes from just a few wealthy individual donors
Dark money is election-related spending where the source is secret. Citizens United contributed to a major jump in this type of spending, which often comes from nonprofits that are not required to disclose their donors…..SO SECRET DONOR MONEY GOES TO NGOS, AND THEN THESE NGOS USE IT TO FUND ELECTION SPENDING….ALSO, because they can hide the identities of their donors, dark money groups also provide a way for foreign countries/firms/indivs, to hide their activity from voters and law enforcement agencies. This increases the vulnerability of elections to international interference.
But even without a full reversal of Citizens United in the near future, there are policy solutions [but not yet converted into law/reg, thus not implemented] to help combat the dominance of big money in democracy:
1/ publicly funded elections would help counter the influence of the extremely wealthy by empowering small donors. Specifically, a system that matches small-dollar donations with public funds would expand the role of small donors and help candidates rely less on big checks and special interests
2/new Law/regs to increase transparency in election spending. For example, the DISCLOSE Act, which has been introduced several times in Congress, would enable voters to know who is trying to influence their votes. Congress could also pass stricter rules to prevent super PACs and other outside groups from coordinating directly with campaigns and political parties.
3/Fixing the FEC: eg FEC rules do not even include the term “super PAC,” and it has declined to find violations or even open an investigation in high-profile allegations of coordination….also, fec’s failure to enforce federal disclosure laws helped allow dark money to pour into U.S. federal elections
4/ In an April 2019 report, the Brennan Center outlined a number of structural reforms that Congress can pursue to help tackle dysfunction in the FEC