[jenga22]

This is interesting. I wonder why only Republicans are targeted consistently for these types of laws that are blatantly bad for consumers and why it works on them. However, I am sure money has been offered to Democrats but what's the reason it never sticks?

[boomboomsubban]

It sticks just fine. In this example the Democrats oppose this one issue, but voted to give the ISPs billions in stimulus funding and protected them from lawsuits by passing the privacy killing CISA bill. You don't need to support 100% of their interests to be in their pockets.

[Chathamization]

Though even in the case of CISA, you have far more Republicans than Democrats voting in favor of it and far more Democrats than Republicans voting against it.

[cptskippy]

Republicans are the current majority and politicians vote along party lines. So it seems like it would be easier to sway the majority party and a few of the opposition than targeting each senator individually.

[guelo]

The Republican's anti-regulation ideology is also an anti-consumer-protection ideology. The idea is that if you let companies abuse their customers then other companies will want to get in on it and will eventually magically produce the most optimal efficient outcome for society as a whole. It's basically a religion because it is not backed by any real research or science. It also just so happens to align with the interest of giant corporations.

[webXL]

> The idea is...

I hope this is satirical. One could just as easily state that pro-regulation ideology is anti-competition ideology. The idea is to create a regulatory burden so large that only big companies can afford to comply, or lobby to get favorable regulations. "It's basically a religion... to align with the interest of" politicians and bureaucrats.

[croon]

> The idea is to create a regulatory burden so large that only big companies can afford to comply, or lobby to get favorable regulations. "It's basically a religion... to align with the interest of" politicians and bureaucrats.

Your version breaks because there's no apparent win condition by doing that. The only possible gain politicians and bureaucrats have by bloating the system is continued employment... which is not guaranteed, and does not pay especially well (relative).

They're much better off getting lobbied and doing whatever corporations want, which is screw over your constituents.

[DanielBMarkham]

This is an excellent point and needs to be included in every discussion of U.S. politics. If there are only two parties, you give heavily to both. Then you find ways each party can "win" or "lose" while your cause advances. In this fashion each political party can continue its public drama of fighting the other one, all the while your interests advance in various ways -- just not the same way all the time.

[mitchellberry]

Boolean outcomes everytime.

[smallnamespace]

The sad truth is that most politicians aren't going to win elections without corporate money.

Think about it this way: the attention of voters is limited and expensive. Therefore communicating with them is a costly commodity. Right now it is controlled by media organizations, and the only way for politicians to pay that cost is (1) out of their own pockets (if they're independently wealthy), (2) out of corporate pockets, or (3) out of the pockets of excited and motivated party partisans.

Most people don't like (1) for obvious reasons -- it's easy to bash the rich as being elitist and out of touch. (3) has a chicken-and-egg problem of how a politician can reach people if they don't have any money initially to bootstrap the process. It also leads to politicians saying really controversial and divisive things to get the base excited -- the base's interests don't always align with the general electorate's.

So either we actually enact strong campaign finance reform (good luck getting that past the Supreme Court), we stop electing politicians that took corporate money, or we have robust public funding for elections so politicians don't need corporate money.

[danpalmer]

That is, in the current system. In the UK there are strict limits on campaign spending that get investigated and enforced, and the limits are low enough that individual contributions are important and corporate donations can only go so far.

[laythea]

Erm abuse of this happened recently with no consequences. Please don't speak like the UK is any better. People are all the same.

See https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/16/conservativ...

[emn13]

Just look at the amounts involved however - the UK is orders of magnitude better.

Ignoring differences of degree like that is a sure way to end up in a terrible situation: "it's bad anyhow, who cares if it gets worse?"

[tolien]

To be fair the UK is an order of magnitude smaller and election spending hasn’t reached the stratospheric levels of the USA.

There’s also the example of a number of the pro-Leave campaigns in the EU referendum receiving donations from unknown donors, then all spending it with the same strategic communications company behind Ted Cruz’s primary and Trump’s presidential campaigns [1]. In this cases, the sums involved were of the order of millions of pounds — a bit more significant.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great...

[danpalmer]

> and election spending hasn’t reached the stratospheric levels of the USA.

This is because election spending in the UK is limited by the Electoral Commission. Also the spending must be published.

[emn13]

That's not really fair at all; given that accounting for size differences really barely nudges the needle - and grey money is likely a factor in US elections too. I can't find a single very trusted source for US spending, but various links (e.g. https://www.statista.com/statistics/216793/fundraising-and-s...) suggest it's been in the billions for quite some time now.

(Not that I'm suggesting the UK is perfect; simply that there is a nevertheless a huge difference)

[willvarfar]

Well, objectively the UK does seem better.

[danpalmer]

The headline of that article is that the Conservatives have been fined for it. They were investigated, they were punished.

Whether the punishment is enough or not I don't know, maybe, maybe not, but we are better than the US on this, the US does not have any requirements/legislation about it, let alone levy fines on parties for going over them.

[ransom1538]

"The sad truth is that most politicians aren't going to win elections without corporate money."

True. But is anyone else surprised how cheap a congressman is? 30k and you can have private phone calls, dinners, etc. You don't need a large international corporation to shell out 30k - hell, some of the congressmen are cheaper than 5k.

[ek750]

This reminds me of this npr story, https://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-..., where the tax law professor found it more effective to buy access to the congess-people.

[mtgx]

There have been quite a few elections recently where politicians won with people's support and money. And they often won because they rejected corporate money. See Ro Khanna, who I think has a real shot of becoming the U.S. president in the next 8-12 years.

If Alison Hartson can also win against the military industry complex and intelligence community-backed Dianne Feinstein in the upcoming Senate election in California, I think it will show a real reversal from politicians winning with corporate money alone and a trend that people and sick and tired of this type of politicians.

But if you really want to solve this corporate money problem, you can. Just ban all corporate donations and limit individual donations to less than $500 per politician per year. Donations above $1,000 still seem to incentivize politicians to hold "fundraisers" with rich people and cocktail parties, instead of actually appealing to the masses.

The "money vote" needs to be "equal and universal" just like the actual vote. Right now it's way skewed in favor of rich people and companies.

The FBI would also need to launch automatic investigations against any politicians that are found to have >$10,000 donated (in total) to her or him that isn't coming from such <$500 individual donations. For instance, the fact that the latest Supreme Court Justice was backed by $25 million "dark money" is a spit in the face of democracy. He should have been investigated immediately over that by the FBI/an anti-corruption agency.

You can't excuse this type of behavior with "well, they need the money to win!" anymore. It's destroying whatever is left of US' democracy, and it's regular people that will have to suffer the consequences for that. Winning isn't important anymore when the winners are also the "baddies."

[Lazare]

> For instance, the fact that the latest Supreme Court Justice was backed by $25 million "dark money" is a spit in the face of democracy.

Okay, let's break this down a bit. What you're saying is:

1. A private individual (or collection of private individuals; we don't know) spent $25m promoting their views about an important political issue of the day.

2. This is bad.

That's an interesting argument, but do keep in mind that you're describing is about as pure exercise of the first amendment as you're likely to find. The founders would recognise a wealthy, powerful individual using the best communication technology available to spread their views, possibly anonymously, because that's precisely what they did, and precisely what they aimed to protect. Even if you think it's a good idea not to let people have an unrestricted voice to speak about political topics (and I'm unconvinced, to say the least), that's super not going to happen in the US of all places.

> He should have been investigated immediately over that by the FBI/an anti-corruption agency.

Investigated for what? Unless you're imagining some sort of blatant, explicit quid pro quo, any law you're hoping to find a violation of would itself be ridiculously unconstitutional.

Campaign finance reform is a great idea, but you need to keep in mind that in the US you can restrict money donated to campaigns, but you can't restrict money spent speaking about political issues. (Which I think is probably for the best, given how many people would like to silence Greenpeace, the ACLU, pro-choice groups, the New York Times, etc., etc. Especially these days...)

[pmoriarty]

"The founders would recognise a wealthy, powerful individual using the best communication technology available to spread their views, possibly anonymously, because that's precisely what they did, and precisely what they aimed to protect."

They also used the best weapons available at the time and aimed to protect their ownership by individuals. That doesn't mean they either foresaw the development of nuclear weapons or would approve their ownership by individuals.

[petre]

There should be no career politicians. Terms should be limited to 8 or 10 years just like the presidents'.

[imron]

Donald Trump campaigned on this very issue, but it didn't nearly as much press coverage as some of his other policies.

[xupybd]

Some people genuinely believe free markets are the best thing for consumers. I’m all for net neutrality but I don’t think every politician is a sell out for voting against, they were voting according to their beliefs.

[ksec]

Is there any case in history that a true free markets has actually worked?

( If it is truly free, why bail out those deemed too large to fail? )

[alehul]

As an answer to bailouts:

That was largely not a Republican nor free-market-supporting move if I recall correctly. While new and more innovative companies would likely take the bankrupt companies' place, there would be a harsh transition period in which blame would be placed on the Democratic leadership at the time.

Plus, regardless of partisanship, it's tough even for those who support free markets to knowingly thrust thousands of constituents into immediate unemployment, both morally and for re-elective purposes.

[joeblow9999]

Your rhetorical question aside, it is still true that

Some people genuinely believe free markets are the best thing for consumers.

[xupybd]

The bail outs were the exact opposite of free markets. That was massive government manipulation of the market.

[danielovichdk]

Who set the rules for the socalled free markets? Government(s).

[joewrong]

I wonder if it's money better spent on the majority party that can actually pass legislation.

[smt88]

It sticks. It's just different industries.

Democrats are beholden to Wall St, Hollywood/music (see: RIAA), and special-interest groups. Silicon Valley also seems to be getting better at influencing Democrats.

It definitely is lopsided, and Republicans are clearly more anti-consumer, but no national politician survives by betraying big donors.

[jenga22]

Doesn't seem true. For example, the Frank Dod Act was passed by Democrats and Wall St. hates that law. Another example, the Consumer Protection Bureau. Another agency that Wall St. hates which was passed by Democrats. If anything, it seems that again Republicans are happy to pass laws that lowers taxes for Wall St. and removes regulation.

To your point, Wall St. donates to Democrats but it seems to have very limited effect compared to Republicans.

[richardknop]

Frank Dod Act is a ridiculously watered down version of regulation that was originally proposed. Wall Street lobbyists made Democrats nerf it to the point it's almost meaningless. So I would say that Democrats have been very good to bankers in this particular case. For optics reasons (it was right after the financial crisis) something had to be done and this was the best possible scenario for bankers so I'd say they were glad with it under the circumstances.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Wall Street lobbyists made Democrats nerf it to the point it's almost meaningless

This is wrong. Was Dodd Frank reduced in scope and severity from its first drafting? Yes. Does that amount to watering it down to meaninglessness? No. The bits that stuck have bite. Some bits had, in my opinion, more bite than merit.

[camelite]

The fact that an act was passed after the greatest bubble pop since the great depression shouldnt be enough to convince you that dems as a whole arent beholden to wall street. they had zero choice but to do SOMETHING. look instead to what they did before the crash. compare what they did to what they could have done. look at what happened to proposals to do more. look at wall street profits a year after the crisis. look at the doners. less beholden than the reps, probably. not beholden at all? no

[x0x0]

I dunno, I think Wall St donations to dems have plenty of affects. See eg Wasserman Schultz and payday lenders.

[x0x0]

effects rather. I shouldn't post when tired.

[antisthenes]

Democrats have their own corporate patrons, like the healthcare companies.

They were just as happy to sell you out when they voted for the ACA (which is working for now, but will eventually fuck over a lot of middle class Americans who aren't getting insurance through their employer).

[geofft]

The ACA was based on a 1989 Republican-backed proposal and on Massachusetts' Republican-backed health care law ("Romneycare"), designed to be a more corporate-friendly version of a single-payer plan that accomplishes many of the same goals. Obama adopted it in order to get bipartisan support, not because he had any impression the individual mandate was good for individuals.

Any narrative that the Democrats have health insurers as their patrons and Republicans do not needs to account for facts of history like this one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Equity_and_Access_Ref...

(The argument that both parties would have loved the individual mandate, and merely fought over it for political points as a show for voters, is at least consistent with objective history.)