[devoply]

One interesting rule might be to keep people with a certain amount of money from meddling in politics. Like you track all the money, and rich people are not allowed to influence politics at all. That would destroy the strangle hold that various groups with a lot of money have on American or hell global politics. Trump should not be allowed to be President. There should be an inverse relationship between money and power. The more money you have, the less power you have to do anything political with that money.

Maybe like we make a new category of money that can only do certain things and is heavily regulated and watched. And that's the sort of money that you can have way up there in the clouds, you can't have regular people money which is the money we have right now.

That then would move the discussion from how much they have, to what they can do with it.

[michaelmarion]

This would never pass muster in the context of freedom of speech.

Instead, we should just remove money from politics entirely: campaigns should be publicly financed at a fixed amount each cycle, and term limits should be set on all elected offices.

Politics should not be a career. I want a Congress that's comprised of representatives from a variety of trades and occupations: farmers, doctors, engineers, construction workers, and so on.

Representing your district or state in government should be a seen as a public service of finite length — almost akin to a tour of duty in the military.

[gremlinsinc]

Term limits should also be placed on Justices. Say 10 years with a rolling limit i.e. a sitting president can only 'place' 2 justices, any other justices would need to be chosen by the house (which is more fairly distributed by #s). The senate would have to ratify/approve still but unanimous house vote chooses the supreme court. This would ensure no party controls the justice system. It might even be beneficial if they just 'alternate' maybe the president gets first pick, then the house, then the president.

I think the house/justice system could also be increased quite a bit. I don't know the numbers but I'm pretty sure the # of house members is in-line w/ population of the early 1900s and is due a major overhaul, I think I heard the house could easily be tripled in size allowing a more diverse/population-centric voice.

We could potentially double the house and justices, perhaps even having two supreme courts running simulatenously if there are enough cases for that, and each court could have a 'leader' who becomes tie breaker for the other court when needed.

But major change is almost inevitably never going to happen in America, especially in our current climate. Maybe after 2020 when the power shifts which I'm hopefully it will shift somewhat more progressive, but then again all shit could break loose again, there's still a good year for things to hit the fan.

Widening the 'voice' of America is something that will probably net benefit democrats of Republicans, as GOP is really good at controlling districting and making themselves seem a bigger 'bloc' then they really are. Though, I think that is shifting a lot of states for instance are instituting non-partisan redistricting committees to handle district changes and updates without the involvement of elected officials. Even here in Utah they voted for this to happen, so that's a good thing.

Getting money out of politics though is desperately needed. I totally agree that campaigns should have a fixed amount. If they do allow donations they should only allow up to 1000 per individual and $0 from organizations. Corporations are NOT individuals NOR are they citizens.

PACs should ONLY be able to push for/against propositions and issues NOT elected officials. All candidate videos should ONLY be sanctioned/pushed by the candidate not by pacs and super pacs.

[WalterBright]

> publicly financed

The trouble with that is who gets the government financing? It could easily be corrupted into an incumbent re-election fund.

[michaelmarion]

All candidates get an equal amount — including incumbents — and no outside or personal funds are eligible for use towards a campaign.

The incumbent advantage would be negated in some part by term limits.

[WalterBright]

How is a "candidate" determined?

[michaelmarion]

Ahh, I see your point. Good question.

[zbyte64]

The same way we determine who gets on the ballot. Next question.

[WalterBright]

Who gets on the ballot is determined by laws designed to protect the two party system.

Even so, getting on the ballot requires campaigning, which requires money. For example, there is no ballot for 2020 yet, but there's a heluva lot of campaign money being spent right now.

[theandrewbailey]

There's also that nasty Electoral College thing that makes the presidential election effectively 50 sub-elections. That requires each candidate to register in each state to get on their ballot. No doubt, there's fees for that.

[repsilat]

> remove money from politics entirely

I used to think that the best (and only real effective) way to get money out of politics was to get the power out of politics. If the government can't subsidise companies/sectors, protectionism shrinks. Wherever there's opportunity for influence to be bought, I thought, money would find a way.

Recently there was an article on here that had a different opinion -- that there's really surprisingly little money in US politics. Worth a read:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21012637

[rootusrootus]

Or, perhaps, publicly fund campaigns and eliminate money as a representation of free speech. Hand out X tokens to every voter each year which represent contributions and let them distribute as they wish.

[transreal]

This is part of Andrew Yang's platform. He calls it Democracy Dollars: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/democracydollars/

[GabrielBen]

I much prefer to have private money buying politicians than public money. The latter makes the politicians conspire together against the public: after all, they all win the longer, more expensive and flamboyant campaigns are.

Anecodtally Argentina has public funding, and the biggest two parties ended up keeping all the public money for campaigning, and small parties have no chance. Do you think the Libertarian or Green party or Mormon parties iwll get the same money as the Dems and Reps?

[gremlinsinc]

This is why the public funding being in hands of American's makes good sense. I like Yang's proposal give all American's $500 in political cash, let them choose who to give it to. If they choose nobody then it goes back into the fund for the next election.

This would also encourage politicians to actually reach out and 'touch' people enough that they give a shit to donate their political cash to that person. It might make more people get out and vote and participate in the election process. When more people vote democracy benefits.

[conanbatt]

I understand the concept, but still wary. First, this means people have a proxy to sell their vote (il give you my 500 dollar boucher for 100 cash), second it spends more money in campaigns than naturally.

There are central premises of democracy at stake here. If monetizing political power is good then we ahouls build a way to sell votes directly.

[gremlinsinc]

500 dollar's isn't gonna go that far... I mean that's 100 billion dollars (assuming 200 million adults who'd all use the voting cash), but that's between ALL candidates across ALL races including congress, senate, presidential, etc... It's also inclusive of 'issues' and 'local' candidates.

The candidate then can raise 0 dollars from sources that is not the public fund. Currently corporations can give 500k or more, unlimited if they pay a Super PAC supporting their candidates/issues.

If we make lobbyists, and political donations illegal EXCEPT for what the people give via the voucher system it makes it more fair than it currently is now.

[theandrewbailey]

You're proposing that an entire class's human rights be restricted? That's not cool.

[true_religion]

Is it really that? Being rich is neither a human right nor a protected class. Anyone can go from rich to merely upper class easily. All the rich have to do is give away their money.

To be clear, I don’t support this but I am trying to understand why you make it sound like a human right violation.

[09bjb]

Reversing the 2010 Citizens United decision would be a good start. Campaign finance reform (the flavor espoused by Bernie Sanders, perhaps) would be another great step. Unfortunately the recent history in this realm is one of dismantling the apparatuses that kept the exchange rate of money to political influence high. Crony, corrupt, corporate-subsidy capitalism rules, and politics is its servant.

[gremlinsinc]

I like what represent.us is doing pushing for 'anti-corruption acts' across America. If you watch their progress it really is having an effect on democracy.

Enacting something like that in congress would be a HUGE win for America.