[vkou]

The reps actively seek bribes, because they need campaign warchests.

Whether there are 8,000 of them, or 400, that dynamic isn't going to change.

Also, at the moment the problem isn't bribes, the problem is that the tail is wagging the dog, and the Party will destroy anyone in it who dares to push back on the glorious leader.

[Mountain_Skies]

Using the 14th Amendment to give corporations free speech rights combined with the belief that campaign contributions are a form of speech is a big part of the problem. The intention of the 14th Amendment had nothing to do with corporations but someone wanted that hack and the consequences have been immense.

If we went back to campaigns being funded by individuals, the pandering to mega-corporations would be significantly reduced. Since wealth disparity exists, it still wouldn't eliminate the influence of wealthy donors but without corporations being able to effectively purchase elected officials, it's likely that wealth concentration would also be reduced.

[MisterBastahrd]

Corporations are just groups of people, and the Constitution says that people have the right to associate. Restricting corporations from donating to campaigns just shifts the donations to wealthy individuals.

A proper constitutional amendment would ban corporations from political speech and donations and ban individuals from using more than X dollars towards a political campaign or PAC or commercial, dollar adjusted by year. That way, corporations are out of the picture altogether and the rich can't just self-fund political campaigns and ads.

Of course, that'll never get past Congress much less a bunch of state houses.

[bobthepanda]

I actually think the advantage is that it is significantly more realistic to fund a campaign for a 40,000 size seat than a couple hundred thousand, so it’s easier to have upstart campaigns from third parties.

[vkou]

And yet if you look at who drives politics and finances all the campaigns in a small town, it's all the usual suspects. Landowners and major employers and sometimes some out of town gigacorp that wants to ban municipal broadband, or open a coal mine, or something of the sort.

For some reason, you never really get some field of a thousand flowers of unique political insights blooming.

[relaxing]

> For some reason, you never really get some field of a thousand flowers of unique political insights blooming.

Not sure what you’re looking for, but the national scene howls whenever a locality gets creative with decriminalization or harm reduction or de-policing or school curriculums etc etc.

[unyttigfjelltol]

I would put it like this-- politics is a business. Being good at that business sometimes is simply about vilifying your opponents or taking stubborn uncompromising positions on issues that cry out for cross-aisle collaboration. When you brag about it in podcasts and mailers, people send you money, and that is good business, regardless of public policy.

[vkou]

None of that matters when the king wants your head for crossing him.

When given the choice between opposing Trump and making bad choices in governance, the people who did the former all lost their jobs, while the people who did the latter were all rewarded.

And that's how you get the current congressional crop.