On the Supreme Court’s dicta: Campaign financing needs a public option too
The U.S. Supreme Court decision today green-lighting unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns (and labor, too, to the extent that America still has any) does one of two things, or maybe both. It (1) shreds the distinctions made in the law between free speech — the First Amendment idea that we can say what we think without fear from the government — and buying airtime so you can bombard the public with your message. And it (2) removes the tissue wrapping from the fiction that the distinctions made in the law are actually enforceable in practice (let alone actually enforced in practice).
So now we confront the reality: Big Money is at the center of the American political system, and the right and the left. It owns both political parties, in whole or part. (How else to explain Max Baucus?) The only answer to it — I started to say alternative to it, but there’s no way of eliminating Big Money’s power, only of off-setting it), is to offer a “clean money” option to candidates who agree not to take Big Money’s money. That means public financing of the kind North Carolina currently offers to judicial candidates and candidates for a few statewide offices (Auditor, Insurance Commissioner, Schools Superintendent).
Here’s Bob Hall’s take. He’s our state’s foremost voice on cleaning up government: Continue reading »
