Watch out for donation scams to politicians

[Antares JS]

If you put a gun to everybody's head as they exited the voting booth, and asked them the question if they could answer, what the candidates viewpoints on three major issues are, if they got it wrong, you would shoot them.... There would be nothing but dead people laying around. Most people have no idea what their candidates are for, or against. They tend to vote on who did the most advertising, or just vote on which party they represent. It reminds me of when Bill Clinton was running for president, and they asked a lady why she voted for him in an exit poll, and she said because he was better looking.

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

-Winston Churchill

I would genuinely be interested in a study on how much effect ads actually have on presidential elections. I can think of at least a couple of instances where a candidate who was massively outspent still won, presumably on ideological grounds. Ads are also going to do nothing to persuade hardliners to vote the other way. How many persuadable people are there, actually, and what actually works to convince them?

 

[FredA]

We need to get money out of politics.

 

[boatgeek]

We need to get money out of politics.

Talk to the Supreme Court. Since money is speech and corporations are people, it's pretty hard to regulate campaign finance other than with sunshine.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

I’ve donated to politicians and political causes before, and TRUE, they definitely sell your contact info to other politicians and causes who then bombard you with more requests. I made the mistake of using my primary home email address years ago, and for a long time, that meant my email was clogged with far more political garbage than actual email. Several years ago, I tried using the “unsubscribe” link within the emails, but it either didn’t work, only worked temporarily, or resulted in my info being sold again and new emails coming from somewhere else. I kind of gave up on it. But this year, I gave the “unsubscribe” another shot, and it worked much better. I still get some, but WAY less than before. So, if you are being bombarded by political emails, “unsubscribe” may be a viable option. I don’t try that with marketing or scam emails, because it just verifies you email address.

I do donate to some charities and non-charitable issues organizations. One thing about those is that the seem to leave you alone if you set up automatic monthly donations. There’s a food bank I used to donate to at Thanksgiving and Christmas. They would send out a thank you, but also send periodic requests for more. During the pandemic, I set up a monthly donation, and now all I get is an occasional thank you, sometimes a newsletter about the work they are doing, and maybe one or two requests for something more, if that. Mostly, I think they just want to fly under the radar, keep collecting the monthly amount, and not rock the boat. Maybe they figure the best thing might be for me to just forget I’m even donating to them. This same thing has happened with other organizations when I switched from larger one-off donations to smaller monthly ones.

 

[TheTank]

I pretty much hate all politicians equally... none of them will get a dime from me. Ill gladly give those funds to a local food pantry, veteran organization, or children's charity.

 

[Grog6]

Thankfully, almost no one in one of those campaigns will send an email to aol now, so I get no spam now.

 

[Bravo52]

...they definitely sell your contact info to other politicians and causes who then bombard you with more requests. I made the mistake of using my primary home email address years ago, and for a long time, that meant my email was clogged with far more political garbage than actual email...

Not just politicians. The local/state and sometimes federal governments "sell" your information by making it publicly available without any ability to remove it from the public environment. In some states, voter rolls, tax roles and other accountings are easily available via the internet. Some worthless aggregator comes along, mines the data then sells it to everyone from political campaigns to car warranty outfits. We should be able to "opt out" of having our data publicly available.

 

[jhill9693]

We need to get money out of politics.

This is a common and understandable line of thinking, but let’s play this out:

People vote for who they trust, they vote for who they know, or they vote for who is familiar to them in some way.

Incumbents have the biggest advantage here. Not only do more people know who they are from the media, but also they have the ability to toss our tax dollars around in ways that tend to help them get re-elected.

The post office doesn’t deliver mail for free. Sign makers have mouths to feed too.

So if you take money out of politics (with super restrictive donation limits, or federally funding all elections equally and banning voluntary donations), you take away the tool of the insurgent and the only advantages that remain are already in the hands of the rich and powerful—those who are already in office.

Getting money out of politics would drop an iron curtain across America.

Politics does work but it doesn’t work the way you are taught that it works.

Other things that are non-solutions include term limits, constitutional conventions to propose amendments to the constitution, and starting new political parties. These things are distractions at best to devastatingly dangerous at worst.

If you want to know how politics works and how to make politicians do what you want, read Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinksky and Confrontational Politics by HL Richardson. Note that these are written from polar opposite perspectives but are still relevant to everyone who is interested. I can first-hand attest that those who follow what those books say will become politically powerful indeed.

 

[FredA]

Gov funds election campaigns to an equal level.
Incumbents get zero more dollars.....maybe less to counter your insurgence issue.
Media actually held to "equal time" mandates. Any and all media coverage counts.

The lobbyist and all other form of bribery must go away.
Donations today [by other than the little people] are bribes.
Presidential promises to cut taxes and enact other laws should be banned - Congress collectively makes the laws.

We NEED to do something so that being in office is about your service to your constituents and not lining your pocket book.
When a gym coach manages to add $30M to his net worth on a congressional salary, you know something is rotten.

 

[Zeus-cat]

...The lobbyist and all other form of bribery must go away....

Lobbyists have a very bad name. Very well deserved in some cases, but not so much in others. I wouldn't be surprised if Estes, NAR and/or Tripoli don't have some sort of lobbyists that they can send to inform lawmakers about our hobby if needed. Obviously, given the size of our hobby they aren't throwing millions at politicians to influence them, but they can inform them of stuff that is important to us. And providing information to lawmakers is actually a key part of what lobbyists do.

People in Congress are like us, they know a lot about some stuff, but there are many things they know little or nothing about. Lobbyists on both sides of an issue can explain their views. It is up to the lawmakers to determine which direction to take.

Do you ever talk about high power rocketry to people you know? Most are stunned that we can launch big rockets. Imagine if some lawmaker started running around screaming about how people right here in the US were building and launching high power rockets. It needs to be banned right now!!! I bet a lot of people would jump on that wagon immediately. I think right after the 9/11 attacks we were concerned that something like that could have happened. I don’t know if anyone lobbied on behalf of our hobby, but I bet they did.

I worked for a Fortune 100 company and our CEO would do satellite broadcasts for all employees once a quarter. He told us about some of the things that lobbyists did for our company. Of course, a lot of the stuff they lobbied for benefited our company, but a lot of the stuff he talked about were things that I thought made sense as a regular person. One time he talked about how expensive it was for our company to comply with environmental regulations and that it really hit the bottom line. On the other hand, he loved to fish, and he said he could really see how the water quality in the lakes he fished at had improved after certain environmental laws were passed. He wanted our company to lobby for regulations that protected the environment but weren’t so harsh that it would shut us down.

So, if you ban lobbyists you could end up with lawmakers making laws not really understanding their impact. Are lobbyists perfect? Hardly, but I think that they are a necessary part of the system we have.

 

[cerving]

Lawmakers routinely pass laws without realizing their impact... especially when they're a knee-jerk reaction to some event.

 

[cls]

Imagine if some lawmaker started running around screaming about how people right here in the US were building and launching high power rockets. It needs to be banned right now!!! I bet a lot of people would jump on that wagon immediately. I think right after the 9/11 attacks we were concerned that something like that could have happened.

I'm a BAR because Ashcroft (W's Atty General) said model rockets should be illegal because terrorists could use them to spread Anthrax. Schuemer said something equally stupid.

so I said **** you assholes, this is America, the Scouts can earn 2 merit badges for a safe, quintessentially American invented activity. I bought a Quest Big Rage starter kit at Fry's. my kids were hooked immediately.

 

[jhill9693]

I'm a BAR because Ashcroft (W's Atty General) said model rockets should be illegal because terrorists could use them to spread Anthrax. Schuemer said something equally stupid.

so I said **** you assholes, this is America, the Scouts can earn 2 merit badges for a safe, quintessentially American invented activity. I bought a Quest Big Rage starter kit at Fry's. my kids were hooked immediately.

Watch out, someone's going to call you a heteronormative white-centric colonizer for that remark

 

[jhill9693]

So, if you ban lobbyists you could end up with lawmakers making laws not really understanding their impact. Are lobbyists perfect? Hardly, but I think that they are a necessary part of the system we have.

I can attest to this with first-hand experience. It's pretty easy to distinguish the bad (nefarious) lobbyists from the rest because they won't tell you whose payroll they are on and what the other side is to their narrative. Or they outright lie to you. Most lobbyists, in my experience, weren't like that. Incidentally the ones that were like that all worked for the solar industry

 

[TheTank]

Lawmakers routinely pass laws without realizing their impact... especially when they're a knee-jerk reaction to some event.

They also routinely pass laws without every fully reviewing them or having any clue what the subject matter is about or how it actually impacts anything. They just jump on the coattails of their fellow politician's idea. If they don't, they get ostersized by their party.

I also always relate it to this... think of the absolute dumbest person you know that is not bonafide case with special needs challenges. That person is probably of or close to "average" intelligence. Half the world is dumber than that person. Then realize most politicians on either side are the not the cream of the crop when it comes to anything. When rationalized like that, your expectation of what they are capable of dramatically decreases and it becomes more apparent that we need to constantly reinforce that they work for us... we don't work for them.

 

[Bravo52]

Term limits would work. Consider all the "good men" who don't run for office because they are off being productive in the economy or even think their time is more valuable. If there was a "sunset clause" to terms, then two things would eventually happen. First, more people and a more diverse group would likely serve and second, things would get done much quicker. I say "eventually" because it would take some time for the new normal to settle in. Probably more importantly, it would make politicians earn the vote as opposed to what mostly happens now and that is "not lose the vote". While those sound the same, I mean them to be vastly different.

How long should the terms be? I'd say two terms for senators and 4-5 terms for representatives.

And speaking of "sunset clauses", I think all laws that impact the economy should have mandatory limits on duration. Much like tax cuts or other spending bills that outlast those paying for them.

Of course this is just my opinion...your "millage" may vary.

 

[boatgeek]

Term limits would work. Consider all the "good men" who don't run for office because they are off being productive in the economy or even think their time is more valuable. If there was a "sunset clause" to terms, then two things would eventually happen. First, more people and a more diverse group would likely serve and second, things would get done much quicker. I say "eventually" because it would take some time for the new normal to settle out. Probably more importantly, it would make politicians earn the vote as opposed to what mostly happens now and that is "not lose the vote". While those sound the same, I mean them to be vastly different.

How long should the terms be? I'd say two terms for senators and 4-5 terms for representatives.

And speaking of "sunset clauses", I think all laws that impact the economy should have mandatory limits on duration. Much like tax cuts or other spending bills that outlast those paying for them.

Of course this is just my opinion...your "millage" may vary.

Term limits ensure that most of the people in the legislature don't know their stuff and don't really know how the process works. Which means that they depend even more on lobbyists to show them the ropes and help write bills. As an example, in 2018 half of Michigan's state legislators were new to their chamber, along with a new governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and leaders of both houses of the legislature. Imagine trying to work in a job where half of the people are new and nobody has more than 5 years experience. That's murder for a technical job (which writing legislation is).

https://crcmich.org/press-releases/...heir-promise-but-theyre-probably-here-to-stay

Plus term limits have been struck down at the federal level by the US Supreme Court.

The barrier to people entering politics isn't that they stop being productive in their "real job". The barrier is that running for office (even for low level seats like school board) is an exhausting and unpleasant process. And I say that having done it. Term limits mean that everyone in the state house is looking for their promotion to the state senate in a few years, and everything is planned around a career ladder. That's not a recipe for good governance.

 

[Bravo52]

Term limits ensure that most of the people in the legislature don't know their stuff and don't really know how the process works. Which means that they depend even more on lobbyists to show them the ropes and help write bills.

This is an assumption. An opinion really. That's cool. Term limits is definitely a change in the way the pols do business for sure. That is what is needed. Less "business" and more legislation. If term limits were the norm, then what happened in Michigan wouldn't likely be an issue.

The process is broken. It may not be term limits that fixes it, but I personally think it would do more good than harm. Ultimately, I think it would mean less government and only the government that is needed. The assumption that people would be "too ignorant" to accomplish the job in 10 yrs is short-sighted.

 

[boatgeek]

This is an assumption. An opinion really. That's cool. Term limits is definitely a change in the way the pols do business for sure. That is what is needed. Less "business" and more legislation. If term limits were the norm, then what happened in Michigan wouldn't likely be an issue.

The process is broken. It may not be term limits that fixes it, but I personally think it would do more good than harm. Ultimately, I think it would mean less government and only the government that is needed. The assumption that people would be "too ignorant" to accomplish the job in 10 yrs is short-sighted.

An assumption proved by actual results in the field. I don't know why you think that the actual effects in Michigan wouldn't be the norm--they did exactly what you asked for and got some lousy results. It's not like Michigan is that unusual a state.

More legislation alone isn't a priority. More /good/ legislation may be a goal, though you don't appear to want more legislation anyway. Writing good legislation is a skill (I've seen plenty of bad stuff just in my industry), and skills take time to learn. It's not a matter of ignorance, it's a matter of building understanding of language, how bad legal language can backfire, looking for unintended consequences, and all kinds of other things that take time to learn. That's in addition to the skills of running a legislative chamber effectively.

Just as an example, there was a law passed a while back that required oil spill response plans for boats and ships of 400 tons or more. It was passed in response to a large ship running aground and spilling some oil. The law said that it was for the tonnage measured under 46 US Code 14302. Virtually all other oil spill response rules trigger at 400 tons measured under 46 US Code 14512, which applies to significantly fewer boats than 14302. Was it intentional or a slipup because the Congresscritters didn't know one tonnage system from the other and the US had been defaulting to international rules (14302) rather than domestic-only rules? Don't know for sure, but it certainly added quite a bit of expense every year for a lot of boats.

"Only the government that's needed" varies widely by who you are.

 

[cls]

Term limits would work.

Nope

Putting the newborn baby lambs in among the wolves (experienced lobbyists). Yeah, right. Think it through.

Term limits for lobbyists!


Anyway, I have a first amendment right to vote for whoever I want. Anyone can run.

Convicted felons aren't allowed to hold office. Think that through.

 

[Titan II]

Convicted felons aren't allowed to hold office.

You are wrong. Sometimes they can, and sometimes they cannot. Maybe you ought to do some research regarding the topic before you post.

 

[boatgeek]

Convicted felons aren't allowed to hold office. Think that through.

A minor fact check: states can't apply additional criteria for federal offices. In some states, a felon may not be able to hold state or local office, but even in those states a felon could run for federal office.

 

[FredA]

Lobbyists have a very bad name. Very well deserved in some cases

They "inform" lawmakers with THEIR view - not the whole view in most cases.
A one-sided data-push backed with gifts of entertainment or bold face bribes of cash/cars/gold-bars so they are remembered.
Money is speech in this way and we the people need to be protected.

 

[Zeus-cat]

One thing that could help is if the rules for seniority would change. For example, my brother-in-law lived in West Virginia for years. He hated Senator Robert Byrd and pretty much most things he believed in. However, because Senator Byrd had been in the Senate for 123 years (a bit of an exaggeration, but not that much), he had tremendous seniority and therefore power, and could bring a lot of federal money to the state. So, my brother-in-law always voted for him because he knew that was how the game was played.

As someone who didn't live in West Virginia, there was no way for me to stop him from being elected and having seniority, and therefore power, over my senators.

Maybe a system where every time a senator got re-elected their seniority would be reset to zero. I'm sure that would cause other issues, but some of these people have incredible power and there is little most of us can do about it.

 

[cls]

You are wrong. Sometimes they can, and sometimes they cannot. Maybe you ought to do some research regarding the topic before you post.

Ok, so felons aren't allowed to vote, but some can hold office? Is that during their punishment, or after?

Citations, please

 

[Tyeeking]

Ok, so felons aren't allowed to vote, but some can hold office? Is that during their punishment, or after?

Citations, please

You should begin with the Constitution.

 

[cls]

You should begin with the Constitution.

Nothing in there about it specifically. How's that for originality textualism.

You should begin with CFR. Hand wave.

What section? Cites please. Much appreciated.

 

[boatgeek]

Ok, so felons aren't allowed to vote, but some can hold office? Is that during their punishment, or after?

Citations, please

It varies widely state by state for state office. Some states (like WA) restore felons' voting rights as soon as they're out of prison. Some states have more hoops. As for running for office, it again varies state by state though I believe that it's unusual to have a felon serving time to be able to serve in state or local office. This article has some info from 2008, though a lot has changed since then. Seriously, if you care a lot, you should look it up by state.

States can't restrict eligibility for federal office more than the US Constitution already does. There's Supreme Court precedent on that. If a Congresscritter is convicted of a felony while in office, they may be expelled by their house of Congress, but they aren't automatically removed from office. I would expect (though I don't know for sure) that appointed federal officials would only be removed by dismissal by the President (for executive branch offices other than President and VP) or impeachment and conviction (executive or judicial branch).

 

[Titan II]

Ok, so felons aren't allowed to vote, but some can hold office? Is that during their punishment, or after?

Citations, please

Citations? Don't you know how to use Google? I will give you one article to consider. The Constitution is another.

https://www.voanews.com/a/can-felons-serve-in-us-elected-federal-offices-/7014217.html

BTW....stating that felons aren't allowed to vote is also inaccurate. Again, it depends, and there are many variables. If you care, do your own research.

 

[Alan15578]

Term limits ensure that most of the people in the legislature don't know their stuff and don't really know how the process works. Which means that they depend even more on lobbyists to show them the ropes and help write bills. As an example, in 2018 half of Michigan's state legislators were new to their chamber, along with a new governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and leaders of both houses of the legislature. Imagine trying to work in a job where half of the people are new and nobody has more than 5 years experience. That's murder for a technical job (which writing legislation is).

https://crcmich.org/press-releases/...heir-promise-but-theyre-probably-here-to-stay

Plus term limits have been struck down at the federal level by the US Supreme Court.

The barrier to people entering politics isn't that they stop being productive in their "real job". The barrier is that running for office (even for low level seats like school board) is an exhausting and unpleasant process. And I say that having done it. Term limits mean that everyone in the state house is looking for their promotion to the state senate in a few years, and everything is planned around a career ladder. That's not a recipe for good governance.

Well... They just hire a comptroller, cabinet member, etc. to do all the nitty gritty governance, freeing up elected politicians to do the speechifying, baby kissing, and campaign money corrupting. Or something like that. But I'm sure there are some good politicians on both sides.