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election law partisanship political challengers

Democratic Money for Republicans

“After years of claiming that money in politics is bad and Trumpists will destroy America,” writes Joe Lancaster in Reason, “Democrats spent millions to boost the people they are most afraid of.”

In a strategy that might be designated Too Clever by Half, “Throughout the 2022 primary season, groups affiliated with the Democratic Party funded ads to boost immoderate Republican candidates,” Lancaster explains. “The goal was to boost the least moderate candidates in the hopes that they would be easier to beat in a general election.”

The Senate Majority PAC bought ads for New Hampshire’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, for instance, calling Chuck Morse a “sleazy politician,” allowing a retired brigadier general to advance on to the general election — only to lose to the incumbent. Another Democratic PAC pushed “nearly $100,000 on ads proclaiming Republican House primary candidate Robert Burns ‘the ultra-conservative candidate’ who ‘follows the Trump playbook.’” Burns went on to defeat his more moderate competitor and then be defeated in the general election.

That was the pattern around the country.

If this all sounds familiar, this is how we got Trump into the forefront in the first place. Hillary Clinton’s campaign infamously orchestrated the corporate news media’s fixation on Trump in 2015 and through to Trump’s winning the primary contest. And then, you will remember, the news media changed course and started the great anti-Trump freak-out.

This time, however, it may have paid off. Or at least not horribly backfired, for the much-prophesied Election Day 2022 “Red Wave” merely eroded the Democrats’ stranglehold on unified government. 

Washed away, instead, is the idea that Democrats truly fear these “mega-MAGA Republicans” or care about democracy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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ballot access national politics & policies

The Incumbency Fraud

“There’s nothing that shortening the period by which people can vote early does to combat any perceived fraud,” Democratic Party attorney Marc Elias said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s really just a cover for what they’re really trying to do, which is to make it harder to vote.”

At issue is a new law courtesy of Iowa Republicans, along with numerous bills pending in other states, addressing what Republicans call “election integrity” and Democrats call “voter suppression.”

Host Chuck Todd informed viewers that a poll found two-thirds of Floridians wanted more early voting days. Not fewer.

Hardly surprising, since that’s easiest for voters. And while voting should be easy, ease is not the only consideration.

The Iowa “law shortens the early voting period to 20 days from the current 29,” the Associated Press reported, “just three years after Republicans reduced the period from 40 days.”

Here’s why I support that change, though it would be better even shorter*:

  • We should vote together. Not weeks apart. With three, four, six weeks of early voting, election day ballots can be cast with a different set of facts than those cast so many weeks earlier. 
  • The longer the time during which ballots are cast, the greater the expense in running for office. Candidates must be in touch when voters make their decisions. Since incumbents hold an average four-to-one spending advantage over challengers, more expensive campaigns give incumbents an even greater advantage.  

So, while early voting doesn’t cause fraud, by making elections more expensive it fosters what we might call “the incumbency fraud.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* One provision in H.R. 1, which passed the U.S. House on a party-line vote, requires that states allow at least 15 days of early voting. The overall bill is terrible; plus, we are better off with the states as laboratories of democracy, rather than marionettes of Washington. But my preference would be not more than 15 days.

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First Amendment rights insider corruption national politics & policies

Worse Than Hypocrisy

“You shouldn’t accept any money from a Super PAC,” former Vice-President Joe Biden claims he advised his presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, “because [if you do] people can’t possibly trust you.”

Now it must be impossible to trust Mr. Biden.

“Joe Biden is apparently dropping his long-held opposition to the creation of an outside group,” the media tepidly informed last week, “that would supply an infusion of money to benefit his campaign.”

That is: the dreaded Super PAC.

In his 2017 book, Biden claimed he would not have accepted such “outside” support had he entered the 2016 contest — even though he “knew there was big money out there for me.” 

Why not? “[I]n a system awash with money,” the former VEEP wrote, “the middle class didn’t have a fighting chance.” 

What changed? Now this drowsy Democrat actually needs campaign cash! 

“Biden has struggled to raise money, and last week, his campaign reported having $9 million on hand,” reports The Washington Post, “roughly a third as much as some of his top Democratic rivals.”

Necessity is the catalyst of hypocrisy?

“As president, Joe Biden will push to remove private money from our federal elections,” his campaign explained. “He will advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end the era of unbridled spending by Super PACs.”

Your private money and mine has as much right to engage in federal elections as Mr. Biden does. And I’ve warned  many times about the free-speech repealing amendment the doddering Democrat frontrunner is pushing.

There may be worse things than hypocrisy, but there are few things worse than opposing First Amendment rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people

The Ultimate SuperPAC

Sen. Marco Rubio’s charge in last week’s presidential debate, that the mainstream media functions as a SuperPAC for Democrats, was not only accurate, I wrote at Townhall, it has deeper implications.

Consider the relentless media drumbeat for restrictive campaign finance regulations.

If the Federal Elections Commission mutes, at Congress’s instruction, voices of the political parties and silences issue-oriented advocacy groups — or such groups are prevented by the IRS from even forming in the first place — and if Democrats get their way and ban SuperPACs (other than the media), who would hold the loudest megaphone?

You guessed it.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC News, etc. — corporate behemoths all — warn of the dangers of big, bad corporations and wealthy individuals, hoping to spur regulation that hamstrings the communications of others.

The regulations somehow never involve abridging the speech of those same powerful media outlets.

Last year, every single Democrat in the Senate voted to repeal the essential constitutional guarantee of free speech, voting for Senate Joint Resolution 19, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.).

Had it become part of our Constitution, the First Amendment’s words “Congress shall pass no law” would have been replaced with an open-ended invitation for politicians in Congress to “regulate” campaign spending — therefore speech — to their hearts’ content.

The amendment was so sweeping the authors felt the need to add: “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

Big Media is a major force promoting Big Government, always willing to attack advocates of a constitutionally limited government.

Except when it comes to constitutional protections for Big Media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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national politics & policies

The Blast of the Big Spenders

The primary populist concern with “money in politics” is conspiratorial: “they” will grab total control because “they” buy the politicians.

The cries on the political left that The Evil Koch Brothers™ spend money, thereby “corrupting OUR democracy,” have become ubiquitous.

The fact that the left has its own billionaires, and that they give far more money to their causes than the Kochs do to theirs? Conveniently left out of the hysteria.

But the real case against money in politics has almost nothing to do with buying politicians.

Which leads us to the biggest problem with money in politics: most of it is a waste.

Binyamin Appelbaum, writing Tuesday in The New York Times, reports on the conclusion of a number of economists that “buying elections is economically inefficient.” Appelbaum quotes a major donor who posits why that’s the case: “politicians don’t stay bought.”

Yes indeed, politicians are a tricky investment.

Still, giving patterns suggest contributions are more often intended to advance one’s beliefs and values, than to purchase or rent the allegiance of (or protection from) an elected official.

When we switch from spending money on politicians to spending money on causes, especially initiative and referendum campaigns, the situation looks a bit different. You don’t buy anyone. You persuade voters. Or not.

I’ve seen many a well-funded initiative fall because citizens just wouldn’t have it. Businesses and lobbyists and unions all hate term limits, and have often outspent supporters. But, barring deception, term limits usually win with voters.

Who can’t be bought even for a while.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Abridge Too Far

Sick and tired of “too much money” in politics? Worried the average citizen’s voice is being drowned out?

Thirty-six Democratic U.S. Senators have just the thing: a re-write of the First Amendment.

They’ve co-sponsored a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Senate Joint Resolution 19.

“We would give the power back to the Congress,” says chief sponsor Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM).

Wait. That’s amending reality. Congress never had any such power. The instructions in the Constitution are quite clear: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …”

These 36 solons reverse course with the wording

… Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on —

  1. the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and
  2. the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

Our brand new constitution would not contain a single word of restraint. Instead, powerful congressional incumbents would wield complete and total control over all money to be raised or spent by their competitors.

And note: they already enjoy a tremendous name recognition advantage over their challengers. What happens when incumbents limit campaign spending too low for challengers to compete?

Its negation of rights is so sweeping that the amendment actually states, “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

No worries for the New York Times, then. But just how much of the First Amendment do the rest of us get to keep?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.