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MayOne.us - Kickstarted SuperPAC to enact campaign finance reform


woah

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I typically don't make politics-related posts, but I know there are some US citizens here and I think this is a pretty cool idea.

 

http://www.mayone.us

 

The short:

 

Basically MayOne.us is a kickstarted SuperPAC to enact campaign finance reform (CFR) and change lobbying law (reform might look something like this: http://www.anticorruptionact.org ) in an effort to reduce corruption and force the US government to better represent its citizens' interests rather than large funders. It uses the kickstarter/indiegogo concept of raising money (so you lose nothing unless the goal is met) and this has made it particularly successful: in less than two weeks (and with no mainstream media attention) we have over $920,000 in pledges.

 

The money will be used to elect candidates that will support campaign finance reform in 2014 and 2016. The first goal is $1 million for this month and the second goal is $5 million, which the main organizer (Lawrence Lessig) believes he can match (for a total of $12 million). This $12 million will be used in a few districts around the country to test the concept in 2014 and then, if successful, expand on it for 2016.

 

The long:

 

First, if you're interested in this, I recommend you watch Lawrence Lessig's TED talks--e.g. this one:

 

 

The vast majority of Americans agree that the US democracy has been corrupted by a relatively small number of individuals/interest groups that use their wealth to exert undue influence over the political process through campaign contributions, lobbying, SuperPACs, etc etc. With the average senate seat costing ~$4 million (and competitive races reaching as high as $30 million) and the average house seat ~$1 million (and this is increasing every couple of election cycles), congressmen spend the majority of their time courting wealthy individuals/interests for the financial support to run their increasingly expensive campaigns. In addition. public office is increasingly used by congressmen as a stepping stone to highly lucrative careers lobbying for the industries they formerly regulated (passing back and forth through the so-called "revolving door", this is the path taken by ~50% of congressmen now).

 

Thus there are incentive systems and conflicts of interest which have resulted in extremely business-/wealth-friendly attitudes and an almost complete indifference to the plight of the average citizen (and thus it is a "corruption" of a system which is supposed to represent the public interest). This can be linked to just about every problematic issue facing the US today: shitty and overly expensive healthcare, an under-regulated Wall Street, starvation wages for the poor, wealth-friendly tax law, crumbling infrastructure, a bloated military budget, lack of a response to climate change, expensive but poor broadband internet, etc etc.

 

The solution (these reformers and I believe) is thus to change the incentives: if we force elected officials to raise small contributions from a large number of individuals in order to fund campaigns, they will represent the interests of those individuals (for example, give each citizen $100 tax rebate to be doled out as they see fit). This is in addition to several other reforms that, e.g. address the revolving door, place strict limits on the size of contributions, etc etc (again, similar to http://www.anticorruptionact.org ). Money is not entirely removed from the system because: (1) the reality is that campaigns cost a lot of money and thus that money should be awarded in as democratic a way as possible, (2) the wealthy will always find a way to influence the political process and this would provide a substantial small dollar-funded threshhold, and (3) the current members of the dominant political parties will collude to fight any reform which does not give them alternative forms of funding.

 

A SuperPAC like this is being started because while most Americans do agree that this is a huge problem, candidates concerned about this issue, naturally, cannot raise enough money to compete. The average citizen will never even hear about them or have any confidence in their success. There are a few exceptions (e.g. Bernie Sanders) but these are an extremely small minority (and if you look closely, almost all of them have skeletons in their closet--controversial sources of funding that were probably essential to their election).

Edited by woah
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This is interesting, but what is stopping a candidate from telling the public what we want to hear when it comes to reform and then just going back on their word when they get elected?

 

They might not even do it out of malice, either. They might get to office on their first day with the idea of inacting changes for the better, but then a high up official pulls our new candidate into his office, has a chat with them, explaining how much controversial data has been pieced together about this shiny new candidate and how if he doesn't want his reputation ruined, he will follow the line just like everybody else.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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While I agree with the general concept, isn't starting a SuperPAC to fight money in politics the same as screwing for virginity?

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This is interesting, but what is stopping a candidate from telling the public what we want to hear when it comes to reform and then just going back on their word when they get elected?

 

Can't say this would address something like that. We're not looking for perfection--just something better. However, your example is one of the main reasons I am concerned with the NSA's recent overstepping.

 

While I agree with the general concept, isn't starting a SuperPAC to fight money in politics the same as screwing for virginity?

 

Probably ;) . But as Lessig says, "Embrace the irony"

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If Lessig is behind this, it's definitely legit. Good intentioned at least. The problem is that the whole thing is predicated on the fact that voting at the Federal level isn't a dog and pony show. Pretty sure its a dog and pony show.

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Wouldn't it be a coup if instead of getting elected on corporations money and then screwing over the people, one could get elected on the pEOPLe's money and then screw over the people.

 

Not saying that is what this is intentioned towards. Its just if this does take off, eventually it will be corrupted as well and that is what will happen even though the original intentions didn't dictate that.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The first goal of $1 million was met in less than 2 weeks and thereafter Lessig was able to get it matched. The second goal just started yesterday (started june 4th, ends july 4th) and we're already at about $400,000.

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  • 5 weeks later...

The second goal of $5 million was just reached! So that's $12 million to test the concept for the 2014 midterm elections.

 

Today was kind of amazing: at 2pm or so we were only at $4 million, but there was a surge of pledges at the last moment. And I fully admit that I didn't think we were going to make it until just a couple of days ago (things were moving very slowly for the majority of the fundraising period).

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  • 4 months later...

Leaving aside the already-mentioned irony of trying to raise money to keep money out of politics and the impracticality of trying to use rules and regulations to control how future laws are made (which, short of a constitutional amendment, can be easily reversed by the future lawmakers themselves), I believe this kind of thing is solving the wrong problem in any case.

 

No matter how much money a corporation or wealthy lobbyist has, they are still reliant on ordinary people to vote for their selected candidate. Campaign finance can be used to produce advertising but it doesn't magically result in popular support. If people really cared about the particular issues you mention, they could form parties, elect candidates and influence policy in the way that they wanted.

 

Rather than looking for ways to restrict the activities of political opponents (wealthy or otherwise), the people behind this campaign would be better off trying to increase awareness and support for their particular concerns amongst the ordinary grass-roots voting public. And if the ordinary grass-roots voting public just don't care? That's democracy for you.

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And if the ordinary grass-roots voting public just don't care? That's democracy for you.

That implies there isn't a problem to be solved, but I for one sincerely hope you guys find a fix. The level of corruption tolerated in US politics is shocking and very troubling for those of us watching it in Europe. Troubling because what happens in the US tends to happen here a few years later. It looks like every elected politician has to be a billionaire or be owned by one. Votes are for sale presumably because there are a lot of low-information voters who don't know or care much about the issues and the votes of those people are swayable through a expensive blast of advertising. We have a similar proportion of low-info voters in the British electorate too of course so I don't know why we don't have the personal attack ads etc, but so far we don't. There are never ads for individual candidates, only for national parties, so (thus far) individuals don't need to raise money to get elected and so don't need to sell themselves in the same way. We do have a problem with the national parties raising money in grubby ways, but the effects aren't as bad as when every candidate has a debt to pay. Long may it last, and I hope you guys find a fix.

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That implies there isn't a problem to be solved, but I for one sincerely hope you guys find a fix. The level of corruption tolerated in US politics is shocking and very troubling for those of us watching it in Europe. Troubling because what happens in the US tends to happen here a few years later. It looks like every elected politician has to be a billionaire or be owned by one. Votes are for sale presumably because there are a lot of low-information voters who don't know or care much about the issues and the votes of those people are swayable through a expensive blast of advertising. We have a similar proportion of low-info voters in the British electorate too of course so I don't know why we don't have the personal attack ads etc, but so far we don't. There are never ads for individual candidates, only for national parties, so (thus far) individuals don't need to raise money to get elected and so don't need to sell themselves in the same way. We do have a problem with the national parties raising money in grubby ways, but the effects aren't as bad as when every candidate has a debt to pay. Long may it last, and I hope you guys find a fix.

If there's a country that has more corruption in Europe that would be Moldova (also rated as the poorest on the continent). Feels kind of weird when all events are happening outside.

 

Didn't imagine though such a turn of events. Crowd funding for politics might change things if the candidates are honest and nobody uses fraud in the elections.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Frankly, people didn't see places where it's really bad to understand how lucky they are with their country.

It's easy to figure it out here: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2013/results

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

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