That is generally how laws work, yes. You explicitly define the exact boundaries within which people/organizations/smaller governments may operate. And they operate exactly within those boundaries.
This is why law is complicated and good lawyers make good money. Not because the system is corrupt (it might be) but because you need to draw these explicit boundaries, and then you will have people/organizations/smaller governments try to get around the spirit but follow the letter.
I don't think this is a legitimate concern, we've solved it elsewhere - even in extremely sensitive areas. And, at worst, it'll force Ads to be more indirect and, if that proliferates, we can expand the powers of the law as needed.
Uneven application of the law is certainly an issue, and an overly wide application of the law usually falls under ex post facto laws which are seen as illegal by pretty much everyone. There are very sane people who can judge challenges to the law - we can lean on these people heavily.
A real loophole is something that gets closed once noticed, and there are accountants that thread the needle on these - a good, and rather widespread, example might be SUVs qualifying as farm equipment. This combined with loose agricultural qualifications in some states (like florida) led to widespread claims against luxury auto taxes for some pretty bizarre cases - then that loophole was closed.
The US has the absolute authority to solve the loophole, other countries can't do much about it but since the US is the ultimate destination for these goods the government can demand that manufacturing steps have paid proper minimums on VAT taxes and force tariffs on goods equivalent to the lost tax potential when goods enter the US - since the US is a huge consumer market that'll cover a whole lot of items... Additionally, as soon as the US starts collecting the taxes that the Bahamas voluntarily let go unpaid people won't ship goods there to dodge the VAT - then the Bahamas will have no continued reason to decline to charge VAT and likely institute a sane VAT just to acquire what income they can (since not doing so is essentially leaving money on the table).
Honestly, corporate tax laws are how they are because corporations hold a lot of political power - not because nobody notices what's going on or because no one can actually address the situation.
But aside from that, what happens if my spouse runs and ad naming my opponent?
Or my neighbor does?
Or CNN does - perhaps in an ad for a personal interview to be televised in prime time ?
There is no practical way to stop this. There will always be ways around it.
But first, that Amendment thing...
If you lock down political speech, you no longer have a democracy (yes, I know we are a republic). Because then the government gets to control what is or is not allowed. And I guarantee that whichever party is in power at the moment will use that to try to stay in power. And it's dominoes falling after that.
In order to amend the Canadian constitution, Parliament must amend it. On the other hand, Congress can become subject to changes in the constitution even without its consent, as was seen in the passage of the most recent amendment.
In the 1980s a university student decided to change the constitution against Congress's wishes and was able to do so, by getting the states to change the laws to which Congress is subject. Try doing that in Canada.
The BCRA (McCain–Feingold) was a fairly balanced piece of legislation with reasonable and practical limits that was passed in a bipartisan manner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act
I see no reason why limiting corporate financing of electioneering means we are on a slippery slope to a loss of individual political speech.
Farenheit 9/11 was released 4 months prior to the 2004 election and is thus outside the 60 day window and not prohibited by Mcain-Feingold.
I would have wholeheartedly supported that movie being blocked as electioneering inside the 60 day window.
Edit: Specifically, Citizens United was prohibited for paying to show or advertise within 30 days of the democratic primaries.
> The United States District Court for the District of Columbia held that §203 of BCRA applied and prohibited Citizens United from advertising the film Hillary: The Movie in broadcasts or paying to have it shown on television within 30 days of the 2008 Democratic primaries. [0]
What you have said is akin to saying that if the government banned the publishing of certain books that wouldn't be an impairment on the written word because people would still be free to write whatever they wanted down in their own personal notebooks.
> Reducing the ability of someone to broadcast their speech is an impairment.
Not necessarily; it all depends on perspective. Campaign finance restrictions would (relatively) enhance the ability of a not-so-wealthy person to broadcast their speech, because their message wouldn't be so drowned out by the broadcasts of the wealthy.
The amendment says that the government has to stay out of the way.
The First Amendment isn't the sum total of American law. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there are constitutional powers meant to provide effective democratic elections.
The tension here is between those two interests. I think it's worth considering the idea that a too-absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment (in regards to spending) may interfere with the nation's ability to provide effective democratic elections. Both are important priorities.
Also, it's not like the Constitution is perfect, timeless document. If it doesn't do enough to ensure effective democratic elections in light of its other provisions, then changes should be considered to fix that oversight.
Political speech is already locked down in many ways by the government. For instance: neither you nor I can go to a polling station and harangue the people waiting to vote. We're also not permitted to force our way into schools or private homes to do the same. If we violate those rules, some people in blue uniforms will come and haul us away.
No one has an unrestricted right to go out and literally speak, as that right to do that is balanced against other rights and considerations. What's so different about the right to spend? Why can't that right be balanced against other rights and considerations, too?
> No one has an unrestricted right to go out and literally speak, as that right to do that is balanced against other rights and considerations. What's so different about the right to spend? Why can't that right be balanced against other rights and considerations, too?
You're right: spending is not treated very much differently than speech. Can a state pass a law that says people are limited to 30 political posts on social media per week? Can the government enforce a rule saying "people are limited to 30 hours of political activity per month"?
Campaign spending - that is, money that is being given directly to candidates - is already limited. Citizens United did not change this. What is unlimited is spending on activism unrelated to any particular campaign. Say you and some of your friends are worried about climate change, and put together some money to run ads or billboards not promoting any politician in particular but encouraging more work on preventing climate change. Can the government swoop in and say, "sorry you've reached your spending limit for climate activism"?
The courts decided no. Putting caps on this sort of activity is an infringement on people's right to free speech.
Actually, you are allowed to protest on public property within earshot of private homes.
You cannot enter a private home because someone else's property and liberty trump your right to free speech on their property. In so far as their property includes the sidewalk (typically). You have every right to speak there. You can even protest there if you want.
> No one has an unrestricted right to go out and literally speak,
Yes, you do have every right to go out on public property and literally speak. That is literally the right you have that many have died for and the ACLU and other orgs have fought for. Try it right now! Have fun. There is literally no restriction as long as you are not physically harassing or verbally abusing someone, and you are not physically preventing anyone from passing you.
> Yes, you do have every right to go out on public property and literally speak.
No, you don't. Most states have laws that prevent you from doing that at a polling place on election day:
For example:
https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2020-01/sta...
> During the hours the polls are open, a person who is in the polling place or within 200 feet of any entrance to the polling place may not attempt to persuade a person to vote for or against a candidate, proposition, or question.
This is like saying laws meant to keep stairways clear are restricting your free speech. You are absolutely allowed to protest near an election center within reasonable limits.
To point out how ridiculous these selections of laws are as a proof that free speech is being abridged, I'll point out that Alabama restricts protests to be at least 30 feet away from the site. If 30 feet means you can't get your message across in a public enough forum, I'm not sure what to say.
Also, a lot of those laws are subject to pending legislation.
That's kinda my point. You're not allowed to trespass in order to exercise free speech rights, because private property rights are balanced against free speech rights.
The to quote the First Amendment:
> Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech...
> Interfering with someone voting [is] not speech.
That's true, but you could still harangue voters waiting in line at the polls without interfering with any aspect of the voting procedures. Yet that exercise of free speech still isn't permitted, because its balanced against needs for running elections.
There's very little you can do without spending, whether directly or indirectly. How would pro-choice advocates like it if abortion was explicitly legal, but it was illegal to spend money to obtain or provide abortion procedures?
Someone did a pretty good job of cataloging this phenomenon for Yang. Bear in mind, this is just the most blatant visual removal of him from conversation and doesn't include the way they frame discussions verbally.
https://vocal.media/theSwamp/a-visual-history-of-the-yang-me...
If you're going to restrict campaigns, you must also control corporate press lest they just be given all the power to choose our leaders.
Ideally, journalists would cover the topics they think are important to their audiences. We know this doesn't play out in practice. But even in an ideal world, I don't see Yang getting more coverage.
Overall, he isn't entitled to a place in the conversation, but omitting him from certain parts of the conversation seems very disingenuous.
For a real life example, if they show a list of "all" candidates on screen (including 7 that poll lower than Yang), but exclude Yang from that list, this is not cool at all (which is exactly what happened multiple times, as evidenced by the article the parent comment linked). Same goes for debates, where some candidates got a ton of questions asked, while Andrew got way fewer questions.
Consider the economic value to the Trump campaign that comes from how Fox News talks about him. Consider the economic value the Dem candidate will get based on how MSNBC talks about them compared to Trump. It's a huge campaign contributions that aren't accounted for by the FEC but are surely an important part of campaigns.
I do think Sanders was shortchanged of some press coverage in this primary. I think that's changing as his chances of winning go up. I hope he's covered extensively, because I don't think most people are aware of some of his negatives, and as a front funner, his candidacy deserves our scrutiny.
You make a good point that there is an oligopoly of corporate press. I think that's something harmful to our democracy, and something we should be concerned about. I'm not sure what the solution is. For now, I just donate to public radio.
So only the top candidate should get any coverage?!
If no/few ads are allowed we’d likely get famous or infamous people running and winning on name recognition mostly.
The problem with paid advertising is that this breaks down. Now it's not the "people" we trust that are telling us this stuff, it's the "places" we go to find those people. There's a difference between Zukerberg telling us who to vote for and Facebook taking money to plaster our feed with Bloomberg ads. So people who are likely to "trust" their Facebook feed (which is most people) are now at the mercy of whoever is willing to pay Facebook the most money.
And there's a cynical response that they are gaining influence in other ways, but it's not like we usually model corporations as agents of great restraint, so why wouldn't they also do way more political spending?
[0] - https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/#44fcf3a7999b