Someday, people will eventually figure out that all that campaign contribution limits do is make it harder for the public to figure out the flow of money to candidates and causes.
There is no better example than the list published on the Fair Political Practices Commission website today that lists, The Top Ten Beneficiaries of Independent Expenditures In Legislative Elections. Massive amounts of money are moving around from interests that would probably have just donated straight to the candidates, were in not for our lame system of free-speech restrictions.
There are two main losers of campaign contribution limits. The first is the public who now has to try and figure out the contorted money trail as the "flow of free speech" will find its way… The other are well meaning candidates who maybe have family and friends who would donate larger chunks of money to their campaigns, but because of the limits, they don’t. These candidates either don’t run, or are at a decided disadvantage to those candidates who know, or have friends who know how to work the system.
It’s time to repeal contribution limits, and bring some intellectual honesty back into the process. Clearly the money is being spent anyhow..
April 5th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Fun all around….what about web sites that take political advertising money from candidates and publish puff articles written by known politial operatives….look no further!
April 5th, 2010 at 12:00 am
I don’t know. If John were simply hacking, he wouldn’t take comments by Dem’s like me or by people like yourself that have a dramatically different perspective. He has to work pretty hard to keep this thing up to date and you can see the effort by the number of others that have tried this and then given up, including some top politico’s with full staffs working for them. He deserves some credit for having the best blog on California politics and for being reasonably fair to all sides. Frankly I think the LA Times should hire him to run their nonpartisan blog. He would do a better job.