My proposal for circumventing the SCOTUS and stopping legalized bribery: Conflict of interest rules.

[backscatter712]

In courtrooms, if a case goes before a judge, and all of the sudden, it turns out the judge regularly goes golfing with the defendant, conflict of interest rules kick in. The judge recuses himself, another judge, who does not know the defendant, takes over the case, and the trial remains impartial. Conflicts of interest are not allowed, and mechanisms exist to resolve them when they occur.

In Congress, if the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee took millions of dollars in campaign contributions from health insurance and pharmeceutical companies, then gets a health care reform bill in front of him that could significantly affect the business of his contributors, gee, look what happened... (I'm using the example of Max Baucus, but this goes waaaaaay beyond Max Baucus.)

The Supreme Court, in one of its worst decisions, ruled that this was perfectly legal, and protected by the First Amendment.

How do we get around the SCOTUS decision?

Conflict of interest rules.

See, this way, organizations and individuals can donate whatever they want. The rules I propose do not restrict them. They restrict the actions of our elected officials.

So say Blue Cross Baucus gets a health care bill under the new rules, after taking millions from AHIP and PhRMA? Conflict of interest rules kick in.

Baucus would now have a choice. Either recuse himself from the debate on this bill, or give the money back!

If he gives the money back, and operates under rules that mandate he can no longer accept contributions from them, or take jobs from them, or their lobbyist groups after he leaves the Senate, or otherwise accept benefits to himself or his campaign or his future career in any way, then he no longer has the incentives that the entire Senate has under present rules to turn necessary legislation into a clusterfuck.

Add in some rules mandating that Congressmembers & Senators cannot accept jobs from lobbying groups or other organizations that lobbied for or against legislation they participated in for at least ten years, other rules that maintain the theme that Congresscritters and Senators cannot benefit through campaign contributions or anywhere else from benefactors that would be affected by legislation.

OK, so it's a dream. But if Congress did miraculously pull their heads out of their asses long enough to enact this, it would be a potential solution to the corporate bribery issue, and circumvent the SCOTUS's latest ruling.

Discuss.

Addendum: What do I think the effects of conflict-of-interest rules would be? I think that if it was iron-clad and strictly enforced (another dream - Congress will always add loopholes), the effect would cause Congress to stop pursuing or accepting corporate donations altogether, along with bundled donations from corporate executives as even that would trip the conflict-of-interest triggers in the rules, and focus on soliciting small donations from ordinary citizens - not necessarily a bad thing. They'd probably feel the money squeeze, and give themselves some public campaign financing as well.

[rfranklin]

1. We need a Constitutional amendment to stop it...

No corporation shall have an irrevocable charter. No corporation shall be given the rights of an actual person. Period.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. I applaud your search for a solution...BUT...

1. They don't have to give him the money directly. They can either run ads "independently" for him if he agrees or against him if he challenges them

2. It seems to me the gist of the ruling is: you can't tell people where to spend their political dollars

And now the really depressing point:

3. Congress governs itself on all matters of ethics



gonna K&R anyway

:hi:

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Problem is, corporations ain't people. Anyone with a modicum of

common sense knows this.

If a person wants to put money in a campaign, HIS money goes into that campaign. If a corporation wants to put money in a campaign, OUR money goes into that campaign. If we ever spend any money on that corporation, or on subsidiaries of that corporation, or sister-companies of that corporation, or on a corporation which has shared board membership with that corporation, OUR money is being spent to support THEIR cause.

Corporations are now free to FLOOD the market with pro-corporate money. Anti-corporate candidates are now a thing of the past, as if they were not nearly so already.

We are, as of this ruling, no longer a democratic republic - we are a corporatocracy.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Nothing there to dispute, dear friend

At least we still have healthca--...no, we have gay ri--...peac--...a strong econom--

;(

Fuck it, I'm going back to bed.

[backscatter712]

6. You know this, I know this, but five justices on the Supreme Court don't know this.

:(

[randr]

4. Imposing super high fines for misinformation

would be a start.

[backscatter712]

7. Addition to this morning's proposal, vastly expand public financing of campaigns.

In addition to the conflict of interest rules I mentioned above, I suggest increasing the amount of public financing for candidates for office by a metric shitload (I'll leave it to the economic wonks to define "metric shitload", but yes, it should be a large increase.)

The point is to give political candidates who don't want to play the corporate financing two-step a fighting chance in elections, so they can put more ads on TV to counter the deluge of corporate ads, and so they can spend more money on campaigns. Ideally, if all they have to do is jump on the public financing bandwagon and have enough money to fight a decent campaign, they won't have to spend time begging from corporations, and can spend more time making laws and working with constituents. The amount of public financing available today is pitiful, which is why politicians seek corporate donors.

More ideas from the evening crowd?