In light of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and the kerfuffle over Justice Alito's understandable reaction to being wrongly taken to task because of it (acts of presidential lèse majesté now apparently extend to the reading of lips), here is my campaign finance rule:

Anybody can give any amount of money to anybody, as long as the donors (and secondary contributors) and recipients disclose on a timely basis (in spreadsheet form on an accessible website) who is giving what to whom. Jail for those who don't.

That's it. If a politician wants to risk his reputation taking a big chunk of change from the Saudis, the voters will decide. If the auto companies want to give a big chunk of change to John Dingell (or run ads on his behalf) and the voters in Michigan's 15th district don't mind, that's their business.

And if Chevron and Bank of America and Pacific Life want to give a big chunk of change to the PBS Newshour to burnish their public image with the liberal intelligentsia, they can do that too. Ditto all those feel-good corporate infomercials that pay for the Sunday morning news shows.

Oh, wait, they already do that.

I guess the influence buying at some corporations (starting with the New York Times Company and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) is more "equal" than others. So let's can the "heartfelt concern" that's an excuse to condescend toward anyone who doesn't share our aesthetic or political tastes.

The religious right can stop trying to "save" the proles from porn and video games. And the statist left can stop trying to "save" the proles from McDonalds and Walmart. And political ads. Speech is speech. It mostly goes in one ear and out the other. We can all quit pretending to be so terrified by it.

Anyway, reading National Geographic as a kid convinced me it's the pretentious rich who are the suckers for slick ads and status symbols and the latest New Age secular religion.

This being Super Bowl Monday, when's the last time an ad convinced you--from zero to conviction--of anything? Rather it tipped you toward a decision you were prepared to make or reinforced an opinion you already held. Used-car salesmen of all stripes are the ones to watch out for.

Speaking of which, buying the votes of crooked politicians with millions in bribes is far kinder to the public purse than crooked politicians buying the votes of their constituents with billions in pork. There's only so much corruption to go around. Let's spend wisely and outsource.

Because the only serious way to fix the problem at the federal level would be to triple the number of congressional seats, increase congressional terms to four years, and limit the occupancy of a single seat (including judgships) to twenty-four consecutive years. And that's never going to happen.

Labels: politics