We've been crying for so long about the constitutionality of various campaign finance reform for my entire voting lifetime. What do we have to show for it? A bought political system, out of necessity. It takes money to purchase advertising, staff, and all the trappings of a campaign. US House Representatives have 2 year terms; basically they never get to stop campaigning.
So 1. We should Campaign Less: If we made terms longer and imposed term limits (or at least a hiatus before someone is eligible to run again), that would help, but campaigns are so UGLY. This is nothing new (check out Andrew Jackson's campaign, http://history1800s.about.com/od/leaders/a/electionof1828.htm).
It does seem like it has been worse since the Republican takeover in 1994, and is getting worse. Soon we will be left with nobody but the stupid running for office--why else would they subject themselves and families to all the mud?
Combined with having to campaign less, we should 2. Lower the libel threshold, making it easier to prosecute for libel and slander, even shifting the burden of proof to be more like Great Britain (the person suing for libel only has to prove the defendant's statement is false)...we can clean things up a bit. When an opposing candidate blatantly lies about someone's record, the other candidate should sue. The judiciary can play referee, and if one side goes too far, they get financially penalized.
It's still free speech, but in this case any mud a candidate slings has to be based on fact. The "actual malice" standard here in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice) is well intentioned, but it has the unintended consequence of alienating the electorate. Maybe that's what Karl Rove wanted. By only having to prove that the opposing candidate did not know the facts were false, the opposition gets free license to say anything about the other candidate.
Things would still be ugly; there are compromise votes that have to be made which get taken out of context, and there is a latent human tendency to vote against something rather than for something.
But maybe we can take it down a few notches and get some productive debate squeezed in around all the ugliness and fear.
So 1. We should Campaign Less: If we made terms longer and imposed term limits (or at least a hiatus before someone is eligible to run again), that would help, but campaigns are so UGLY. This is nothing new (check out Andrew Jackson's campaign, http://history1800s.about.com/od/leaders/a/electionof1828.htm).
It does seem like it has been worse since the Republican takeover in 1994, and is getting worse. Soon we will be left with nobody but the stupid running for office--why else would they subject themselves and families to all the mud?
Combined with having to campaign less, we should 2. Lower the libel threshold, making it easier to prosecute for libel and slander, even shifting the burden of proof to be more like Great Britain (the person suing for libel only has to prove the defendant's statement is false)...we can clean things up a bit. When an opposing candidate blatantly lies about someone's record, the other candidate should sue. The judiciary can play referee, and if one side goes too far, they get financially penalized.
It's still free speech, but in this case any mud a candidate slings has to be based on fact. The "actual malice" standard here in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice) is well intentioned, but it has the unintended consequence of alienating the electorate. Maybe that's what Karl Rove wanted. By only having to prove that the opposing candidate did not know the facts were false, the opposition gets free license to say anything about the other candidate.
Things would still be ugly; there are compromise votes that have to be made which get taken out of context, and there is a latent human tendency to vote against something rather than for something.
But maybe we can take it down a few notches and get some productive debate squeezed in around all the ugliness and fear.
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