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From: andy@rocky.stanford.edu (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The Impact of Inventions
Message-ID: <2174@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 17:19:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.2174
Posted: Mon Jul  6 17:19:44 1987
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Hugh Daniel wrote:

>   Wonderful idea, I knew it had to have been tried, and sure enough it has.
>Seems that if you tell candidate X not to accept money from outside his/her
>district that the folks from the outside just start their own group to get
>their candidate elected.   Seems that they have this first amendment right
>to say what they want.

They can say whatever they want.  If it is support the rule counts it
as a contribution even if the candidate doesn't control it.  The penalty
for excessive outside contributions is that the candidate loses the
election.  (If the winner doesn't break the rule, everything is fine,
otherwise a special election, with none of the candidates who cheated
the first time, is held.  If an official is found guilty of breaking
the rule after he's seated, he's out.)  If it's a first offense, we
won't ban him/her from running for that office during the next regular
election.  I'll bet that outsiders won't insist on their right to dump
their candidate.  They do have this right since they're not penalized;
the candidate is.

There are problems with deciding who to charge an external contribution
to.  (Think about smear campaigns.)  There are also problems with
valuing non-monetary contributions.

Mandatory public disclosure of contribution sources (outside district
percentages) might be adequate if done before the election.  The
trick is to prohibit post-election contributions.  One way is to
make campaign debts uncollectable (at least after the election).
Only fools will give credit to candidates under those circumstances.

-andy