It should be everyone's right to be able to get the best politician that money can buy. After all Corporations are People and Money is Speech.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74068.html CEO challenges cap on donations By: Robin Bravender March 15, 2012 01:20 PM EDT Individual donors should be able to cut checks to as many candidates as theyd like during an election season, conservative attorneys argue to the Federal Election Commission in a new request. Lawyers at DB Capitol Strategies are telling the campaign finance watchdog agency that its unconstitutional to bar individual donors from spreading their wealth among as many candidates as theyd like, despite the legal limit of $46,200 that they are currently permitted to give to candidates each two-year election cycle. The request comes as the Federal Election Commission is struggling to lay out new ground rules in the wake of recent federal court decisions that dramatically altered federal campaign finance laws. In light of the Supreme Courts decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and other cases, the attorneys argue, the panel should reject the aggregate limits on candidate contributions. It doesnt prevent corruption, said Stephen Hoersting, counsel at DB Capitol Strategies. All it does is keeps people from giving to the candidates they associate with. So if it doesnt prevent corruption, then it shouldnt still be constitutional after all these opinions weve had in the last five or six years, he said. Hoersting and attorney Dan Backer are representing Shaun McCutcheon, the CEO of an Alabama-based electrical engineering firm, who wants to donate a total of $51,900 on federal candidates in the 2012 election cycle. None of those donations would exceed the $2,500 federal limit that an individual can donate to an individual candidate. The lawyers arent challenging the $70,800 limit that individuals can contribute to party committees and political action committees in an election cycle. The request has sparked outrage among campaign finance reform advocates. Paul Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, said the FEC lacks the legal authority to declare a statute unconstitutional. I cant recall another example of an advisory opinion requestor asking the FEC to declare a statute unconstitutional, Ryan said. But Mr. Backer is likely encouraged by the activist deregulatory attitudes of the three Republican commissioners and hopeful that theyll exceed the bounds of the commissions authority in this matter. The FEC is split 3-3 along party lines and often deadlocks on controversial decisions, offering little guidance for political groups. But Hoersting argues the FEC has the power to take action.Its seen all these new opinions come down and it has applied the reasoning of those opinions to a bunch of different statutory provisions, he said. It hasnt waited for a court to specifically strike down every subset of every statutory provision th ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:348609 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
