261

Republicans have waged a decades-long battle to blow up the campaign-finance laws that rein in big-money spending. Now, they are making a play that could end in their biggest victory since the Citizens United ruling in 2010.

The GOP is growing increasingly optimistic about their prospects in a little-noticed lawsuit that would allow official party committees and candidates to coordinate freely by removing current spending restrictions. If successful, it would represent a seismic shift in how tens of millions of campaign dollars are spent and upend a well-established political ecosystem for TV advertising.

An eventual victory in the lawsuit, filed last November by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, would eliminate the need for House and Senate campaign committees of any party to set up separate operations to make so-called independent expenditures to boost candidates with TV ads.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Ertebolle@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

OK, but:

upend a well-established political ecosystem for TV advertising

boost candidates with TV ads

Even my Boomer parents are going streaming-only now; political consultants still love TV ads because they make lots of money off of them, and the need to spend lots of money on TV also powers the small-dollar fundraising / "can you rush me $17 RIGHT NOW" machine from which all sorts of awful people likewise take a generous cut, but how much of an impact is this actually likely to have?

[-] wrath-sedan@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

The article note that actual voters probably won’t see much of a difference. The main effect is an even more direct big donor to candidate money pipeline that will mean they’ll have even more influence than they already do.

Plus precedent of course, I imagine it’s usually easier to chip away at campaign finance regulations when you can cite other cases as evidence, but I’m no lawyer.

[-] Ertebolle@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Sure, but isn't big donor influence largely due to how much their money can swing elections? If TV ads fade in importance and you can saturate your audience with cheaper targeted internet ones, rich guys are reduced to regular old bribery and you can only go on so many junkets a year.

[-] wrath-sedan@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

That’s probably a trend but according to this (sorry dumb paywalled stats site but the relevant bit is in the free overview) as of now Broadcast TV is still the largest political ad market.

[-] Ertebolle@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

That's actually kind of my point - they're spending the money on something that gets less effective every year, and it's not clear if there's any other expense that'll replace it. And most politicians hate fundraising, so if they can mount an equally effective campaign with less money I expect an awful lot of them will do so.

this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
261 points (97.5% liked)

politics

19089 readers
3912 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS