[Don Corleone]

My opinion for what it is worth is, “No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.” JMHO

[from occupied ga]

“No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.” JMHO

And yet a great many people for whom you cannot vote vote on matters that directly affect you. By definition at the federal level you can vore for 2 senators and one representative. That leaves 532 who can screw you with their vote.

[dsc]

“No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.”

Now *that’s* an interesting thought. However, it could also turn out to be an incumbent protection act, especially in smaller areas.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

My opinion for what it is worth is, “No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.” JMHO

Riiiight. I guess that rules out contributing to primary challegers of RINO, and to the opponent of Harry Reid.

Freedom of speech, and of the press, obviously implies that my speech can criticize or extol politicians whether or not I can vote for them - and so can my printing press.

The fundamental import of the First Amendment is that the government doesn’t have a right to license me to speak or print, because it doesn’t have a right to prevent people who don’t have a government license from speaking or printing.

If my newspaper is the New York Times or if it is a flyer I print out on a copying machine, that paper still has the Constitution squarely behind it no matter what its politics and no matter what its religious identity. That leaves no scope for “campaign finance reform,” since Congress is explicitly forbidden to legislate about it.

. . . and as to other technologies besides print, those are anticipated by the Constitution. Not explicitly, of course, but in principle.

Article 1 Section 8.

The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . . <

informs us that no one should assume that the framers would be surprised at the arising of propaganda media other than print. It was to be encouraged.

But what of the possibility that such advances might require governmental regulation? Article V

Amend the Constitution to fix the problem. But before you do that, don’t you think we ought to actually try the Constitution we’ve already got? That would require the abolition of the FCC as well as the FEC.

We also need to abolish, or at least to delegitimate, the wire services because it is they which are the engines of the homogenization of journalism nationwide. They empower the collusion of journalists across the country, they impose style guides which define politically correct nomenclature, and in general they are anticompetitive. That leaves the interests of journalists as the definition of “the public interest.” And the interests of journalism lie in promoting the conceit that criticism is superior to performance, and the conceit that all journalists are objective.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

My opinion for what it is worth is, “No one should be able to contribute ANYTHING of value toward the election of someone for whom they cannot vote.” JMHO

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That's pretty how to justify. More of Idaho is owned and controlled by the Federal Government and thus representatives that folks from other states vote for. They get plenty of say so over what issues that directly impact the wallets of the locals. For instance California, due to their abundance of Senators, has a much greater say so over Idaho's forest usage.

My opinion for what its worth: It's none of the government's blanketly-blank business who I give my money to in politics. It's my money, not the governments they don't own, so aside from taxes; they don't get to spend it.