U.S. House Passes Bill that Permits Bigger Contributions to Political Party National Committees

On December 11, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill that funds the government for the next period, and also changes federal campaign finance law to allow bigger donations to political party national committees. However, the larger donation limits only apply to segregated political party funds involving paying for national conventions, lawsuits, and headquarters buildings. See this story.

The bill is likely to pass the Senate as well, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid supports it, and President Obama has said he will sign it if it reaches him.


Comments

U.S. House Passes Bill that Permits Bigger Contributions to Political Party National Committees — 6 Comments

  1. Harry may support some of the overall bill, just to avoid another shutdown, but if the two parties supported this concept of giving more money to political parties it wouldn’t have necessary to attach this concept to a massive spending bill. The title of this legislation happen to be unrelated to overall spending. “An Act to require the Secretary of the Interior to assemble a team of experts to address the energy needs of the insular areas of the United States and Freely Associated States through the development of energy action plans aimed at promoting access to energy”. Only in Congress.

  2. It is amazing that 535 (plus 6 non-voting)people can assemble in a two rooms – each not as large as the average high school basketball gymnasium – and vote to spend billions of dollars for programs, and pass laws which may or may not be for the good of 300 plus million people of the United States.

    Yes, these people were elected, under our republican form of government. But how many of us were personally contacted by their respective representatives/senators and asked for our vote, or asked what did we want them to do while serving us in Congress? Probably not many.

    Yet, they spend for or represent their constituents, most of whom are faceless, and do they really know what we want from them? Even though I’ve seen their photos in the news media, I probably wouldn’t immediately recognize either of my two senators or my congressman if he got on an elevator with me. They seem so distant from us. Yet they have so much power over us.

    Only in America.

  3. If they ALL didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time collecting money for their next run for election, or for their colleagues’ runs for election or reelection, they might actually have time to spend with constituents.

    But, as you know, some people who post to this blog think that a political system awash in cash has been running just hunkey dorey so far. They even cheer when people figure out how to pump more money into it.

    So good luck changing the system.

  4. If we had government financing of federal elections, “…they might actually have time to spend with constituents.”

    On this we agree.

  5. I mean we agree on “spending time with their constituents,” not that you agree with me on federal public financing of elections.

  6. Correct – in fact, I don’t support public financing of elections at any governmental level…unless and until ALL other forms of financing were to be concomitantly eliminated. Then I would be an avid support of public election financing. But until then public financing just opens another spigot.

    As is very clear from my posts, I think, I believe that the more money that finds its way into our political system, the more corrupt our elections, our elected officials, and the actions they take while in office become. Our efforts ought to be directed toward restricting political contributions, not expanding them. But for those to be successful one needs the votes from members of both major parties, all of whom are beholden to the torrent of “free speech dollars” which comes from the filthy rich.

    So holding one’s breath waiting will be a fatal mistake.

    Note that we just saw “Koch dollars” make their first major purchase as a relaxation of regulations of derivatives slipped into the spending bill, supported by Republicans, Democrats, and under no threat of veto by a Democratic president. Unlikely that anyone who contributed a meager hundred bucks to a congressional or senatorial campaign last year had any vested interest in that decision, I’d say.

    But this is just the start. Keep tuned over the next few years as the “free speech” the author of this blog so vigorously defends reveals itself for what it really is – commercial expenditures being made for the benefit of the fabulous wealthy in this, the burgeoning oligarchy of the USA.

    But do take comfort, if you can, in Mr. Winger’s prior assurance that everything will continue to roll along beautifully in this country, as he believes it did before the law restricting contributions to party national committees was passed.

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