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The leader of the US Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with regulating the way political money is raised and spent, says she has largely given up hope of reining in abuses in the 2016 US presidential campaign, which could generate a record $10 billion in spending.
“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ann M. Ravel, the chairwoman, said in an interview. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the F.E.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”
Her unusually frank assessment reflects a worsening stalemate among the agency’s six commissioners. They are perpetually locked in 3-to-3 ties along party lines on key votes because of a fundamental disagreement over the mandate of the commission, which was created 40 years ago in response to the political corruption of Watergate.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Daiv on Tuesday May 05 2015, @11:26PM
I would love it if candidates could not announce or advertise for more than 6 months (I would love 3 months, but I'll be generous) before the election day of whatever they're running for. As it is now, any elected candidate in a 4 year position spends a third of their elected time raising funds for re-election. A two year position essentially means candidates are running for re-election as soon as they get in!
I want the elected to spend more time doing what they're elected for, not spend all their time on the phones, trying to fund raise for their party or selves. Giving less time to actually spend the money for election *should* result in less money being spent. I doubt we could even be more bombarded with their ads for the last year of any big election. Every commercial break is already 100% political ads, every billboard I drive by is as well. Every story on NPR is also something about the upcoming election.
Also, within 2 months of announcing their candidacy, it seems the majority of the candidates have already dropped out, wasting all that time and money.
Elections take too long. Give them less time to sling mud and spend more time to plead their positions.
If this time frame interferes with any established voting rituals, shorten those, too. Penalties should involve reducing the amount of ads they can run during the allowed campaigning time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hash14 on Wednesday May 06 2015, @01:01AM
If you would like a system like that, then you might want to consider arguing against fixed-term elections [wikipedia.org]. An example would be the UK prior to passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act [wikipedia.org]. One of the effects of its passage is that now, candidates spend much longer campaigning since they know when the election will happen which, one could argue, distracts from their voting record and actual actions in Parliament. I, for one, feel that a shorter election cycle is a good idea, primarily because it can force politicians to be more responsive to their constituents (see how politicians push for feel-good measures towards the ends of their terms but spend the rest of their terms providing favours to their insiders). But nobody can know for sure whether varying-term elections a good idea for the United States until such a system is implemented, and there are arguments both in favour and against.
More generally speaking, the US democratic process is absurdly broken and useless for many reasons, the worst being the first-past-the-post voting system that is primarily used (indeed, it could even be argued that this is the very reason why money has such a large influence in their elections). In my estimation, the United States probably has a better chance of dissolving than fixing the election system (something of which I am also in favour, primarily as a global citizen...) but it's a good idea to know just why (in my humble opinion, of course) it's so broken.