How did it happen? You can blame Russ Feingold, John McCain, Common Cause, and rank-and-file progressives who, mostly lacking a religion aside from climate eschatology, now worship at the altar of campaign finance restrictions.
In 2002, they jammed through Congress an update of U.S. campaign finance laws that were then three decades old, throwing the votes of all but 14 Democrats in Congress behind an obscure legislative procedure that prevented any rational amendments perfecting the law before passage.
As a result, we got exactly the campaign finance law that these self-styled radical reformers wanted.
While eviscerating political parties, this new law barely changed the failing central tenet of the post-Watergate campaign finance rubric: a draconian limitation on individual donations to federal campaigns.
The "Progressive" wing of the Democratic Party pressured its candidates to all initially eschew this element of progress in our campaign finance system.
Enter Bloomberg, with the ultimate hack of the campaign finance system.
As Sen. Elizabeth Warren says, Bloomberg didn't need a SuperPAC-he is a SuperPAC. Like anything else he does in life, Bloomberg has done presidential campaigning big-ly, cruising today toward a half billion dollars of spending crammed into a matter of weeks, all before he has even appeared on the first Democrat primary ballot of his 20-year political career.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/25/how-bloomberg-and-bernie-used-campaign-finance-to-hack-democracy/
In 2002, they jammed through Congress an update of U.S. campaign finance laws that were then three decades old, throwing the votes of all but 14 Democrats in Congress behind an obscure legislative procedure that prevented any rational amendments perfecting the law before passage.
As a result, we got exactly the campaign finance law that these self-styled radical reformers wanted.
While eviscerating political parties, this new law barely changed the failing central tenet of the post-Watergate campaign finance rubric: a draconian limitation on individual donations to federal campaigns.
The "Progressive" wing of the Democratic Party pressured its candidates to all initially eschew this element of progress in our campaign finance system.
Enter Bloomberg, with the ultimate hack of the campaign finance system.
As Sen. Elizabeth Warren says, Bloomberg didn't need a SuperPAC-he is a SuperPAC. Like anything else he does in life, Bloomberg has done presidential campaigning big-ly, cruising today toward a half billion dollars of spending crammed into a matter of weeks, all before he has even appeared on the first Democrat primary ballot of his 20-year political career.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/25/how-bloomberg-and-bernie-used-campaign-finance-to-hack-democracy/
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