Project 2025’s Promise of the Best Politicians Money Can Buy

Our Broken Federal Election Commission

Aug 23, 2024

Hey folks! How do you feel about campaign finance in this country? Are you bummed about all the dark money supporting the billionaire agenda? How about the ineffectual Federal Election Commission, continually passing on prosecuting law breakers?

Have no fear, Project 2025’s action plan for the FEC is here. It won’t help your feelings, but, then again, they don’t care.

Federal Election Commission. Author: Hans A. von Spakovsky*

They got a presidential Get Out of Jail Free card for politicians and candidates willing to sell their souls to the devil. Once Dear Leader takes over the Justice Department, they assume all the wrongs associated with campaign finance vs free speech will be taken care of. Politicians can feel free to spend free on bling for their mistresses and accept donations from Russian spies.

You see, the big problem with money in US politics is overenforcement, according to P2025’s assessment. Limits on contributions need to be “much higher, as they hamstring candidates and parties while serving no practical anti corruption purpose.”

And all those details in financial reporting requirements are “clogging the public record and the FEC’s internal processes with small-dollar information of little use to the public.“ I guess they mean nobody cares if a candidate breaks bread with a hate-crime supporting advocate or a lobbyist for a totalitarian country.

Political Action Committees and SuperPACs, the sources of most campaign funding for higher offices these days, don’t even warrant a mention. In the first quarter of 2024, according to Politico:

Across all federal races, super PACs have spent more than $430 million on independent expenditures already this cycle, according to FEC data, up from $176 million at this point in 2020.

New fundraising financial tactics and financial relationships, like the RFK Jr campaign’s contributions from a vendor that turned into loans later on, or ad revenues from Sen. Ted Cruz’s podcast turning into PAC funding via distributor IHeart media, won’t be subject to scrutiny in the future since they fall outside strict interpretations of FEC rules.

As things stand, now complaints filed by Democrats about these actions won’t get heard until after the election because of gridlock at the agency.

The P2025 analysis does call for loosening the “overly restrictive limits on the ability of party committees to coordinate with their candidates” saying they violate associational rights and unjustifiably interfere with the very purpose of political parties.

It doesn’t take very much thinking to realize that the vision offered up for elections by Project 2025 is to make sure we Americans get the best politicians money can buy.

(*) Hans A. von Spakovsky is an American attorney and a former member of the Federal Election Commission. He is described in a Guardian article as “the single most important advocate, over a long period of time, persuading people to take this claim of fraud seriously”

___

Next up. The Federal Trade Commission
Probably Monday And we’re done!

***

Previously:

***

Friday Finds in the News World

***

Gov. Abbott sent zero migrant buses from Texas to blue cities in July Via NBC News

A spokesperson for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which has managed bus logistics in the past, said bus departures have fluctuated over time “due to the number of individuals processed and released by the federal government in overwhelmed border communities, which have an impact on passenger numbers.”
For Carlos Sanchez, a spokesperson for Hidalgo County on the Mexican border, the narrative of communities swamped by migrants was always overblown by politicians.
“It was never really the talk of the town,” he told NBC News. “It may have been the talk of the governor’s office or the talk of the nation, but this notion that we are being overrun is just not reflected locally.”

***

Stephen Miller and GOP AGs sue to protect feds’ right to rip apart multi-status families via David Badash/New Civil Rights Movement

Sixteen Republican-led states in partnership with former top Trump aide Stephen Miller have filed a lawsuit against the federal government to prevent President Joe Biden from implementing his plan that would protect half-a-million American families from being ripped apart, while providing a path to citizenship when one spouse married to a U.S. citizen does not have legal status.
Currently, there are about 500,000 undocumented adults married to U.S citizens, who have been in the country for at least a decade, and would qualify to apply for President Biden's program. Another 50,000 children believed to be subject to possible deportation would also be protected under the new Biden rule.
The sixteen states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are claiming President Biden implemented the policy back in June for “blatant political purposes,” the Associated Press reports. "Under the policy, which started taking applications Monday, many spouses without legal status can apply for something called 'parole in place,' offering permission to stay in the U.S., apply for a green card and eventually get on a path to citizenship."

***

Trump’s businesses are raking in millions of dollars from Republican political campaigns – including his own Via CNN

The dynamic of candidates shelling out thousands on Trump’s businesses while vying for his endorsement – which can make or break Republican campaigns – is an example of how politics has boosted his businesses’ bottom line. And the former president’s influence helps explain why some candidates are traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to show up at a Trump hotel or resort, campaign finance experts said.
“He’s clearly now in complete control of the Republican Party,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program. “Patronizing his businesses has become one of the accepted ways that candidates and public officials express their loyalty to the party’s leader.”

Words & Deeds

Discussion about this post