Corruption among border patrol agents is a serious problem. Maybe we should pay all the agents $1 million/year if they agree to not take bribes. That way, it would be harder to corrupt them, since they could afford to live on their salaries without bribes. This seems to be the sort of thinking behind 89.
The arguments in support of it have been highly dishonest. Various statistics have been presented from other states purporting to show how variants of 89 have worked in those states, but it's obvious that those statistics have been cherry picked, since different statistics are presented for different states. Why would they cite statistic A is state X and statistic B in state Y, unless statistic A in state Y and statistic B in state X show things getting worse? And many of the statistics aren't really relevant. For instance, having incumbants lose more often doesn't really show that CFR is working. If your real goal is to keep incumbants from being reelected for some reason, why take care of it directly, and pass term limits, rather than bothering with CFR? They also cited the percentage of races "decided" by money, and it was something like 70% before, 10% after. And where did that 70% figure come from? It's the percentage won by the person spending the most. Well, one woulds expect 50% just by chance, so it's really only 20%. And correlation doesn't equal causation, so even those can't be determined to "decided" by money for sure. And now what about that "after" number"? Surely they don't expect us to believe that only 10% are now won by the person spending the most. Clearly, they're using two completely different methods to calculate their numbers.
Despite having no real evidence, they dismiss studies that show that CFR doesn't work as "bought". Apparently we should ignore the one side that has evidence because they allegedly have an agenda.
But whereas people join pressure groups, and contribute to the expenses of those pressure groups, in order that those pressure groups should affect the political process, they do not become employees of a corporation and thus contribute to the profits of that corporation in order that the corporation should be able to affect the political process.
The motivations of the employees are irrelevant. Corporations are formed by shareholders, not employees. Employees have no rights to the profits of a corporation.
I don't see why money should be considered a protected form of speech.
You have it backwards. It is the promotors of CFR that are claiming that speech is money.
Why is money different from face stabbing?
Are you seriously asking that question? "Why is money different from face stabbing?" That's practically sig worthy.
I have an idea.
Couldn't you require groups paying for advertizing to sign their name?
There are some such requirements. I don't know what they are eactly. But why should people have to report who they are? When someone votes for someone, they don't have to say "this vote provided by..." Why should speech be different? Shouldn't anonymity be recognized as a crucial part of free speech? Part of the problem with the current system is that no one wants to support challengers for fear of retribution from the incumbant.
Anyone who took money from corporations, rather than individuals, by whatever roundabout means, would have to credit those corporations for their support in their adverts. Anyone taking money from outside the state, ditto.
There are constitutional restrictions on discriminating against residents of other states. And all money ultimately comes from individuals. Corporations are just instruments people use.
