2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRomney Unwittingly Explains Why Citizens United Was Wrong
Romney Unwittingly Explains Why Citizens United Was Wrong
At a forum on education policy on Tuesday morning, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched into an unexpected explanation of why big money should be kept out of our political system:
I just think that the most important aspect in being able to have a productive relationship between the teachers unions and the districts in the states that they are dealing with is that the person sitting across the table from them should not have received the largest campaign contributions from the teachers union itself. . . . The largest contributors to the Democratic Party are the teachers unions, the federal teachers unions, and so, if (the unions) can elect someone that person is supposed to be representing the public vis a vis the teachers union, but actually most of their money came from the teachers union. Its an extraordinary conflict of interest. Thats something I think is a problem and should be addressed.
Romney is right! When a wealthy individual or organization that has a stake in public policy is able to spend their vast fortunes influencing elections, that inevitably leads to corruption. No one should have any illusions that politicians who enjoy massive support from teachers unions are any less corruptible than those who enjoy the support of Republican casino billionaires.
Yet this problem cannot be addressed, as Romney suggests, because the Supreme Court declared in Citizens United v. FEC that wealthy corporations and unions have a right to spend unlimited sums of money to buy and sell elections. The core holding of Citizens United was that massive outside spending seeking to change the result of an election do(es) not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. Apparently, even Mitt Romney understands that this holding makes no sense.
-snip-
Full article here: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/25/905611/romney-unwittingly-explains-why-citizens-united-was-wrong/
Pisces
(5,602 posts)Generic Other
(28,979 posts)I just think that the most important aspect in being able to have a productive relationship between the CEOs and their corporations in the states that they are dealing with is that the person sitting across the table from them should not have received the largest campaign contributions from the corporation itself. . . . The largest contributors to the Republican Party are the corporations, the CEOs, and so, if (Wall Street) can elect someone that person is supposed to be representing the public vis a vis the 99%, but actually most of their money came from the corporate donors. Its an extraordinary conflict of interest. Thats something I think is a problem and should be addressed.
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)give to the Republicans!
starroute
(12,977 posts)I'm starting to think this guy is a walking grab-bag of personal grievances. He doesn't know much about either domestic or foreign policy, but he's got a collection of "problems" he'd really like to see something done about.
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)air biscuit ghost turd
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sbd
I can still fly my fume-belching SBD out to SBD because it's quiet enough.
Justice
(7,188 posts)Defined by people far more clever than me. -- Mitt Romney saying one thing to one group and something else to another group.
Adelson spends $80 to $100 million on this election, Koch Brothers, dark money donors give Crossroads millions of dollars and we don't even get to know who contributed (because they might be subject to ridicule and scorn) yet UNIONS cannot give because of a conflict of interest.
Breathtakingly unbelievable.