In the wake of the resignation of CMT artistic director Scott Eckern, who left after it was revealed he donated to the Yes on 8 Campaign, a political think tank is calling for an end to financial disclosures. Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics said on the site’s blog this week that “disclosure essentially amounts to the government making a list of citizens’ political preferences, then making that list publicly available to everyone – your family, your employer, your neighbors, the media, even extremists with a penchant for violence.” [Politico]
The Case Against Disclosure
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fredo777
Nope.
I’m all for more transparency. Air it out.
That way I know who to remove from my Christmas card list.
ChicagoJimmy
I’m with you, Fredo! With freedom comes responsibility. If you want to give, you have to be open about it. How else will we see the hypocrisy?
Michael vdB
I am all for financial disclosure in the political arena, especially when it comes to individuals running for office. I do however, feel that in the event of such divisive and heated issues like PROP8, disclosure should be held by elections officials until a period of say 3-6 months until they are released. No one side or party should have control over that information which is held by an independent body. By doing this, both sides will have time to process events, come up with a rational game plan, and still have the right to know who gave what. We should live in a democracy built public accountability but not witch hunts.
ask ena
As we are all seeing, it’s one thing to vote, it’s another thing to contribute funds to a cause, funds which may be used to deceive, develop hatred, and potentially undermine the same rights we all rely on for protection. Today’s majority could be tomorrow’s minority.
Contributing money uses many more muscles than voting. I, too, think transparency requires those who contribute funds to think twice before donating, and those who solicit funds to be honest about where those funds are going.
The Gay Numbers
@Michael vdB: Short answer: No. There is no difference between this and donating to a candidate. It is still influence. No it should not wait. This is not about just gay issues. These disclosure laws protect the public against money interest controlling and influencing the political process. Some of you are so quick to capitulate when there is any perceived drawbacks that you do not think of the big picture. Not everything is about how hot an issue is. Somethings are just good government policy. This is one of them.
Also, as a practical matter, there is nothing wrong with people being called on their decision. Unlike you, I think people who donated money to Yes on 8 on the one hand, and regularly pretend to be the friends of the gay community by taking our money on a nother are fair game. We should not have to unwilling participants in their view point. Nearly every instance I have seen of donors whining is because they had one face for the gay community and another on issues that mattered to the gay community. You may not think thats a fair statement, but who says you should decide this. So, again I say- no.
The Gay Numbers
@Michael vdB: Take a look up where people are talking about boycotting, and how much gay money went into these places. To have that money used against us in such a fashion as this is why this is coming up. You can not say I support gay people in one instance, and then not know enough to understand why marriage may matter to them in another.
Othniel
Freedo is absolutely correct.
From a constitutional law perspective (my practice emphasis) free speech and free assembly only protect disclosures made publically. In other words, I have no claim to free speech unless I, er, speak, and someone, er, hears. Political affiliation is an example. While one has the right to a secret ballot there is no right to fund proposals in the “marketplace of ideas” or in an election without public accountability, else the speech is deprived of its value as a check truth and its relation to the truth is abolished. There is no right to lie.
James Madison is spinning in his grave over such secrecy proposals.
There is a right to privacy, but it does not extend to the public arena’s protections. And really should not. After all, the argument would require the people funding a campaign against health care reform not be identifed either, and I kind of want to know the money pushing that.
The very idea of a constitutional right to conspire boggles the mind.
tonedef
I think it sounds fabulous that individuals could donate thousands and thousands of dollars to oppress me through the democratic system, and that the government would cover them with a dark cloak to protect them. They’re just so vulnerable! Who’s going to stick up for the fully-enfranchised, white, Christians in this country?!
blake
Nope, I disagree. There’s a difference between transparency to ensure that corruption is not taking place and opening up individuals to persecution for their political beliefs.
Think about issues like abortion or stem cell research. What if some Right-wing fanatics grabbed a list of people who donated to initiatives or laws supporting a woman’s right to choose or use of embryonic cells in research?
Does the name Eric Rudolph ring a bell?
“Eric Robert Rudolph (born September 19, 1966), also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, is an American radical described by the FBI as a terrorist[2] who committed a series of bombings across the southern United States which killed two people and injured at least 150 others.
Rudolph declared that his bombings were part of a guerrilla campaign against abortion and what he describes as “the homosexual agenda.” He spent years as the FBI’s most wanted criminal fugitive, but was eventually caught.” via wikipedia
What about the murder of doctors who performed abortions? One of them was killed at his home.
In the majority of the U.S., GLBT Americans can be fired for their sexuality. Right? What if someone looked at the list of No on 8 supporters and decided to fire or not hire anyone who gave money?
What about some nice Right-wing extremist takes the names of all the donors against 8, makes a database and compares addresses to known gay communities. The nut job now has a list of people to target with their home addresses and places of employment.
California’s initiative system is deeply flawed. It has been used historically either to try or succeed at stripping rights from minorities. This was done via cynically labelled “Calirfonia Civil Rights Initiative,” which killed Affirmative Action in schools. The initiative system was used to hurt immigrants. It was also used again to try to outlaw California from gathering any kind of racial/ethnic data. The goal being that if the state doesn’t capture racial data there would be no way to statistical understand if any kind of discrimination occurred.
Witch-hunts and scapegoating are real. Look at the racist attacks against all black Americans because of the Prop 8 vote. Logic was thrown out the door because of a statistically inaccurate survey. Racism amongst some white gays allowed them to see African-Americans as their oppressor. It didn’t matter that African-Americans are only 6% of California’s population. Revenge mattered. Blaming someone, anyone mattered.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html
Back to the lists of donors, in the Bush Administration, so-called “Christian” Republican operatives fired or refused to hire gay and liberal people.
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04/did_lesbian_rumor_lead_to_firi.html
http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/2008/06/bush-administration-does-it-again.html
ChristopherJ
@tonedef: LOL
Bob
Yeah, let’s allow the bigots hide their two-faced nature by just LOVING Will & Grace while donating to delegate us to second-class citizenship. No fucking way, dears.
Paul
As my favorite Supreme Court Justice has written, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”
RS
Oh no, absolutely not. Campaign contributions MUST be disclosed publicly, and as quickly as possible. It’s how we ensure transparency in politics so that the true backers of an initiative campaign are disclosed. There have been way too many initiatives in California’s history where backers hid behind made-up smokescreen organizations to mask the special interests that secretly benefitted from its passage (or suffered if it passed). The current disclosure laws, as imperfect as it is, was the result of many lawsuits and clean-up legislation to improve the transparency of the process.
Voting should remain secret and private, but there’s a big difference between voting and actually financing a campaign.
Alan down in Florida
How about the educational aspect of disclosure? If I am unsure of my opinion looking at who is supporting or against an issue might help me to understand the situation more clearly.
It is the hidden money that is most insidious.
Cam
The one thing I’m shocked that nobody has mentioned in any of these articles… That guy was a Mormon. And of course, his job became messed up because he was doing what his church told him to. I’m sure the church doesn’t care about it’s members lives and livelyhoods being hurt by their bigotry, but if enough businesses are effected perhaps that Mormon Church which owns numberous businesses will at least care when it’s bottom line is effected.
Dan
@Cam:
No, that’s not the case. The church cares more about values and its people than the bottom line.
cwm
If they didn’t care about the bottom line, they wouldn’t have had $20 million to throw around.
Othniel
@ Dan The best way to refute this is to consider how little churches cared about child abuse in the church until the monetary judgments started hitting them. I know of several Baptist churches which only instituted safeguards against child abuse by clergy, employees or volunteers after their liabilty insurance carriers made them.
When dealing with the Religious Right it is far more important to watch what they do than to listen to what they say. Remember, these are the folk who perfected the art of gossip by prayer request. Bless their hearts.
fredo777
@blake:
I respectfully disagree with that notion of keeping us all in the dark of such funding in order to protect us from acts that might or might not take place.
By that same token, a nutjob could just as easily start attacking residents of houses with certain lawn signs supporting candidates or stances on measures that he/she objects to. We can’t allow our fears of the unknown to cripple us from using valuable information to make decisions to not support those companies who don’t support our causes.
Full disclosure + transparency in instances like this make these informed consumer decisions to boycott certain businesses that much easier. The other potential threats are unfortunate but do not justify keeping us blindly supporting our opposition.