• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Before citizens united were parties forbidden from spending money?

    They were pretty limited because donors have a maximum donation amount, so once you’re maxed that’s it.

    Unless you’re a PAC then as long as you follow some rules, people can donate as much as they like to the PAC and the PAC can use that money to do basically everything a normal campaign organization would do…all legal because of citizens united.

    • Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      The rules are poorly written and even more poorly enforced.

      Coordinate with a candidate before they announce their candidacy?

      Pass

      Coordinate with an individual who is then hired as an advisor to the candidate?

      Pass

      Coordinate with the children / spouse of an incumbent candidate?

      Pass

      Coordinate with the candidate themselves through means that prevent detection?

      Pass

      Coordinate with a candidate explicitly in broad daylight while making no attempt to hide it and leave a paper trail, electronic records, notarized documents, and a plan to do so again in the future and market your services doing so to other candidates?

      Candidate elected; you are at a sub 1% chance to be charged with a misdemeanor if investigated by the DoJ because the FEC can’t be arsed

    • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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      4 days ago

      I answered the question in an edit for the sake of fairness. Tldr: they don’t. The doners don’t need to cost votes.

      I don’t see the relevance. So long as people aren’t saying they spend no money, which they didn’t, why bring it up? It still implies a “most money” argument to me.

      Edit: I don’t read usernames and it bites me everytime