house Bill H.R. 6433
Should Members of (& Candidates For) Congress be Prohibited From Fundraising When Congress is in Session?
Argument in favor
Members of Congress spend a significant amount of their time focusing on fundraising, rather than legislating, which has turned politics into more of a fundraising arms race rather than being focused on policymaking. It also makes elections increasingly expensive, giving fundraisers outsized power in politics.
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09/15/2018
It is time to change how we “do” politics. The appearance is that votes are “purchased” and Congress no longer represents their constituents but instead the lobbyists and corporate donors. Get rid of gerrymandering and level the playing field. The only time my representative show up is for photo opportunities and fundraisers. If the current administration has done any good it’s been to show us it is time for substantive change.
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09/15/2018
Politicians spend most of their time raising money by either calling and begging or begging in person and offering their soul to special interests. This is why almost every bill that is brought up today is written by special interest groups like ALEC. If they are banned from begging for money while in session, maybe they would actually read a bill or even write one themselves! I actually support public funding, no more “dark money”, PAC money or spending most of the day begging for cash. Public funding creates an equal playing field, no one gets more than their opponent and it encourages the politicians to go out door to door to meet the people they want to represent! Those who don’t want to work for the job won’t get it!
Argument opposed
Members of Congress do not, on average, spend an unreasonable amount of time fundraising. Given the amount of time members have out of session, it’s also plausible that most members are able to fit their fundraising activities in around votes and Congressional responsibilities.
09/15/2018
Overturning Citizens United and running elections from public funding instead of private funding would have a larger effect on getting corrupted money out of politics then restricting the timeline. All this bill does is increased the necessity of huge dark money donors. Not the goal. Also Sneaky Peat is TOTALLY WRONG about how much time a CongressCritter spends fundraising. It is 6-8 hours EVERY DAY. 85% of their time. They have party quotas to fill and everything. I agree that we need campaign-finance reform but this is not the path. By the way, money is NOT speech and corporations are NOT people.
09/15/2018
Preventing Congress from fundraising during session will only encourage taking money from big money donors who are buying legislation. End Citizens United and use public funding.
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09/15/2018
This would help Republicans who have millionaires to donate, not average Americans who donate little amounts all year. Let’s have Federally funded campaigns, that would solve the problem this bill addresses in a better way. Get all donated money out of elections. Power to the people not corporate America.
It is time to change how we “do” politics. The appearance is that votes are “purchased” and Congress no longer represents their constituents but instead the lobbyists and corporate donors. Get rid of gerrymandering and level the playing field. The only time my representative show up is for photo opportunities and fundraisers. If the current administration has done any good it’s been to show us it is time for substantive change.
Overturning Citizens United and running elections from public funding instead of private funding would have a larger effect on getting corrupted money out of politics then restricting the timeline. All this bill does is increased the necessity of huge dark money donors. Not the goal. Also Sneaky Peat is TOTALLY WRONG about how much time a CongressCritter spends fundraising. It is 6-8 hours EVERY DAY. 85% of their time. They have party quotas to fill and everything. I agree that we need campaign-finance reform but this is not the path. By the way, money is NOT speech and corporations are NOT people.
Preventing Congress from fundraising during session will only encourage taking money from big money donors who are buying legislation. End Citizens United and use public funding.
Politicians spend most of their time raising money by either calling and begging or begging in person and offering their soul to special interests. This is why almost every bill that is brought up today is written by special interest groups like ALEC. If they are banned from begging for money while in session, maybe they would actually read a bill or even write one themselves! I actually support public funding, no more “dark money”, PAC money or spending most of the day begging for cash. Public funding creates an equal playing field, no one gets more than their opponent and it encourages the politicians to go out door to door to meet the people they want to represent! Those who don’t want to work for the job won’t get it!
We freaking pay them to work for us not raise money for themselves.
This would help Republicans who have millionaires to donate, not average Americans who donate little amounts all year. Let’s have Federally funded campaigns, that would solve the problem this bill addresses in a better way. Get all donated money out of elections. Power to the people not corporate America.
29 weeks in session leaves 23 weeks to fundraise. That’s plenty of time. The current practices are conflicts of interests. US working people would get fired from our jobs if we took away productive hours from the corporation to do personal business. Elected officials are no different. When you’re in session you’re at work. Be productive. Leave personal business at home.
This bill seems like a good first step in reforming how we do political campaigns. Our campaigning system is way too big, taking up too much time and money. We need to change things so that the politicians who get elected are the best at their job, not the most charismatic or visible on the campaign trail.
I think a better bill would be to overturn Citizens United. This bill seems well intended but I think it will have a downside of the seriously greedy taking more money from the seriously rich.
This will only push them to take BIG MONEY FROM CORPORATIONS OR GROUPS LIKE THE KOCHS. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IS: 1 OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED 2 CREATE A LAW THAT DOES AWAY WITH THE REPUBLICAN SCOTUS RULING THAT ALLOWS CORPORATIONS TO BE THE SAME AS INDIVIDUALS- that makes the people less than since corporations have so much Money they can buy our Congress.
Some time to campaign is allowable, but not the ridiculous amount spent today. Every office should have a fixed window of no more than 3 months, right before an election, where Congress can campaign. If you cannot get your point across, clearly, in that amount of time one should not be in office.
Limit all forms of campaigning to 3 weeks for incumbents and 5 weeks for newbies. Once you are in, do your job ONLY, or get fired. If you were actually doing work for the American Citizens you represent, people would already know, because they would see progress in their hometowns and where their concerns are. You would not need more than 3 weeks to inform that you are running again and that you had many successes and delivered quality service to your constituents.
Until there is comprehensive campaign finance reform, this will do little to take money out of politics. It is also unfair to non-member candidates who typically start at a disadvantage to an incumbent. Undoing Citizens United would be a far better remedy.
Overturn Citizens United and none of this would be nearly as much of an issue.
You are in Washington to work for us. NOT to fund raise. Do that on your own time.
What we really need to do is restrict Congressional power to what is is supposed to be, as written in the Constitution. If government power is reduced, the money and corruption would be reduced as well.
We should get corporate money out of elections completely. It's the way the Founding Fathers set things up when they started the country. Our so-called representatives are corrupted.