In 2014, Chris Christie referred to the West Bank as "occupied territories" Then he met with Mega donor Sheldon Adelson. Christie, who planned to run in the Republican primaries, publicly apologized for saying it. Safe to assume Adelson threatened to fund other candidates. 2/x
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In 2017, Rep. Chris Collins publicly admitted he was voting for the tax bill because his donors will telling him "get it done or don't ever call me again." Direct financial threat, tied to a specific vote in Congress. 3/x
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There are tons of these examples. Vote how I want you to vote, or I will use my financial resources to hurt your reelection chances. In a few cases, the financial threat is stated in public. In most, it's very easy to infer it was stated in private. 4/x
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The only substantial differences I can see between a crowd-funded threat to back Susan Collins' opponent if she votes for Kavanaugh and the above examples are: 1) Many people funding the threat, not a few rich individuals. 2) Liberals, rather than conservatives, are doing it. 5/x
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All of these are functionally bribery. Not as bad as covertly handing over a suitcase of cash that the politician uses for private goods. But still, many donations are conditional on specific votes, and politicians want the donations enough that it influences their behavior. 6/x
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Legally, Citizens United was correct. Regulating means to disseminate political speech is regulating political speech. But it created problems, such as more sort-of-bribery (e.g. at Susan Collins) Maybe now that a Republican is threatened, GOP will recognize those problems. (END)
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Can't make donations contingent on specific votes. Pretty clear distinguishing factor. You speak to support candidates to reward votes you liked in the past, or candidates you believe will vote your way. You can signal. But an outright contingency like that is impermissible.
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There were a lot of direct threats to fund primary opponents if Republicans didn’t vote for the tax bill (among many other examples). They didn’t seem to mind it then. In principle, I buy your distinction. But it’s impossible to enforce. Most just make the threat in private.
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In my experience that's not how the expectation is set in public or private. Influential actors are savvier than that. "We'd have to reconsider our support if" "We view your position on X with concern" or using 3rd parties to do the messaging. or a million other less sketchy ways
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That sure sounds like they're doing the same thing, but mixing in enough BS to allow others to pretend that they're not.
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Nuance matters in both law and politics. Which you very well know.
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I do. I'm not calling the actions illegal. (Also, for what it's worth, I think Citizens United was decided correctly, even if I'm not thrilled with the results). But philosophically, I don't buy that this case is significantly different from the others.
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I don't think it's exactly death of the Republic stuff either. But funding based on a single vote on a single nom is different than, say, Planned Parenthood funding pro choices voters and leaning on them to stay pro choice.
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It's grotesquely unbelievable that a Republican Senator like Ms Collins doesn't know exactly what constitutes bribery, considering how much funding she gets from PACs, lobbyists, NRA, & trade orgs.
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Consider her gone
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