I disagree that the first step is the hardest. It'll get one hell of a lot harder when the Koch's start getting spooked and beginning dumping hundreds of millions into campaigns against it.

[edited to correct the scale of money]

Really sad we can't get something like this sifted. Some people shoot their mouths off and spend enormous amounts of time, constantly whining about 'the system'. Always find myself wondering what they are prepared to do about it beyond internet rage. Imagine if everyone who did went and signed up to volunteer or started calling their state senators on their own!

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

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Vermont and New Hampshire have been on a spree lately. Today I live in Massachusetts, but I am thinking to move there any day now because of their recent legislation.

First step to taking back democracy. Congrats USA.

edit: also, the 2 guys who voted against this... now you know your enemy.

Yeah no shit, definitely makes me think about moving to a more progressive state.

Can someone explain to me why...
PAC's are bad, bad, evil things supported by companies that use their money to influence politicians to get their way - destroy the environment, screw over employees and in general try to generate as much revenue as possible, but Unions are good groups that exert control over a ton of votes and money that they donate to politicians who in turn award them with generous pensions and benefits that bankrupt the State. So why don't we get Unions out of elections as well as PACs? Look at all the commercials during election seasons that are sponsored by the Teachers Union, Police Union, Firefighters Union, Ditch Diggers Union, on and on and on. Its to the point where the PAC and the Union commercials have become a blur.

You're needed in the less progressive ones.

Unions = large groups of people, pooling small amounts of money into large ones.

PACs = tiny groups of people, pooling large amounts of money into huge ones.

Why should 2 or 3 billionaires have a bigger voice than 100,000,000 unionized workers?

...and I don't like unions, but I have to side with them on this.

First, thank you for the explanation and not the typical rant I might get form others on the sift...
I can understand what you're saying. It makes sense. It just seems to me that in certain states, Unions have been able to run the Government for quite some time (to the state's and their members detriment) and now that they have competition they are complaining. But that may not be the case, it just seems that way to me.

Further, we seem to be going off the assumption that PAC's are all conservative or that all Unions are liberal, are there are liberal PACs or conservative unions?

I'm actually torn on Citizens United these days. The issue is with carefully defining terms. For example, how do we define campaign contributions? If the New York Times runs an op-ed endorsing a candidate, is that a contribution? If Michael Moore makes a film favorable to one candidate or another, is that a contribution? (hint... hint) Nobody likes the Kochs, but how do you sort out one from the other? What if the rich guys just decide to go buy newspapers instead? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/business/media/the-return-of-the-newspaper-barons.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

You're not wrong. I'm actually glad I live in Nebraska, it's right wing obviously, but it's not total nutbag like the south. The Republicans in Nebraska did lose their shit in 2008 when the Omaha district voted for Obama and they tried to go back to winner take all. But I think cooler heads prevailed as if trends continue, urban populations will outstrip the rural areas and more traditionally red States start turning blue. At least in a split vote system, even if the state goes blue, the right still retains a minority voice instead of no voice. I had been following wolf pac but hearing about this makes me want to be a member now

I very much understand what your saying, but the difference is when the NY Times endorses a candidate they do just that, PUBLICLY endorse a candidate.

That is the key difference. They'll have to stand on their record.

With citizens united the money is direct, massive, and almost completely untraceable.

One question in Citizens United v. FEC was "what constitutes a campaign contribution?" Michael Moore had just made an anti Bush film, and decided to personally pay to run ads for his film just before an election. The ruling was basically that Michael Moore had just made a campaign contribution. That is, if David Koch's PAC had made a documentary about Obama's birth certificate and ran a bunch of ads for just before the election, that's effectively giving a campaign contribution as well.

Whether the campaign spent the money, or someone spent the money on behalf of the campaign, it didn't matter. An ad is an ad, and ads cost money. However, if you extend this logic, nobody can produce any positive or negative media about a candidate during the election run-up. That is, the NYT couldn't run a photo of Barry O smiling on the front page. That sort of exposure has value, and would thus constitute a contribution. Otherwise, what would stop me from producing a huge pile of fliers with smiling candidates on them and dropping them from my helicopters?

This is how we end up running up against free speech. Personally, I don't think we should put those kinds of restrictions on media. People will always play games, and find ways of couching themselves as other forms of protected media in order to keep funneling huge sums of money into biased political messages. That's just how it works. But I'm not comfortable limiting political speech, least of all around an election run up. The risk for unintended consequences is too high.

The only way to have a level playing field is to eliminate all private money from elections.

disband all parties, People have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and throw their weight behind a candidate, but that doesn't mean government has to acknowledge it or give them legitimacy.

A candidate should stand or fall on their ideas, not whether or not they have an R or D behind their name and not how many billionaires they've cozied up to.

Give every candidate a publicly funded wikipedia-like website that only the candidate's staff can edit where they can put their stances on ideas and their platform Hell, give them a basic camera so they can upload videos to the website if they want, but no professional production studios

I'm having a real problem putting my thoughts into words. I would feel a union has most of it's member's values presented for the most part. If a union leader really started acting contrary to the rank and file, he'd be voted out.

"Citizens United" -and PACs in general- however, from what I've been able to figure out, is a CEO donating "for his employees", but a CEO working contrary to his employee's wishes is commonplace, dare I say expected? As long as he has the blessing of the Board and Shareholders, his position is fixed.

I would think a union is closer to having its member's welfare in mind than a CEO. I have less a problem with a union (mass of people) controlling a government, than Corporations (a couple dozen people) controlling it.

I would say that Unions are Democratic (mostly). While Corporations are Tyrannical (Top down rule).

sure there are unions that are corrupt, but I'd rather correct that corruption instead of completely gimping collective bargaining.

Even The Daily Show had a piece a while back showcasing how stupid/lazy/corrupt some unions could be.

I think even that Hostess situation was the product of the combination of shitty unions, and a greedy CEO

If someone has a better idea for how workers can band together and prevent being exploited without taking it too far, then let's hear it, until then, we need unions.

This doesn't really make any sense. You are proposing a ban on coverage of elections?

I'm not sure where you got that idea. Never said anything about coverage. The press can still do whatever they want.