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From: andy@rocky.stanford.edu (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The Impact of Inventions
Message-ID: <2150@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Wed, 1-Jul-87 17:27:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.2150
Posted: Wed Jul  1 17:27:12 1987
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Walt Haas writes:

> So it is worth $2 million a year to me to make sure this social movement
> fails, and only $.04 a year to you to make this movement succeed.  Guess
> who is going to lobby their elected representative harder?

You are going to lobby harder, but with a slight change in the rules,
I don't think you'll succeed.  The change is simple, candidates currently
can accept contributions from almost anyone but only citizens resident in
the candidate's district can vote for them.  If we restrict contributions
to a candiate/official from entities that aren't eligible to vote for that
candidate to, say, 10% of the total raised by that candidate, your influence
is restricted to your representative.  My representative is going to listen
to me because he has to get votes and contributions from me, you can't offer
him either; your influence is limited to vote trades between your rep and
mine.  (Of course, if we have the same rep, you'll win, but everyone
won't be at that disadvantage.)

Yes, I realize this change wreaks havok with national organizations.
I'm willing to modify it so that local branches can collect contributions
from residents and contribute them to local candidates, but no more.
The NRA (AFL-CIO, NEA, GM) can decentralize into independent subsidiaries
if they want to contribute to local elections.  If they can't get the
contributions in a given district, life's hard.

-andy