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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   38922 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Larger than what? All I know is that a “contribution” includes “any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” 52 U.S.C. § 30101(8)(A)(i); 11 C.F.R. § 100.52(a), and that “the provision of any goods or services without charge or at a charge that is less than the usual and normal charge for such goods or services is a contribution." 11 C.F.R. § 100.52(d)(1).

Larger than what he actually paid. Up to some higher quantity that you think is the "usual and normal charge".

I mean, dis gon b gud to watch videos of the prosecutors trying to make the case to the jury, "So, here's how you make a valuation for a scandalous story involving a political candidate..." Like, how could you even possibly make that case?

? But,they aren't claiming that she provided services for less than the usual going rate.

I believe we return to here then. If you're not going with the "less than the usual going rate", we can cut out the last several comments and have you just try another route to justify the definition with respect to a quid pro quo.

Again, there is no requirement that there be evidence of a quid pro quo.

Again, that's not what I asked for. I asked for a justification of the definition that is meaningfully linked to the acceptable purpose concerning the appearance or actualization of quid pro quo without being obscenely overbroad. (Before you protest this final condition entirely, surely there is some extent to which a possible definition could be so overbroad that it is no longer meaningfully linked to the acceptable purpose. Like, if the gov't required that candidates and everyone connected to their campaign to report literally every transaction they had... and, uh, also every conversation they had, lest someone tell them some dirt on someone else, resulting in the transfer of a "thing of value".)

As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "“The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” The regulations are clearly informed by past attempts to exploit loopholes in previous, narrower definitions. And, why does it matter? If I am a candidate, I have to comply with the law, regardless of whether I or someone else considers it obscenely overbroad.

Because you are not a candidate. You're the Solicitor General of the United States, having been given time by the Supreme Court in oral arguments to present the federal view of election law.

If you say something like, 'Yeah, we can actually ban books from being published via this little campaign finance regulation,' things are not going to go well for you.

I don't understand what this has to do with what we are talking about.

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