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Schumer calls for hearings on 'un-American' court decision

Zyphlin

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The Supreme Court's ruling Thursday striking down limits on corporate and union spending in elections is "un-American," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday.

Schumer, a top Senate Democrat who formerly ran their campaign committee, said he would hold hearings on the decision in the coming weeks.

"I think it's an un-American decision," Schumer said at a press conference Thursday. "I think when the American people understand what this radical decision has meant they will be even more furious and concerned about special interest influence in politics than they are today."

Link here

Umm, what?

He doesn't like the decision so he's threatening THE SURPREME COURT, an Equal part of government to not him but his entire BRANCH, with "hearings" simply because he disagrees with a decision they rendered concerning the constitution...which is, you know, they're job?

This is ridiculous.
 
So who will oversee these hearings?

God?
 
Link here

Umm, what?

He doesn't like the decision so he's threatening THE SURPREME COURT, an Equal part of government to not him but his entire BRANCH, with "hearings" simply because he disagrees with a decision they rendered concerning the constitution...which is, you know, they're job?

This is ridiculous.

Umm, he is holding hearing on the impact of the decision. I don't see how that is threatening SCOTUS, and in fact he has zero real ways to threaten them.

"As chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which is the committee with jurisdiction over these issues, I'm announcing that we will hold hearings on the impact of this decision within the next of couple of weeks," Schumer said.

Personally, I would like to see the hearing look into ways that can reform campaign finance laws that fits within the framework of what SCOTUS will allow. Whether that will be the thrust of the hearing, I have no idea, but will wait and see.
 
Link here

Umm, what?

He doesn't like the decision so he's threatening THE SURPREME COURT, an Equal part of government to not him but his entire BRANCH, with "hearings" simply because he disagrees with a decision they rendered concerning the constitution...which is, you know, they're job?

This is ridiculous.

He lives in DC, which while physically a part of the planet doesn't reside in the same plane of reality. Threatening the Supreme Court is beyond arrogant.
 
Link here

Umm, what?

He doesn't like the decision so he's threatening THE SURPREME COURT, an Equal part of government to not him but his entire BRANCH, with "hearings" simply because he disagrees with a decision they rendered concerning the constitution...which is, you know, they're job?

This is ridiculous.

Democrats have been very transparent with their desire to change the government in any way possible to secure absolute power over every aspect of our lives. First Obama's tampering with the census, then the MA Secretary of State promising to delay seating Brown (after they had changed the rules for Senate succession several times to suit their own needs), forcing healthcare through by any secretive means necessary, and now hearings on the supreme court are just the next in what promises to be a long line of abuses of power by the party of big government.
 
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), the sponsor of that 2002 law, has called for new legislation to address the court's ruling. Schumer said Thursday he'd hold hearings as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee.

"As chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which is the committee with jurisdiction over these issues, I'm announcing that we will hold hearings on the impact of this decision within the next of couple of weeks," Schumer said.

From the link.

How can people conclude that this is Schumer threatening the Supreme Court?

If the Supreme Court strikes down a law passed by Congress, it's certainly Congress's right to come back and pass a new law that is within the guidelines expressed by the Supreme Court.
 
This just goes to show what a real threat Liberals are to our country.
 
Democrats have been very transparent with their desire to change the government in any way possible to secure absolute power over every aspect of our lives. First Obama's tampering with the census, then the MA Secretary of State promising to delay seating Brown (after they had changed the rules for Senate succession several times to suit their own needs), forcing healthcare through by any secretive means necessary, and now hearings on the supreme court are just the next in what promises to be a long line of abuses of power by the party of big government.

OMG. Y o u h a v e g o t t o b e k i d d i n g m e.
 
OMG. Y o u h a v e g o t t o b e k i d d i n g m e.

No, you are in a coma if you see it any other way.

They want to be your healthcare provider, your banker, your car dealer, your news source provider, your employer......

Read Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Obama is working word for word out of Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals", including yesterday when he identified himself with Scott Brown (the enemy).
 
Umm, he is holding hearing on the impact of the decision. I don't see how that is threatening SCOTUS, and in fact he has zero real ways to threaten them.

Gotcha. I read the first part and was figuring it was a protracted statement with him going on to say that later, but notice the original statement about having hearings "about" the case wasn't actually in quotes.

Having hearings about campaign finance is fine.

Having hearings about the "unamerican decision" is not.

Congress should be having hearings about new laws they want to pass, not about decisions the Surpreme Court has made. Further, his stance on the Rules committee is what made me lean to it examining the decision itself, not what can be done legislatively with it. I'm not quite sure how finance reform legislation would fit into the "rules" committee as its breeding ground for cnoversation.

Perhaps a wait and see approach is needed, however the notion that he's going to use the committee to spur talk of legislation that can be passed that falls in line with the courts ruling seems highly unlikely to me based on the language he used and the committee he's sitting on, unless I'm understanding something wrong.
 
This is kind of weird. Isn't is supposed to be Republicans who play the "un-American" card?
 
Gotcha. I read the first part and was figuring it was a protracted statement with him going on to say that later, but notice the original statement about having hearings "about" the case wasn't actually in quotes.

Having hearings about campaign finance is fine.

Having hearings about the "unamerican decision" is not.

Congress should be having hearings about new laws they want to pass, not about decisions the Surpreme Court has made. Further, his stance on the Rules committee is what made me lean to it examining the decision itself, not what can be done legislatively with it. I'm not quite sure how finance reform legislation would fit into the "rules" committee as its breeding ground for cnoversation.

Perhaps a wait and see approach is needed, however the notion that he's going to use the committee to spur talk of legislation that can be passed that falls in line with the courts ruling seems highly unlikely to me based on the language he used and the committee he's sitting on, unless I'm understanding something wrong.

The thing is, he has absolutely no way to threaten the court, nor can he overrule it without a constitutional amendment, which he won't be able to deliver. The absolute worst he could do is use the hearing to have a hissy, which is basically no harm done.

Question for you: do you think some form of campaign finance regulation is needed and legal, and what form do you think it should take if so...and of course, why either way. You are one of the rational conservatives, so I am curious as to your thoughts.
 
OMG. Y o u h a v e g o t t o b e k i d d i n g m e.

Sometimes it's just not worth feeding the trolls aps. For some of our posters, over the top rhetoric is the only way they know to post.
 
Question for you: do you think some form of campaign finance regulation is needed and legal, and what form do you think it should take if so...and of course, why either way. You are one of the rational conservatives, so I am curious as to your thoughts.

Honestly not looked into it enough. It was clear mccain-fiengold wasn't going away until a SCOTUS decision caused it, which I was surprised to see happen already frankly. I think McCain-Fiengold didn't do much beyond causing it to simply be less transparent and more underhanded in the ways buisness gave money to government, while setting very bad precedent in regards to limitations on speech. I'd have to look into the situation a good bit more to give you any substantive answer on if something needs to be done to fix it or how to "fix" it.

The Idealistic part of me would want to say a limit total on how much a candidate can spend in an election, but even that I have no doubt would have hundreds of issues associated with it.
 
Honestly not looked into it enough. It was clear mccain-fiengold wasn't going away until a SCOTUS decision caused it, which I was surprised to see happen already frankly. I think McCain-Fiengold didn't do much beyond causing it to simply be less transparent and more underhanded in the ways buisness gave money to government, while setting very bad precedent in regards to limitations on speech. I'd have to look into the situation a good bit more to give you any substantive answer on if something needs to be done to fix it or how to "fix" it.

The Idealistic part of me would want to say a limit total on how much a candidate can spend in an election, but even that I have no doubt would have hundreds of issues associated with it.

Yeah, it seems clear to me that there have to be limits, and the concept of money as speech just does not work for me at all. I like to think that if all the major candidates had the same money to spend, then the quality of elections would go up. The obvious problem is figuring out how to limit things in a way SCOTUS would allow.
 
Sometimes it's just not worth feeding the trolls aps. For some of our posters, over the top rhetoric is the only way they know to post.

Pot meet kettle. LOL
 
Pot meet kettle. LOL

Yeah, I bet you can dig up a bunch of examples of me using over the top rhetoric.

Or not...

Feel free to try though.
 
If only they had conducted good hearings during the formulation of the orignal McCain/Feingold bill. :roll: Besides that Bush should have vetoed that bill.
 
If only they had conducted good hearings during the formulation of the orignal McCain/Feingold bill. :roll: Besides that Bush should have vetoed that bill.

They never dreamed that SCOTUS would turn on them.
 
Yeah, it seems clear to me that there have to be limits, and the concept of money as speech just does not work for me at all. I like to think that if all the major candidates had the same money to spend, then the quality of elections would go up. The obvious problem is figuring out how to limit things in a way SCOTUS would allow.

And that still doesn't solve many of the other problems with campaign finance.

For example, lets say you give every candidate a $50 million dollar limit to use for campaigning.

What's to then stop, say, Exxon from going out and putting out a commercial, not sponsored by a campaign, supporting a candidate? Or stop PETA? Or the NRA? Or a local group in your home town buying money to put an ad in the paper because they feel strong about a candidate?

See, that's the part that I see more about speech than the money. The ability to go out and say "I like this guy and I think you should vote for this guy for this reason" or "I don't like this guy, etc etc".

Just off the top of my head as far as a limits system....

There was over $800 million dollars spent last year just between McCain and Obama. Limit candidates to a total of $100 million. Additionally, put a small tax of maybe 2.5% on all political donations that goes into a specific fund that is untouchable save for some specific reasons.

Any party that recieved, lets say 5%, of the popular vote in the previous Presidential election and spent less than $25 million will recieve $5 million from that fund.

Once this gets underway for a bit, during the 2nd year of the current Presidentail cycle any of the money in the account in excess of what is needed would go straight to paying down the national debt.

The nice thing with this is you could almost garauntee that the two main party candidates will raise their full portion each time, which would result in an extra $5 million going into that pot.

So come the 2nd year of that Presidential cycle if there is no one that met the criteria (5% of the vote, less than 25 mil) then that money goes to paying down the debt. If there is, it stays there and goes to them the next election.

This would hopefully encourage people to vote third party if they agreed with that party, as now suddenly that vote DOES matter because you can try to get your 3rd party into range to get the bit of financing. It shouldn't have a big effect on "small" donations because if you donate $10 to your local politician cause its all you can afford your politician would still get $9.75 of it and the pot would get a quarter, hardly squelching even the voice of the poorest of poor.

If it started looking like more than one third party would become viable like this you could raise the tax on the campaigns to 5%, thus accounting potentially for 2 "third" parties. I would max it out at that, and add in some kidn of adendum so that it goes in descending order from the highest, but qualified party, to the lowest, until there's no further money left.

Just an idea shot from the hip there to try and limit at least the spending of the campaign itself, make third party votes worth while, and possibly get third parties somewhat further injected into the whole ordeal. That said, it'd still have a ton of holes.
 
This is kind of weird. Isn't is supposed to be Republicans who play the "un-American" card?

The Democrats have discovered that they've worn the "Racist" card out, so they're frantically trying to find a new trump.

Democrats saying "unAmerican" isn't going to work, unless they're making a confession.
 
And that still doesn't solve many of the other problems with campaign finance.

Better yet, read your Constitution carefully.

In no place can you find a single word authorizing the federal government the authority to limit personal contributions on spending or controlling political advertising in any manner whatsoever.

Taking the brakes off the un-Go Kart....that's the solution to the real problem, which is the government interfering in private and personal matters such as how people spend their money on politics or anything else.
 
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