No PAC caucus

This is Rep. Ro Khanna. an American academic, lawyer, and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for California's 17th congressional district as a member of the Democratic Party.en.wikipedia.org...

He along with Rep. Beto O’Rourke en.wikipedia.org...
and Rep. Jared Polis en.wikipedia.org...
Plus four other congressman have started a group who's main stated goal is to get money out of politics.
I think even republicans can get behind that idea. They

seeks to prohibit contributions to members of Congress from Political Action Committees, or PACs

This group came together july of last year but I haven't heard anything about it.
Getting money out of politics even a little bit sounds great to me. I think we should watch how this plays out see who joins them.
khanna.house.gov...

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
This is Rep. Ro Khanna. an American academic, lawyer, and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for California's 17th congressional district as a member of the Democratic Party.en.wikipedia.org...

He along with Rep. Beto O’Rourke en.wikipedia.org...
and Rep. Jared Polis en.wikipedia.org...
Plus four other congressman have started a group who's main stated goal is to get money out of politics.
I think even republicans can get behind that idea. They

seeks to prohibit contributions to members of Congress from Political Action Committees, or PACs

This group came together july of last year but I haven't heard anything about it.
Getting money out of politics even a little bit sounds great to me. I think we should watch how this plays out see who joins them.
khanna.house.gov...

In California ? Get money out of politics ?
Quick , call the National Weather service cause either hell has frozen over or this is your usual Cali style Lib scam game..

a reply to: scraedtosleep
As an outsider, I suggest a two-fold plan to reduce the need for money in Presidential politics.

First, give up the Primary system, which must be hideously expensive in television advertising alone. Just allow the parties to choose their own candidates, internally, as happens in most other democratic countries. It will still be in their own interest to look for candidates that the people will want to vote for. If the people want transparent voter choice of candidates, they will have to accept that transparent voter choice is where the expense is coming from. They can't have it both ways.

Secondly, lay the burden of the main election upon the parties who are putting up the candidates. Let political donations be made to the parties, not to the candidates. Let the financial arrangements be channelled through the parties. That would, incidentally, solve the issue of "unused campaign money"- it just remains in party funds ready for the next election. Then the campaign would not depend on the candidate's personal ability to attract money, and there would be less reason to regard political donations as a form of corruption.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Sorry but those suggestions won't really work here.

Our State and federal constitutional rules for candidate requirements are incredibly lax. For State and local positions, it's usually something like a minimum age of 25 or 30 (depending on the position), a small filing fee and/or specific number of voter signatures, and a minimum number of years of residency. Residency in a district isn't even a requirement for all positions. Because of this, many State & local elections have a lot of different candidates from diverse backgrounds, with many being independent or 3rd party candidates.

There's also a huge perception of political corruption here. I can't speak for the right wing, but a huge portion of the left wing and far left refuse to donate to the national party because of its consistent record of abandoning progressive policies. So for at least the last 3 or 4 election cycles, we mostly donate directly to the candidates we prefer because we know the establishment won't support them otherwise.

That was especially true after Senator Obama won the presidency in 2008. The DNC & DCCC abandoned the "50 State policy" which saw the Democratic national party strongly backing candidates in every state. That policy was replaced by a cost effective but politically suicidal policy of only backing candidates who were likely to win their districts. This saw the number of nationally-backed Democratic candidates plummet, particularly in right wing leaning States & districts. It got to the point where entire counties weren't even getting Democratic candidates unless they ran independently of the national party, all because the national party & its largest donors didn't think they could win.

This basically conceded districts to the Republican Party. And it also allowed the conservative talking points to go unanswered in those districts. And progressives like myself that live in deeply conservative States felt completely abandoned, with many positions on my ballot not even having Democratic candidates. This should give you an idea why so many progressive voters still ignore the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC and donate directly to progressive candidates.

It's also a huge part of the reason for Bernie's surge in popularity during the 2016 campaign season. Bernie's "side" is all about backing as many candidates as possible, including encouraging activists to get formally involved in the system and to run as candidates. Hillary & the establishment Democrats were basically saying what you're suggesting: that activists should just donate to them and let the big wigs make the decisions. One side encouraged the empowerment of left wing "commoners" while the other side practically demanded obedience from them (while crushing or co-opting any up & coming left wing politicians, depending on their devotion to the upper establishment).

The new DNC chair is trying to undo this cycle of mistrust, but it's going to take a lot of time.