Four videos totaling 15 minutes explain all of CFR28
3:38 First of four videos describes CFR28’s limit on campaign contributions
4:35 Second of four videos describes how CFR28 eliminates superPAC advertising
3:21 Third of four videos describes two exceptions to CFR28’s contribution limit and why public financing alone won’t work
3:28 Last of four videos describes how CFR28 prevents getting around this reform
The CFR28 Proposal Highlights
Stop wealthy donors from controlling our candidates and getting special favors. That's our purpose, but it's not easy if our our First Amendment rights are to be preserved.
It would be simple if we only needed to limit direct contributions to candidates. But the big donations don’t go directly to the candidates, they come through advertisements paid for by wealthy individuals and Political Action Committees. And in the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court said these ads are protected by the First Amendment.
The genius of our proposed amendment, CFR28, is that it protects free speech while regulating these independent advertisements. It does this with a definition of advertising in subsection 2.3 that creates clear, enforceable limits on advertising without threatening other information or opinions about candidates
Here's an overview of CFR28:
Only citizens can contribute to candidates.
Those contributions are limited to no more than $360 to each candidate for each primary or general election--an amount that will adjust with inflation.
Citizens can contribute only to candidates who are running to represent them.
Additional public financing is allowed, but not required.
Independent advertising is prohibited unless it costs less than the $360 limit. Advertising is defined as any messages intended for people who do not expect or want to see them, regardless of source or content. This means news, commentary and tweets from average citizens, etc. are unaffected.
Any person or organization can otherwise say anything, in any medium, about candidates. However, they must identify themselves if they spend more than the $360 limit on media to advocate for or against candidates.