Unless you're running for office. In that case you can lie to your heart's content about what you're offering.

For good reason: We can't have politicians regulating the speech of the critics and opponents. Nothing is more protected in the US than political speech, esp (afaik) by someone running for office.

Who said anything about regulating speech?

You could just prosecute a politician if he didn't deliver what he promised, you know.

Outside politics (and depending on the context) this is called breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation or, say, false advertising or consumer protection violation.

It's also colloquially called "holding someone accountable".

Who will prosecute them? Another politician or someone appointed by one. It's politicians all the way down.

> You could just prosecute a politician if he didn't deliver what he promised, you know.

What you’re asking for is a dictator. Politicians can’t unilaterally decide what happens by design. I think what you mean to say is that you want to prosecute politicians if they don’t vote in alignment with their stated goals, but even that is loaded in the US.

Let’s assume we’re talking about a liberal politician.

If he or she ran on banning guns, introduced legislation to ban guns, but some conservative added a rider to ban abortion, should he or she be prosecuted for voting against their own bill? Because that kind of nonsense happens all the time.

> What you’re asking for is a dictator.

No, I'm asking for the judicial system to prosecute politicians who make promises that they don't keep. Like they prosecute politicians in other instances of illegal behavior.

To be clear, I'm not saying that currently, it is illegal for politicians to make promises they don't keep. I'm saying it should be, in some form.

> If he or she ran on banning guns, introduced legislation to ban guns, but some conservative added a rider to ban abortion, should he or she be prosecuted for voting against their own bill? Because that kind of nonsense happens all the time.

Obviously not. I'm not advocating for putting politicians in prison willy nilly. But we should at least prosecute the obvious, egregious instances of the kind of wrongdoing I'm talking about.

Besides, the whole concept of a "rider" is stupid, corrupt and should be illegal as well (just like it is in other areas of the law). Then you wouldn't have that problem.

Presidents aren't kings, so even they cannot guarantee their proposed policies will actually be enacted into law. That's the sticky bit.