1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,720
Speaker 1: Hi, We're on vacation, but we have an amazing special

2
00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:07,480
Speaker 1: episode for you. In the last year, we set out

3
00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:09,880
Speaker 1: to ask some questions to the smartest people in their

4
00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:13,119
Speaker 1: fields about what Democrats should do when they regain power.

5
00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:16,920
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this special episode of Project twenty

6
00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:22,119
Speaker 1: twenty nine, A Reimagining. Hello, and welcome to part one

7
00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:26,880
Speaker 1: of our new docu series, Project twenty twenty nine, A Reimagining.

8
00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:31,200
Speaker 1: I'm Molly john Fast, a columnist, a podcaster, and a

9
00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 1: person you occasionally see on cable news. In this series,

10
00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:39,120
Speaker 1: we're trying to start a conversation about where the Democratic

11
00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:43,440
Speaker 1: Party goes when it regains power, with an agenda that

12
00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,640
Speaker 1: puts people first and creates incentives for many of the

13
00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,479
Speaker 1: voters the Democrats may have lost to get those people

14
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,000
Speaker 1: back into the Democratic Party. In this episode, we're going

15
00:00:55,080 --> 00:00:59,000
Speaker 1: to discuss campaign finance reform, a subject it may not

16
00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:04,320
Speaker 1: seem very second but is actually critical. It's seen by

17
00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:08,120
Speaker 1: most people with experience in government to be the first

18
00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:13,240
Speaker 1: step to getting American politics back to normal, or perhaps

19
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:17,959
Speaker 1: better than normal. Campaign finance reform is critical to rooting

20
00:01:17,959 --> 00:01:22,320
Speaker 1: out corruption and crony capitalism, as well as getting our

21
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:26,399
Speaker 1: politicians to focus on the will of the voters and

22
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,560
Speaker 1: not the will of the billionaires. But before we get

23
00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:32,480
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves, let's get you up to speed. You

24
00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:37,920
Speaker 1: may have noticed that the Heritage foundations wildly ambitious Project

25
00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:42,800
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five has been implemented at lightning speed, when

26
00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:46,760
Speaker 1: nearly half of its goals reached in just nine months.

27
00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:50,520
Speaker 1: The agenda that the Heritage Foundation has set forth, which

28
00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:56,640
Speaker 1: includes other MAGA actors, has moved at breakneck speeds to

29
00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:02,240
Speaker 1: reshape America into a kind of right wing policy testing

30
00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:07,160
Speaker 1: lab that is both failing its citizens and creating a

31
00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: dystopia that many of us don't recognize. In this series,

32
00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:14,440
Speaker 1: we are imagining not only what democrats can do when

33
00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 1: they regain power, but also how to regain the support

34
00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:23,480
Speaker 1: and trust that democrats desperately need after all of the

35
00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:27,919
Speaker 1: damage that has been done in both of the Trump administrations.

36
00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:30,880
Speaker 1: We've assembled some of the smartest people we know to

37
00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 1: explain to us how to fix what seems like a

38
00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 1: very broken mess billionaires pouring money into our elections and

39
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,040
Speaker 1: people not being served by it. Let's set the stage.

40
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:45,440
Speaker 1: Was one of the most damning Supreme Court decisions of

41
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:45,960
Speaker 1: all time.

42
00:02:46,120 --> 00:02:48,880
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Waldman. I'm the president of the Brendan Center

43
00:02:48,919 --> 00:02:51,720
Speaker 2: for Justice at NYU School of Law. We work to

44
00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:56,280
Speaker 2: strengthen and reform and defend our systems of democracy and justice.

45
00:02:56,320 --> 00:02:58,639
Speaker 2: There's always been an effort to make sure that money

46
00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:01,799
Speaker 2: doesn't have too big an impact done politics. That you

47
00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:04,919
Speaker 2: need money to run for office, and that's not new

48
00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 2: in a surprise, and you want to minimize its impact.

49
00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:10,200
Speaker 2: You want to minimize the corruption. There were laws on

50
00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:14,120
Speaker 2: the books that were strong in many instances for a

51
00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:18,160
Speaker 2: century or more. The Supreme Court took a wrecking ball

52
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,959
Speaker 2: to those laws. The most notorious case in Citizens United,

53
00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:24,880
Speaker 2: but it wasn't the only one. Citizens United said that

54
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:28,920
Speaker 2: corporations could not be prohibited from spending on campaigns, and

55
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:33,040
Speaker 2: more broadly, that if money is quote independent, that it

56
00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:36,720
Speaker 2: can't be corrupting and that would always be disclosed. Well,

57
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:39,880
Speaker 2: we know, of course, that the money is corrupting in

58
00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 2: many instances, that it's not disclosed, and it's now coming

59
00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:48,720
Speaker 2: in massive amounts. Elon Musk spending two hundred and fifty

60
00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:52,760
Speaker 2: million dollars for Donald Trump would have been flatly illegal

61
00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:56,839
Speaker 2: before January twenty ten. That was brought to us by

62
00:03:57,320 --> 00:03:59,600
Speaker 2: John Roberts Supreme Court and Citizens United.

63
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,000
Speaker 3: Tiphany Muller. I'm president of into Citizens United, and we're

64
00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:07,520
Speaker 3: a grassroots powered organization. We have about four million members

65
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:10,160
Speaker 3: across the country. Our simple mission is we want to

66
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:12,760
Speaker 3: get big money out of politics. We want to protect

67
00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:17,320
Speaker 3: our democracy. So Citizens United was a decision in January

68
00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:22,080
Speaker 3: twenty ten by the Supreme Court and essentially boiled down.

69
00:04:22,279 --> 00:04:25,640
Speaker 3: It took two really terrible ideas and it merged them

70
00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:31,279
Speaker 3: together and it said money equal speech and corporations are people.

71
00:04:31,839 --> 00:04:36,120
Speaker 3: And really what it allowed is it allowed this unlimited

72
00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:40,480
Speaker 3: and in a lot of cases, undisclosed money to start

73
00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:44,880
Speaker 3: flooding into our election cycle. And you know what we've

74
00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:49,280
Speaker 3: seen in the fifteen years since that decision is a

75
00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 3: real shift in power in Washington away from voters, away

76
00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:59,400
Speaker 3: from accountability to voters, and more toward accountability to those

77
00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:02,720
Speaker 3: who write the biggest checks and to the special interest.

78
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:06,000
Speaker 3: And you know, that's had a really devastating impact on

79
00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:10,000
Speaker 3: our politics and on our policy outcomes. And you can

80
00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:13,840
Speaker 3: see it in everyday life, whether we're talking about energy prices,

81
00:05:14,279 --> 00:05:18,719
Speaker 3: or prescription drug prices or gun safety. It has meant

82
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:22,480
Speaker 3: real gridlock in dysfunction for the past fifteen years on

83
00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:27,240
Speaker 3: some of our biggest pressing policy priorities. So Citizens United says,

84
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:32,479
Speaker 3: all right, people and corporations can spend unlimited amounts to

85
00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:36,400
Speaker 3: influence our elections. And what's happened since then is we've

86
00:05:36,440 --> 00:05:41,159
Speaker 3: seen the creation and the rise of what's called super packs.

87
00:05:41,839 --> 00:05:47,279
Speaker 3: And these are organizations electoral organizations that are supposed to

88
00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:51,560
Speaker 3: be independent of a candidate, but too often aren't and

89
00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:54,680
Speaker 3: can be funded by these massive checks. And so in

90
00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:58,560
Speaker 3: the case of Elon Musk, it was one person putting

91
00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:03,280
Speaker 3: in two hundred and seventy five million dollars into an

92
00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:07,440
Speaker 3: organization to try to help elect Donald Trump as president.

93
00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:12,680
Speaker 3: And so he invested and actually did ended up carrying

94
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:17,159
Speaker 3: most of Donald Trump's field efforts. Instead of knocking on

95
00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:19,080
Speaker 3: doors and turning out votes being a part of the

96
00:06:19,080 --> 00:06:22,600
Speaker 3: campaign as it normally is, Elon Musk paid for that

97
00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:25,400
Speaker 3: to happen, and that we all know there was no

98
00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:28,520
Speaker 3: way that was independent. It was being reported on daily

99
00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:33,039
Speaker 3: and the Federal Elections Commission even said the information could

100
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:36,640
Speaker 3: be shared with the campaign. So he was then rewarded

101
00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:42,880
Speaker 3: with a massively powerful, unaccountable to the Senate or anyone

102
00:06:42,920 --> 00:06:45,960
Speaker 3: else position that allowed him to have free reign over

103
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:50,080
Speaker 3: the federal government and to cut all of these really

104
00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:54,680
Speaker 3: important programs and decades long civil servants who have given

105
00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:57,279
Speaker 3: their life to public service. The other thing it did

106
00:06:57,360 --> 00:06:59,560
Speaker 3: is it allowed him to go put his thumb on

107
00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,680
Speaker 3: the scale for more no big contracts to his very

108
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:06,240
Speaker 3: own businesses, of which he's gotten thirty eight billion dollars

109
00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:08,200
Speaker 3: in government contracts over the years.

110
00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:13,800
Speaker 1: Now we'll hear from Michael Waldman about how unregulated campaign finances.

111
00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:19,640
Speaker 2: The basic premises of Citizens United was that if the

112
00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:23,120
Speaker 2: spending is independent and it is disclosed, there's no problem. Well,

113
00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:26,080
Speaker 2: the world we live in now is fake independence and

114
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:30,600
Speaker 2: non disclosure. And the reality is it's just basically unregulated.

115
00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:34,000
Speaker 2: And so you have the crypto industry buying Congress. You

116
00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:37,200
Speaker 2: have Donald Trump during the campaign going to the oil

117
00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 2: industry and saying, give me a billion dollars for my campaign,

118
00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:42,760
Speaker 2: and I'll give you everything you want. He didn't get

119
00:07:42,760 --> 00:07:45,240
Speaker 2: the billion dollars, but he is giving them what they'd

120
00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:50,360
Speaker 2: want also, and you have the spectacle of massive amounts

121
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:52,520
Speaker 2: of money floating into the political system in a way

122
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:55,640
Speaker 2: we haven't seen since the eighteen hundreds. You also have

123
00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:58,520
Speaker 2: this new thing. We've always had corruption for much of

124
00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:03,440
Speaker 2: the country's history, people in power lining their pockets, getting

125
00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:07,840
Speaker 2: rich off of graft and bribes. And think of Tammany

126
00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:12,280
Speaker 2: Hall or the teapot Dome scandal that actually got cleaned

127
00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:14,040
Speaker 2: up a lot over the years. That really was not

128
00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,600
Speaker 2: nearly as big a problem as it had been. You know,

129
00:08:16,760 --> 00:08:20,200
Speaker 2: back then, what we had was the systemic problem of

130
00:08:20,240 --> 00:08:22,880
Speaker 2: the campaign finance system, of the way people have to

131
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:27,960
Speaker 2: raise money under the Supreme Court's rulings to stay in office.

132
00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:33,320
Speaker 2: Now we've got both those things combined and on steroids.

133
00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:37,439
Speaker 2: You have the president and his family with their crypto

134
00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:42,240
Speaker 2: company setting things up to get massive foreign payments, and

135
00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,559
Speaker 2: you have tens hundreds of millions of dollars spent by

136
00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:50,400
Speaker 2: private actors in elections. And the notion that the campaign

137
00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 2: contribution is, you know, a few thousand dollars is a joke,

138
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:57,040
Speaker 2: because it's really ten twenty two hundred and fifty million dollars.

139
00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:01,400
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of reporting. The Chief Just Roberts

140
00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:05,320
Speaker 1: longed for the repeal of Citizens United, as well as

141
00:09:05,559 --> 00:09:10,240
Speaker 1: unrestrained corporate influence on our politics. The podcast series The

142
00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:14,040
Speaker 1: Master Plan from the lever found extensive details of this

143
00:09:14,160 --> 00:09:18,080
Speaker 1: being a near life long passion for him.

144
00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:21,640
Speaker 2: It's been said that each Chief Justice has a project,

145
00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:24,760
Speaker 2: and you know, for Earl Warren, it was extending the

146
00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:27,600
Speaker 2: Bill of Rights to the States, and for other Chief

147
00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:30,640
Speaker 2: Justices it was tightening the criminal laws. For John Roberts,

148
00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:34,120
Speaker 2: it's been using the First Amendment to demolish the campaign

149
00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:37,160
Speaker 2: finance laws. This is something he has consistently pushed for

150
00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:39,920
Speaker 2: throughout his time there. I don't think they were particularly

151
00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:43,280
Speaker 2: bothered by the notion of massive amounts of money flooding

152
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:47,680
Speaker 2: into the system. Could they have imagined that one person,

153
00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,960
Speaker 2: the world's wealthiest man, would effectively pay for the winning

154
00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:54,240
Speaker 2: presidential campaign and then move into the White House on

155
00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:58,160
Speaker 2: a cot and be given prime ministerial authority to sort

156
00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:00,480
Speaker 2: of wreck the government for a few months. I don't

157
00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:02,079
Speaker 2: know that they thought about that, but I don't know

158
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:03,800
Speaker 2: it would bother them that much either.

159
00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:07,559
Speaker 4: So I'm Lawrence Lessig. I'm a law professor at Harvard,

160
00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:11,000
Speaker 4: and for the last eighteen years I've been obsessed with

161
00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:13,559
Speaker 4: the corrupting influence of money in American politics.

162
00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 1: He's being quite modest. Professor Lessig has been at the

163
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:23,559
Speaker 1: forefront of many issues, including copyright law and net neutrality,

164
00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:27,560
Speaker 1: but most famously, in twenty ten, he began to sound

165
00:10:27,640 --> 00:10:31,280
Speaker 1: the alarm that fixing the pack and money flow in

166
00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:36,160
Speaker 1: Congress was the number one most important issue if we

167
00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:40,520
Speaker 1: want to fix Congress. Lawrence has been outspoken enough on

168
00:10:40,559 --> 00:10:44,559
Speaker 1: the subject to have run for the Democratic presidential nomination

169
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,920
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on

170
00:10:49,040 --> 00:10:54,080
Speaker 1: a single issue platform, the Citizens Equality Act, or proposal

171
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:59,520
Speaker 1: that couple's campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at

172
00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:04,600
Speaker 1: curb jerry mandering and ensuring voting access. At one point

173
00:11:04,679 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 1: during his campaign, he even promised to resign once this

174
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:12,000
Speaker 1: Citizen's Equality Act became law and turned the presidency over

175
00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:13,240
Speaker 1: to his vice president.

176
00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:14,679
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I used.

177
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:17,480
Speaker 4: To long time, ago, whole life ago, eighteen years ago,

178
00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:21,560
Speaker 4: work on copyrighted internet issues. And my friend Aaron Swartz

179
00:11:21,600 --> 00:11:23,720
Speaker 4: came to me and he said, you know, why do

180
00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:26,120
Speaker 4: you think you're going to ever make any progress on

181
00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,600
Speaker 4: those issues so long as we have this deeply corrupted

182
00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:32,920
Speaker 4: political system. And I said, you know, it's not my

183
00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:35,319
Speaker 4: field erin And he said, you mean as an academic

184
00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:37,360
Speaker 4: And I said, yeah, as an academic, it's not my field.

185
00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:40,200
Speaker 4: I do copyright Internet, That's what I focus on. He said, okay,

186
00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:42,640
Speaker 4: but what about as a citizen. Is it your field

187
00:11:42,679 --> 00:11:46,400
Speaker 4: as a citizen. And literally that night in Berlin eighteen

188
00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:49,839
Speaker 4: years ago, I promised him I'd give up the work

189
00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:53,040
Speaker 4: on copyright and the Internet and if you would join me,

190
00:11:53,559 --> 00:11:57,679
Speaker 4: would take up this fight to change the way Washington works.

191
00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,920
Speaker 4: And that began it. As what he convinced me of

192
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:05,040
Speaker 4: is the question isn't whether it's the most important issue.

193
00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:07,480
Speaker 4: It's not the most important issue. It's the first issue.

194
00:12:07,559 --> 00:12:10,080
Speaker 4: We don't solve this issue, we don't solve anything else.

195
00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:14,120
Speaker 4: So money in politics is the way to address climate change,

196
00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:19,280
Speaker 4: or inequality, or healthcare or student whatever you care about.

197
00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:24,520
Speaker 4: The reason we can't get anything serious effective done is

198
00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:28,960
Speaker 4: because it's trivially easy to leverage money to block serious,

199
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:30,280
Speaker 4: effective things getting done.

200
00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:34,480
Speaker 1: This is all clearly outlined in his twenty eleven book

201
00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:39,720
Speaker 1: Republic Lost, which foretold many of the problems we have

202
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:43,960
Speaker 1: today and foreshadowed many of the government's actions.

203
00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:47,120
Speaker 4: When I began this work, it took a lot of effort,

204
00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:49,440
Speaker 4: like I had to write a really big book to

205
00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:51,800
Speaker 4: try to get people to see the problem, you know,

206
00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:53,800
Speaker 4: get them to see the kind of corruption we were

207
00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:56,120
Speaker 4: dealing with, which wasn't the kind of in plain sight

208
00:12:56,240 --> 00:12:59,120
Speaker 4: quid pro quo kind of corruption. It's much more subtle,

209
00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:02,719
Speaker 4: much more It made it so Congress seem like it

210
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:05,400
Speaker 4: was like working for us, but in fact we knew

211
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:08,440
Speaker 4: because they spent thirty to seventy percent of their time

212
00:13:08,520 --> 00:13:12,359
Speaker 4: raising money, we knew that they were working for their funders,

213
00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:15,280
Speaker 4: like they were training to become sick of fans to

214
00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:19,320
Speaker 4: the most powerful people in society, bending over backwards to

215
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:22,160
Speaker 4: give them what they needed, like constantly, like in the

216
00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:25,880
Speaker 4: words of the X file, shape shifting, as they learned

217
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:28,240
Speaker 4: how they needed to say what they needed to say

218
00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:30,680
Speaker 4: to raise the money they needed to get to office.

219
00:13:30,840 --> 00:13:34,320
Speaker 4: That was the old system. But because that corruption is

220
00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:38,079
Speaker 4: so pervasive, it made it easy to layer on top

221
00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:40,079
Speaker 4: of it the kind of corruption we see right now,

222
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:43,080
Speaker 4: which is just in plain sight corruption. You know, you

223
00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:46,760
Speaker 4: have the President of the United States like openly acknowledging Yeah, well,

224
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:50,360
Speaker 4: my boys are like, you know, doing deals with me

225
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:53,880
Speaker 4: as I'm out here negotiating international treaties. I mean, there

226
00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:57,719
Speaker 4: was that extra incredible hot mic exchange where he was

227
00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:00,560
Speaker 4: talking to an Indonesian leader and he's like in the

228
00:14:00,559 --> 00:14:02,679
Speaker 4: middle of some official event and he tells him, you

229
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:05,320
Speaker 4: need to talk to my sons. And it's like, how

230
00:14:05,360 --> 00:14:08,080
Speaker 4: have we gotten to a place where the United States

231
00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:12,440
Speaker 4: of America has a president who is openly shilling for

232
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:16,000
Speaker 4: his own private economic interest. So, you know, this is

233
00:14:16,160 --> 00:14:21,240
Speaker 4: just what this kind of corruption, if left untreated, produces.

234
00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:25,280
Speaker 4: It's metastatized into this grotesque boil on the face of

235
00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:28,240
Speaker 4: the republic, and it's hard now not to see it,

236
00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:31,840
Speaker 4: even though it's always been there in some form. Now

237
00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:34,160
Speaker 4: it's just the most grotesque could possibly be.

238
00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:38,560
Speaker 1: And while McCain fine gold tried to achieve systematic change

239
00:14:38,640 --> 00:14:43,760
Speaker 1: and curb this rampant corruption in our politics, the Conservatives

240
00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:46,960
Speaker 1: found their way around this by going to their favorite

241
00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:50,280
Speaker 1: venue for getting around the will of the people, the

242
00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:51,080
Speaker 1: Supreme Court.

243
00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:54,920
Speaker 4: They tried to get reform on the cheap, like they

244
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:59,720
Speaker 4: tried to reform money in politics by limiting how people

245
00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:03,920
Speaker 4: could participate. And from my own perspective, don't have a

246
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:06,760
Speaker 4: problem with that strategy. Like if I got to write

247
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:09,880
Speaker 4: the Constitution or enact the values in the Constitution, I

248
00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:12,160
Speaker 4: would want to think it perfectly fine to say, we

249
00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:14,080
Speaker 4: can limit the total amount of spending there is. But

250
00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,440
Speaker 4: the problem is that is inconsistent with the core First

251
00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:21,280
Speaker 4: Amendment idea that the Supreme Court has advanced. So if

252
00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:25,120
Speaker 4: ever you're trying to limit expenditures, there's a ninety nine

253
00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:27,000
Speaker 4: percent chance that you can't.

254
00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 2: You just can't.

255
00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:33,080
Speaker 4: There's one big exception immigrants. So after Citizens United said

256
00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:36,080
Speaker 4: that you could spend unlimited amounts of money even if

257
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,480
Speaker 4: you're a corporation as long as it's independent from the candidate,

258
00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:43,560
Speaker 4: a bunch of immigrants legal immigrants in the United States said, Okay,

259
00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:47,120
Speaker 4: if corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money, we should

260
00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:49,680
Speaker 4: be allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money too, because

261
00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:52,480
Speaker 4: as long as it's independent, there's no quid pro quode corruption.

262
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:56,000
Speaker 4: Judge Kevanaugh, when he was on the DC Circuit, wrote

263
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,680
Speaker 4: an opinion said, Nope, we can stop the immigrants from

264
00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,640
Speaker 4: spending because they're not part of our political community. I'm

265
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:04,040
Speaker 4: not sure how IBM was part of our political community,

266
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:06,040
Speaker 4: but the point is the immigrants are not part of

267
00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:08,360
Speaker 4: our political community, so we can block them, but we

268
00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:11,760
Speaker 4: can't block anybody else. Okay, So the point is ninety

269
00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:14,560
Speaker 4: nine percent of the time. If you're trying to limit spending,

270
00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:16,600
Speaker 4: you're going to lose in this court. But the way

271
00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:18,520
Speaker 4: to deal with that is to first of all limit

272
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:20,920
Speaker 4: the size of contributions, which is what we're trying to

273
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:25,360
Speaker 4: super pac case. And then the publicly fund elections. You know,

274
00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:29,320
Speaker 4: we forget that every president between Nixon and Obama was

275
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:32,480
Speaker 4: elected with public funding. Ronald Reagan would never have been

276
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:35,840
Speaker 4: president but for public funding because in nineteen seventy six

277
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:39,720
Speaker 4: when he ran against the sitting Republican, the only way

278
00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:42,520
Speaker 4: he had money to run was because we had public funding.

279
00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:46,280
Speaker 4: So if we began to think about strategies for public

280
00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:51,440
Speaker 4: funding that were strategies that could really drive engagement, and

281
00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:53,880
Speaker 4: again I think vouchers are the best of these, then

282
00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:55,840
Speaker 4: that would be the change that could get us to

283
00:16:55,880 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 4: a place where we weren't thinking members of Congress and

284
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:02,240
Speaker 4: candidates for Congress we're worried number one, number two, and

285
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:05,520
Speaker 4: number three about the money, and number four, five, and

286
00:17:05,600 --> 00:17:07,480
Speaker 4: six maybe about their constituents.

287
00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:10,640
Speaker 1: And what makes us all so much worse is that

288
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:15,400
Speaker 1: many of the worst ads, like the pink slime mailers,

289
00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:20,080
Speaker 1: the ones that deceive voters, they have no one's name, attached,

290
00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:23,320
Speaker 1: so there's no one that can ever be held accountable.

291
00:17:23,720 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 5: My name is Tom Moore. I'm a Senior Fellow for

292
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:29,440
Speaker 5: Democracy Policy at the Center for American Progress. I work

293
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:33,239
Speaker 5: on different reforms that can make our democracy stronger. Been

294
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:35,919
Speaker 5: a CAP for about two years. Before that, I was

295
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:39,400
Speaker 5: senior counsel and chief of staff to Commissioner Ellen Weintraub

296
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:41,800
Speaker 5: with the Federal Election Commission, where she sent me out

297
00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:43,760
Speaker 5: to take a hammer to citizens in United about ten

298
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:47,199
Speaker 5: years ago. They're not supposed to coordinate with campaigns. It's

299
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:52,080
Speaker 5: supposed to be absolutely independent. It's not completely independent and functionally,

300
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:55,320
Speaker 5: even if they never ever speak to each other, everybody

301
00:17:55,359 --> 00:17:58,280
Speaker 5: knows their role. The campaign and the parties run all

302
00:17:58,320 --> 00:17:59,840
Speaker 5: these great ads, but how great we are and all

303
00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:05,280
Speaker 5: these positive messages, and the super PACs are left to

304
00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:07,199
Speaker 5: do all the dirty work. And basically if they can

305
00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:09,520
Speaker 5: do all the negative ads, the horrible ads, the stuff

306
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:12,359
Speaker 5: that a campaign and a candidate would never do because

307
00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:15,960
Speaker 5: they'd be held accountable for it. And so instead you've

308
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:20,679
Speaker 5: got this shattery group where the donors you have no

309
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:24,080
Speaker 5: idea who's paid for these ads, and they're unleashing the

310
00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:28,400
Speaker 5: most toxic and corrosive communications in our politics, and it's

311
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:29,919
Speaker 5: just gotten worse and worse every cycle.

312
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,439
Speaker 1: You may remember in the Biden administration when there was

313
00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:38,560
Speaker 1: a showdown with these Senators Cinema and Mansion over a

314
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:43,359
Speaker 1: filibuster on the Freedom to Vote Act and the John

315
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:48,800
Speaker 1: Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, where President Biden was urged

316
00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:52,439
Speaker 1: to push the Senators to suspend the filibuster to protect

317
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:57,000
Speaker 1: voting rights. These protections would have helped immensely as we

318
00:18:57,040 --> 00:18:59,920
Speaker 1: live in an arms race of jerry mandering and demark

319
00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:06,399
Speaker 1: Krat's face an unfavorable mid term map exacerbated by recently

320
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:10,520
Speaker 1: redrawn districts in some states. They are expected to cement

321
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 1: GOP control in some areas and give the party an

322
00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:19,760
Speaker 1: edge for control over several swing district seats. Professor Lesseig

323
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,000
Speaker 1: looks back to that time.

324
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:25,040
Speaker 4: I mean, I joined a hunger strike in front of

325
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:27,959
Speaker 4: the White House. I was taken off the field because

326
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:30,800
Speaker 4: the doctor said I was dying. And you know, the

327
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:34,640
Speaker 4: stories about that are mixed. You know, the most depressing

328
00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:37,879
Speaker 4: story is that in fact they had a deal with

329
00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:40,680
Speaker 4: Mansion and he went to the White House to discuss

330
00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:44,719
Speaker 4: the deal, and apparently the President was upset about something,

331
00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:46,760
Speaker 4: and so instead they got into an argument, and a

332
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:49,120
Speaker 4: certain point, Manchin just walks out and says, to hell

333
00:19:49,119 --> 00:19:52,840
Speaker 4: with it. The idea. We came this close to passing

334
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:57,159
Speaker 4: the most important democracy reform legislation that had passed the House,

335
00:19:57,240 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 4: and I was in the Senate in I don't know,

336
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:03,560
Speaker 4: since the Civil War. Because it's not just the Voting

337
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:06,679
Speaker 4: Rights Act, which of course is extremely important, it was

338
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:11,560
Speaker 4: also jerrymandering. It was going to end gerrymandering, partisan gerrymandering.

339
00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 4: And the part that was most important to me is

340
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:18,760
Speaker 4: it would experiment with really critically different ways to fund campaigns.

341
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:23,760
Speaker 4: It was actually Mansion created a very creative addition to

342
00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:27,639
Speaker 4: the bill that basically gave blockap grants to states to

343
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:31,760
Speaker 4: experiment with public funding systems. So some would adopt voucher systems,

344
00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:35,280
Speaker 4: which is my favorite alternative to the existing corrupt system

345
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:38,080
Speaker 4: we have, but maybe matching fund systems like New York

346
00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:41,359
Speaker 4: City has, or even like Connecticut systems, which is basically

347
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:44,360
Speaker 4: give a chunk of money to people once they qualify regardless.

348
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:47,040
Speaker 4: The aim is to make it so that when you're

349
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:51,400
Speaker 4: trying to become a representative, you're focused on your constituents,

350
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:53,680
Speaker 4: the people are going to vote for you, as opposed

351
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 4: to being focused on these funders. And when you look

352
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:00,800
Speaker 4: at like our Congress right now, which is you know,

353
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:04,879
Speaker 4: our whole government is a demonstration that our government is

354
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,840
Speaker 4: not what we told itself. Told ourselves it was like

355
00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 4: a system of rule of law and checks and balances.

356
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:12,640
Speaker 4: There are no checks and balances inside the system. I mean,

357
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:17,000
Speaker 4: the Court has basically left the field. And Congress is

358
00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:20,479
Speaker 4: incredibly pathetic because it just can't stand up and do

359
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,840
Speaker 4: anything in response to this president. And when you think

360
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:27,480
Speaker 4: why is that, I think you can't separate the fact

361
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:33,119
Speaker 4: that we've spent thirty years at least teaching Congress people

362
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:37,359
Speaker 4: to be sickophants, teaching them how to bend to power.

363
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:41,199
Speaker 1: And while many experts say voting access is part of

364
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:44,920
Speaker 1: the problem, for DEM's, professor Lessig sees it a little

365
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:45,560
Speaker 1: bit differently.

366
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:50,439
Speaker 4: My colleague Nick Stephanopolis, who's one of the most talented

367
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:56,199
Speaker 4: voting rights and empirical voting science professors, has begun to

368
00:21:56,280 --> 00:22:02,960
Speaker 4: show that suppression of the vote is actually hurting Republicans

369
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 4: more than Democrats. Right now, you increase turnout, you actually

370
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 4: are benefiting Republicans, not Democrats.

371
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:10,639
Speaker 2: You know, that used to be reversed.

372
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:12,640
Speaker 4: It used to be that the suppression of the vote

373
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 4: seemed to be targeted against Democrats by especially southern districts,

374
00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 4: that we're trying to make sure that African Americans were

375
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:24,159
Speaker 4: not able to vote. And of course it's outrageous that

376
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 4: we have any system that blocks the ability of citizens

377
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:29,360
Speaker 4: to be able to vote, and we ought to be

378
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 4: pushing as hard as we can for a system that

379
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,720
Speaker 4: empowers everybody equally to have an equal freedom to vote,

380
00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 4: no doubt. But I think the best thing to think

381
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:41,959
Speaker 4: about this horrible situation is it's not actually the most

382
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 4: important problem. It's not actually the thing that's flipping the

383
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 4: Congress to be the way that Congress is. What's doing

384
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:51,880
Speaker 4: that is number one, money and number two is gerrymandering.

385
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 4: And you know, we've got terrible ways we run primaries.

386
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 4: There's lots of other tweaks you could do that, but

387
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 4: solve those too, and you've solved that thing. Seventy percent

388
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 4: of the problem.

389
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 1: When voters wonder why politicians are so out of touch

390
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:08,159
Speaker 1: with their needs, this is often the root of it.

391
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: Tiffany Muller explains how politicians are not talking to their

392
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: constituents making matters for voters.

393
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 3: Even worse, right now, they're spending thirty to thirty five

394
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 3: hours a week on the phone dialing for dollars, calling

395
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 3: up rich people across the country, trying to get a

396
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 3: donation because the cost of these campaigns has skyrocketed. And

397
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 3: you know what they're not doing when when they're making

398
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 3: those calls, they're not out in their community talking to voters.

399
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 3: They're not doing house parties and getting to know, you know,

400
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 3: the folks in a neighborhood, for instance, and what their

401
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,639
Speaker 3: concerns are. Or they're not sitting in committee learning about

402
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 3: which policies they're going to have to vote on, or

403
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 3: they're not you know, being able to have meetings with

404
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 3: their constituents. That's the system we live in right now.

405
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: Well, many people consider the votes politicians take to be

406
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: the place that compromises the will of the people. Professor

407
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 1: Lessig makes the case that it also helps to shape

408
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 1: unpopular messaging in the Democratic Party, particularly in the last election.

409
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 4: It was the most concentrated funded election that we've had

410
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 4: for one hundred years, So there's no doubt that it

411
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 4: was the billionaires that mattered and other people second and

412
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 4: third place. But actually, you know, if you pull out

413
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 4: Elon Musk's money, which I'm not saying, you know, we

414
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,119
Speaker 4: shouldn't worry about Elon Musk money, but I'm saying, if

415
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 4: you pull out Elon Musk's money, it begins to look

416
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,439
Speaker 4: very equal between the Democrats and the Republicans. You know,

417
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 4: after the election, Bernie Sanders criticized Kamala Harris by saying

418
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 4: she didn't talk about issues that ordinary working class people

419
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:46,679
Speaker 4: cared about. And I kind of felt sorry for her

420
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:48,800
Speaker 4: because you know, when you look at who who are

421
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 4: super PAC funders were, you could see why she couldn't

422
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 4: talk about those issues because that super Pac funding constrained

423
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:01,439
Speaker 4: the range of issues she could take on. It's gold

424
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:05,120
Speaker 4: but it's golden handcuffs, and it stops a party from

425
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 4: being able to talk about issues that are the natural

426
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 4: issues for them to address, to be able to rally

427
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 4: people to their side.

428
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 1: And it's extremely popular to run against corruption. Who could

429
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:19,919
Speaker 1: forget when we were going to drain the swamp, and

430
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: after what seems to already be the most corrupt administration

431
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: in history, there will be an absolute thirst for anti

432
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 1: corruption legislation Here's Tiffany Muller on how much Donald Trump

433
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,719
Speaker 1: has raised his own network since taking office.

434
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:42,120
Speaker 3: We know that about eighty percent of Americans think that

435
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 3: our system is broken. It's not working for them. It

436
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 3: needs big, big changes, And we know that tapping into

437
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 3: cleaning up corruption and making sure that the people who

438
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 3: are being elected are representing the people and not just themselves,

439
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 3: not lining their own own pocket or not just looking

440
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 3: out for their big donors is incredibly powerful. Donald Trump

441
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 3: has raised his own personal net worth by some estimates

442
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen billion dollars since being elected. Billion right.

443
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 3: We have never seen this kind of grift in our country.

444
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 3: But for everyday people, the cost of eggs is still

445
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 3: going up, the custom meet is going up, to the

446
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 3: cost of everything continues to go up, and they are

447
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 3: being left further and further behind.

448
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,479
Speaker 1: Gambian finance reform is so popular with the American people

449
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 1: that the stories of how politicians try to prevent it

450
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: we'd like satire. Here's Tom Moore on the question we

451
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 1: should be asking when it comes to campaign finance reform.

452
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 2: And there was a leaked audio of the lobbyists who

453
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 2: are against this and Ted Cruz talking and they said,

454
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 2: you know, we pulled this stuff, and no matter what

455
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 2: argument we make against campaign finance reform, it's really popular.

456
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 2: Trying to get people who be against it makes them

457
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 2: more for it. We have no choice but to use

458
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 2: what's called an under the dome strategy, meaningful filibuster. The

459
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 2: public writ large gets the corrosive impact of this kind

460
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 2: of money, even if there don't know just how much

461
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 2: it is and how big it is. People are angry

462
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 2: across the political spectrum. This is not a left or

463
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 2: right issue. The challenge will be how do you translate

464
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 2: that public anger and broad public support into action. So

465
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 2: you know, to me, one of the big questions right

466
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: now in American politics is after Trump, what are we for?

467
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: What are we for? Not just what are we against,

468
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 2: but what kind of reform agenda can we put forward

469
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 2: that is big enough, that's as big as the problem

470
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 2: that's going to respond to, the self dealing, the corruption,

471
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 2: and the distortion of the political process.

472
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 1: When we look to see why tech companies continue to

473
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: get away with abuses that know, as citizen or parent

474
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: can understand, often it leads back to pack money. Whether

475
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: it's tech companies and crypto bros having bought legislation. With

476
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: pack money spending tsunami sized waves of money against political

477
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: candidates who want to regulate and contain abuses by these

478
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: tech companies. This will continue to be an issue that

479
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 1: gets more and more popular as these tech companies run wild,

480
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:33,719
Speaker 1: hurt citizens, and victimize our children. Professor Lessig thinks we

481
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: need regulation around AI any of.

482
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 4: These critical issues, Like if you don't think it's important

483
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 4: to have sensible policy around AI, you don't understand what's

484
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 4: going on with AI. So the idea that we're not

485
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 4: going to be able to regulate AI at all, sensibly

486
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 4: regulate AI because you'll have some apac like super Pack

487
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 4: that's terrified members of Congress and kept them out of

488
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 4: the loop, is just terrifying. But that's in fact what

489
00:28:57,600 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 4: we're going to see unless we stop superpessing.

490
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: Here about how many years we've been fighting for this

491
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: and the failures that happened with the John Lewis Voting

492
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: Rights Act can be disheartening, but let's remember there's a

493
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: historical precedent for times like these leading to the greatest

494
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: reforms against corruption. Tiffany Moller breaks down how campaign finance

495
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: has been reformed in previous eras and what we can.

496
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 3: Do now we've seen it happen before. You know, if

497
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 3: you look at the guilded Age, when we had a

498
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 3: concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and monopolies,

499
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 3: there was both constitutional amendments, the rise of the labor movement,

500
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 3: banning the tilmanec which banned corporate money in our politics

501
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 3: for one hundred years. All of these populist reforms came

502
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 3: because of the problems we were seeing out of the

503
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 3: guilded age. If you look at Watergate era, you saw

504
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 3: the creation of the Federal Elections Commission and so many

505
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 3: other reforms because of the corruption in the Watergate era.

506
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 3: If you look at two thousand and six, it's actually

507
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 3: a cycle. I like to talk about a lot. There

508
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 3: were so many Earmark scandals and lobbyist scandals, and it was,

509
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 3: you know, Abraham off and Bridge to nowhere, and you

510
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 3: ended up once again in two thousand and seven where

511
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 3: you were where they passed Earmark reform and lobbyist reform

512
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 3: as one of the very first things. So out of

513
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 3: these moments of corruption can come great change. But it

514
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 3: truly takes kind of the people rising up and saying

515
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 3: we're not going to take anymore. So we know that

516
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 3: this is the first and biggest problem we need to address, but.

517
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: How do we do it?

518
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 3: There are achievable things that we can do tomorrow with

519
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 3: just to vote in Congress. We could actually make sure

520
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 3: that there was full disclosure and transparency on the money

521
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 3: coming into our system. So one of the main vehicles

522
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 3: being used in our elections right now are five oh

523
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 3: one c four organizations and they're sup suposed to be

524
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 3: a social welfare organization that's benefiting the good of society,

525
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 3: but too often they're engaging in politics and electoral politics

526
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 3: in order to hide who is funding them. And so

527
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 3: you can actually constitutionally and eight of the nine Supreme

528
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 3: Court justices have said that disclosure and transparency is vitally

529
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 3: important to keep corruption out of our system. And so

530
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 3: we could pass that with a simple vote of Congress, right,

531
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 3: and we could make sure we knew where the money

532
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 3: was coming from. Some states have done this. Montana did this,

533
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 3: Arizona did this, and what we saw was money from

534
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 3: outside sources actually no longer being spent in those states. Yeah,

535
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 3: so it actually works. Another thing we could do, we

536
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 3: could reform the Federal Elections Commission because we no longer

537
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 3: have a functioning cop on the beat to enforce the

538
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 3: campaign finance laws we have in the books, so people

539
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 3: are just violating the laws we do have, and we

540
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 3: need to strengthen those laws. But even the laws we

541
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 3: do have we need to be able to enforce. We

542
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 3: can also make sure we were incentivizing more small dollar

543
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,479
Speaker 3: donor giving into our system, going out and actually talking

544
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 3: to your voters and talking to constituents and getting support

545
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 3: from them instead of just the people who can write

546
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 3: the biggest checks. And there are ways that we can

547
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 3: do that just legislatively. Other attacks on our democracy like

548
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 3: voting suppression and the gerrymandering that we're seeing right now

549
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 3: across the country, we could actually pass legislation with a

550
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 3: simple vote in Congress to actually stop those attacks on

551
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 3: our democracy and strengthen those foundations of our democracy.

552
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: And while it may seem like we have bigger fish

553
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: to fry, lobbying in our political system is still one

554
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: of the biggest problems and it still breeds the most corruption.

555
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: Tiffany Mueller explains why Congress people can and shouldn't become lobbyists.

556
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 3: You're a member of Congress, you are banned from lobbying

557
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 3: the federal government for your lifetime, because again, serving as

558
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:13,719
Speaker 3: a member of Congress is supposed to be about serving

559
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 3: your constituents. It is a public service, it is an

560
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 3: honor to get to do, and it shouldn't be about

561
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 3: looking to cash in and the next step on your resume.

562
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 3: And you know, in Molly, in nineteen I think it's

563
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four, right around the Watergate era, it was

564
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 3: only about three percent of members of Congress went on

565
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 3: to become lobbyists after they left Congress. Three percent. Today

566
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 3: that number is up over two thirds of members of

567
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 3: Congress who leave Congress go on to become lobbyists. It

568
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 3: is the most common thing to see on both sides

569
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 3: of the aisle. This is a problem on both sides

570
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 3: of the isle. So to me, it's one of the

571
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 3: easiest ways to just say we are going to make

572
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 3: sure they are only serving the public. Centrist is take

573
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 3: away this trading, take away the lobbying, take away the

574
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 3: corporate influence.

575
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: In addition to this, passing at the state level, public

576
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: financing for elections can help keep corporate power out or

577
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: at least have a diminished effect on our elections. Michael

578
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 1: Wallman points out how money played a role in New

579
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: York electing Zora and Mandami.

580
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 2: You know, money doesn't entirely buy elections. You just saw

581
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 2: that in New York, where you know, there was a

582
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 2: lot more money in the Democratic primary, for example, for

583
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:34,760
Speaker 2: Cuomo than for Mom Donnie. But Mam Donnie and others

584
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,280
Speaker 2: in that race were able to participate in the public

585
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 2: financing system that gave them enough support. You need to

586
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 2: be able to have a system where people have enough support.

587
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 2: I continue to think that public financing and other reforms

588
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 2: like that can have a real impact.

589
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: And while Democrats control neither chamber of Congress, there's action

590
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 1: happening right now to try and change this. Let's hear

591
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: from Professor Lessig about what steps are being taken.

592
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,919
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing is to end super PACs. And

593
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 4: people think that's impossible because people like my friend Bernie

594
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,839
Speaker 4: Sanders go around and say super PACs have destroyed American democracy,

595
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 4: which is true, and so therefore we have to overturn

596
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 4: Citizens United, which is both impossible and false, because it

597
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 4: turns out Citizens United did not create super PACs. Super

598
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 4: PACs were created by a lower federal court decision, a

599
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 4: case called speech now versus FEC three months after Citizens United,

600
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 4: and that case was then copied by a bunch of

601
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 4: other circuits within the first couple of years. And that

602
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 4: case has a critical mistake right at the core of

603
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,240
Speaker 4: the case, and like, once you see it, you can't

604
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 4: unsee it. And that mistake shows that existing Supreme Court

605
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 4: doctrine does not authorize, does not say that the Constitution

606
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 4: requires there to be something like super PACs. And so

607
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 4: we've stood up in initiative in Maine that blocks super

608
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 4: PACs in twenty twenty four, it passed with seventy four

609
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 4: point nine percent of the vote, the largest number of

610
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 4: people to vote for anything in the history of Maine

611
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 4: candidate or initiative. It's now being challenged by groups backed

612
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,399
Speaker 4: by Leonard Leo Key, super pac hungers. It's going into

613
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 4: the first Circuit. Neil Katial we recruited to argue the case.

614
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 4: We're pretty confident that even this United States Supreme Court,

615
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 4: I would say, especially this United States Supreme Court is

616
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 4: going to allow laws that block superpacks.

617
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 2: To have an effect.

618
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,359
Speaker 4: Why the critical thing is this what the Supreme Court

619
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 4: has said. Whether you like this theory of the First

620
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:35,720
Speaker 4: Amendment or not, this is what they've said. They've said

621
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 4: the only justification for limiting political speech, which money has

622
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 4: been interpreted to be. The only justification is the risk

623
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 4: of quid pro quo corruption. This for that corruption. And

624
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 4: what they said in Citizens United was if you're spending

625
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 4: is independent of the candidate, then there's no quid pro quo.

626
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 4: That's what independence means. Or put the other way around,

627
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 4: if it's quid pro quo, then it's not independent. So

628
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,800
Speaker 4: that's why you couldn't regulate the spending. You couldn't limit

629
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 4: the spending because there was no quid pro quo, no

630
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 4: risk of any quid prob What the DC Circuit said

631
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 4: three months after that was, oh, well, if there's no

632
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 4: risk of quid pro quo with the spending, it must

633
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 4: be as a matter of logic, there's no risk of

634
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 4: quid pro quo with a contribution to the committee. That

635
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 4: then makes the spending kind of seems on the surface

636
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 4: to be logical. But my favorite Senator Robert Menendez five

637
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 4: years later proved this wrong.

638
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: I don't think he's really your favorite senator.

639
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 4: Go on, Menendez is indicted, what's the indictment. The indictment

640
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 4: is he promises a Florida businessman a bunch of favors

641
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 4: in exchange for the businessman giving money to Menendez a

642
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 4: super pack. The very thing that d C Circuit said

643
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 4: couldn't happen happened. Indeed, his lawyers had the hutzpa to

644
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 4: file a motion to dismiss saying the thing you've indicted us,

645
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 4: or the DC Circuit says cannot happen, so therefore we

646
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 4: must be innocent. Now. Of course the court just chuckled

647
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 4: at that, but it pointed to the logical mistake that

648
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 4: speech now was. And after that, my colleague Larry Tribe,

649
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 4: my former colleague Al Schuler, Richard Painter Normizen wrote a piece.

650
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 4: They said, look, this shows that Citizens United does not

651
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 4: mean superpacks. It's totally unrelated. And that started people on

652
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 4: a process to try to find a way to tea

653
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 4: this question up. And we found that by getting initiative

654
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,879
Speaker 4: in Maine, which will if the first Circuit agrees with us,

655
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 4: will lead us to being in the Supreme Court. So

656
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 4: if the Supreme Court does what its doctrine says it

657
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 4: should do, then that could end superpacks. And the really

658
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 4: cool additional part of the story is I don't know

659
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,479
Speaker 4: if you remember that about a year and a half ago,

660
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 4: my second favorite Senator Josh Holly, he introduced a bill

661
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 4: to overturn Citizens United, introduced that bill. He gave a

662
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 4: speech and he said, every good originalist knows that the

663
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 4: original meaning of the First Amendment would never have restricted

664
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 4: Congress's ability to control how corporations spend their money. So

665
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 4: he's mapping out the far right position on this question,

666
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 4: and his the far right position originalism would support this regulation.

667
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 4: And so we're also Nils also pushing the argument that

668
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 4: from an originalist perspective, you should be allowed to limit

669
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:31,320
Speaker 4: super packs. So we have the three liberals, we're aiming

670
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 4: to the people in the middle and apply the existing doctrine,

671
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 4: however crazy that is. We're aiming for the originalist and

672
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,239
Speaker 4: I think all three of those will get us to

673
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 4: at least five votes that will end super packs. If

674
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 4: we end super packs, then people can begin again the

675
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 4: democratic reform process of trying to find different ways to

676
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 4: fund campaigns. You know, when when you had super packs,

677
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:56,720
Speaker 4: it kind of didn't make sense to be having public

678
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:00,399
Speaker 4: funding of campaigns because whatever public money was in there,

679
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 4: you could just come in and spend a million dollars

680
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 4: or ten million dollars in the super PACs, so that

681
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 4: would lose the opportunity to gain anything. But once the

682
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 4: superpacks are gone, then these experiments like in Seattle, whether

683
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 4: everybody gets vouchers to help fund their campaigns or matching

684
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 4: funds or whatever the alternative is, can be explored so

685
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,319
Speaker 4: that increasingly people can look at the system and not

686
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 4: believe these guys are just bought. They're just doing what

687
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 4: they're doing because of the money, not because it's a

688
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 4: good idea or not because it helps our citizens. And

689
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 4: that I think will be an incredibly important opportunity that

690
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 4: we will get only if we succeed in getting the

691
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:38,280
Speaker 4: court to do the right thing in the super pacase.

692
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 1: Well, if you're anything like me, you're not putting a

693
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: lot of faith in the Roberts Supreme Court about them

694
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: being the good guys here.

695
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 4: We got to take our shot on the super pac fight.

696
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:49,480
Speaker 4: Everything depends on whether we win that or not.

697
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: And is that coming up this semester.

698
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,320
Speaker 4: Well, so we're in the first circuit, a briefer due,

699
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 4: and so we'll be out. The first circuit will decide

700
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 4: probably by June of twenty twenty six, and then that

701
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:03,879
Speaker 4: music could be in the Supreme Court in twenty six

702
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:07,479
Speaker 4: and twenty seven, So maybe by twenty twenty seven we'll

703
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,359
Speaker 4: have a decision in the Supreme Court. And so if

704
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 4: we win, then we go to the next productive stage

705
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 4: of the fight, which is, how do we begin to

706
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 4: change the way campaigns are funded? So, how do you

707
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 4: fund campaigns so that members of Congress and candidates for

708
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 4: Congress are not spending thirty to seventy percent of their

709
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:30,839
Speaker 4: time raising money? Like, that's the critical next step. If

710
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 4: we lose the super Pac fight, then we have to

711
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 4: triple down on the constitutional strategy, strategy of getting an

712
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:41,760
Speaker 4: amendment to the Constitution to take back from the Supreme

713
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,439
Speaker 4: Court our own ability to control our democratic destiny. I mean,

714
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 4: the striking thing about this whole doctrine is that it's

715
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 4: kind of all made up. I mean literally, exactly fifty

716
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 4: years ago Buckley versus Leo has decided on January thirtieth,

717
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy six. So fifty years ago the Supreme Court

718
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 4: made up this doctrine Buckley versus Leo. That has now

719
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 4: they've spent fifty years articulating these incredibly complex standards for

720
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 4: like governing whether we can police corruption inside of our

721
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 4: political system, and it's produced the mess that we've got

722
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 4: right now. So I think part of the movement here

723
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 4: is for the people to say, like, we never put

724
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 4: that into our constitution. There was never a moment in

725
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 4: time when we the people rose up and said, yes,

726
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 4: super packs, absolutely, this is what democracy means. It's not

727
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 4: like James Madison when he was penning the First Amendment,

728
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 4: had in his head the idea of a PAC or

729
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 4: any of these superbacs. Elon Musk was not a hero

730
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 4: to James Madison. So the point is it's kind of

731
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 4: outrageous that we are living with this regime, never given

732
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 4: to us by actual authors of our constitution, instead given

733
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 4: to us by constitution wanna be authors, namely Justice is

734
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 4: on the Supreme Court, who have like crafted this doctrine

735
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 4: because they think it's a good idea. Okay, they can

736
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 4: think what they want. It's not a good idea, it's

737
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 4: a terrible idea, it's a terrible policy. But we need

738
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 4: to claim it back. We need to think we are

739
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 4: empowered as citizens in a constitutional republic to control our constitution.

740
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 4: It's not just for lawyers, it's not just for people

741
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 4: to be arguing to judges it is ours and if

742
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 4: they won't fix the problem they've created, then we have

743
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 4: to take back our asserted control over what this document

744
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 4: means and begin to craft a movement, effective movement to

745
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:36,320
Speaker 4: get this amendment passed. So there's my friends at American

746
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 4: Promise have been going state to state by state getting

747
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:44,320
Speaker 4: state legislatures to pass resolutions calling on Congress to overturn

748
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 4: Citizens United. Their latest victory was the Utah Legislature, where

749
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 4: almost every member of the Utah Legislature voted for the

750
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 4: resolution to call for Congress to propose an amendment to

751
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 4: overturn Citizens United. Now, the challenges and amendment from Congress

752
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 4: requires two thirds of Congress to vote in favor of it. Okay,

753
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 4: the idea that you're going to find seventeen Republicans who

754
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 4: are in the Senate who are going to vote to

755
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,439
Speaker 4: end Citizens United, I think right now is extremely hard

756
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,320
Speaker 4: to believe. So many of us have been pushing them

757
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 4: to say, you need to start experimenting with the alternative path.

758
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 4: The Constitution gives us for amending the Constitution, which is

759
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 4: a convention that could proposed amendments, and those proposed amendments

760
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 4: then would have to be passed by three forces of

761
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 4: the states. I think if an amendment to address the

762
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:39,680
Speaker 4: money and politics problem we're proposed, it would be trivially

763
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 4: easy to get three fourths of the states to endorse it,

764
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 4: because literally almost all of us think this is a

765
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 4: terrible problem. But the bottleneck is Congress, and we have

766
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 4: to find a way to push this through Congress if

767
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:53,919
Speaker 4: this ultimately is necessary to win this fight.

768
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: But there are other ways around this that seem difficult.

769
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:02,760
Speaker 1: Tiffany Muller into how we can overturn Citizens United.

770
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 3: The other way to overturn Citizens United is a constitutional amendment, right,

771
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 3: and we know that that is really hard. Mostly, I

772
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 3: actually think we could get it ratified at the state level.

773
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 3: We have seen twenty states already pass ballot measures to

774
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 3: overturn Citizens United, including red states like Montana with seventy

775
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 3: two percent of the vote. So I think we could

776
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 3: get it past at the state level. It's getting the

777
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 3: two thirds of the House and the Senate that is

778
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 3: hard because these have become a partisan issue because right

779
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 3: now the Republican Party thinks it needs all of the

780
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 3: unlimited money in order to hold on to power, and

781
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:41,760
Speaker 3: it's all become about power.

782
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: The Center for American Progress is Tom Moore, who we

783
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: heard from earlier, has come up with a plan to

784
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: curb this at the state level.

785
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 5: Humans so get their powers from the government. They give

786
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 5: power to the government in a democracy, and so humans

787
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 5: are born with, you know this many powers and then

788
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 5: you can kind of chip away their rights and work

789
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 5: down from there. And corporations were given all these powers

790
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 5: one hundred years ago, and the same kind of thing

791
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 5: you're chipping down from there. When it's when we're regulating

792
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 5: in a way that is unconstitutional, the court will say, well,

793
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 5: you can't do that. But this is the difference that

794
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 5: the states still give all the corporations all their powers,

795
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:21,760
Speaker 5: and there's a clause in every state's corporation law that says,

796
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:24,879
Speaker 5: by the way, we give you all your powers, and

797
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 5: we can change up those powers at any time. And

798
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:32,280
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court has said for over one hundred years

799
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 5: that states have an absolute authority to do that. They

800
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 5: can change those powers up for good reasons, no reasons,

801
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 5: bad reasons, doesn't matter.

802
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 2: Who it hurts.

803
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 5: And that the word that gets tossed around is plenary.

804
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 5: They have plenary power to do that and just it

805
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 5: cannot be regulated. The court has said for over one

806
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 5: hundred years that the state's authority to do that is

807
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 5: just unlimited. You know, it doesn't matter why they do it,

808
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 5: and it Actually the other thing they've said is that

809
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 5: every corporation's un notice that the state could do this

810
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 5: at any time. So if the state does change up

811
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,720
Speaker 5: your powers, they can't complain about it. You're not undoing

812
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 5: citizens and I, you're not violating citizens and I. You're

813
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 5: making it irrelevant. And all every state has to do,

814
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 5: or each state one at a time, is to just

815
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 5: go to their part of the law where they're handing

816
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 5: out corporate powers and say, like, all right, instead of

817
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 5: handing out all of them to you, we're going to

818
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 5: hand out all of them except too. We're not going

819
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 5: to give you the power to spend in the elections.

820
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 5: We're not going to give you the power to spend

821
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 5: in ballid issues anymore. And that does it. And there's

822
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 5: another provision in state law that makes this work, and

823
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 5: basically it says, no out of state corporation can exercise

824
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 5: any power in this state that a domestic corporation can exercise.

825
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 5: So if Montana has passed this, no Montana corporation could

826
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 5: spend in any politics anywhere in the.

827
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 2: Galaxy, just they're out altogether.

828
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 5: But also forty nine states worth of out of state

829
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:58,760
Speaker 5: corporations also don't have the power to spend in Montana's politics,

830
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 5: and so they're not able to spend in Montana's local, state,

831
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 5: or federal elections. And so the minute that Montana passes this,

832
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 5: or if any passes it, they're all of their elections,

833
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 5: their ballot ishes are cleaned of corporate and dark money.

834
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:15,919
Speaker 5: And the reason it gets to dark money is because

835
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 5: dark money groups like Citizens United are five to oh

836
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 5: one C four corporations. They're just like everything else, so

837
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 5: they are included in this.

838
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: So would this need to be a constitutional amendment.

839
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 5: No, Montana is moving forward with this, and they are

840
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 5: doing it as a constitutional amendment to Montana's constitution. But

841
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 5: the only reason they did that is to make it

842
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 5: more difficult for the legislature to mess with. Is you've

843
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 5: got a friendly legislature that wants to do this. The

844
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 5: thing this pass it as a statute. Most states have

845
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 5: similar statutes on this. They use the Model Business Corporations

846
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 5: Act or some flavor of that, and the wording is

847
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:50,959
Speaker 5: almost the same all the way across, so every state

848
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 5: can do this with just about the same language.

849
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:55,359
Speaker 1: Why does Montana want to do it?

850
00:48:55,560 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 5: Montana is doing it because the commissioner, former commiss your

851
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 5: Political Practices, Jeff Mangan. I worked with him when I

852
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 5: was at the Federal Election Commission, and we remain friends,

853
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 5: and I sent him a draft of this about a

854
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 5: year ago and said, Hey, what do you think? And

855
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 5: he called me back and he said, what I think

856
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 5: is that Montana is going to do this. And he

857
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 5: has been organizing tirelessly since then to get this on

858
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 5: the ballot and passed. Next year, it'll be on Montana's

859
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 5: twenty twenty.

860
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: Six ballot, and I was shocked to hear that this

861
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: could even affect presidential elections.

862
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 5: This is the really strange thing. It almost never works

863
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 5: this way, but corporations get every single one of their

864
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 5: powers from the state. They get the power to spend

865
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 5: in local elections from the state. They get the power

866
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 5: to spend in state elections from the state. They get

867
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 5: the power to spind in federal elections from the state.

868
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 5: And because that's the power that the state gives, it's

869
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 5: a power that the state can decide to no longer

870
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:46,759
Speaker 5: give Almost nothing works that way. There's almost always federal

871
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 5: supremacy and you know, all these things. But this is

872
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 5: not a regulatory power of the state, whereas like I can't, can't, can't, can't.

873
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 5: This is a positive power granting authority of the state,

874
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:59,320
Speaker 5: which works totally differently. And if they don't give it

875
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 5: to a corporation, they don't have to give corporations the

876
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:06,320
Speaker 5: power to own property or sign contracts. You know, they

877
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 5: would be disastrous if they decided not to do that,

878
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 5: But they have the authority to do that. And if

879
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 5: they say, like you can't spend in any elections anywhere,

880
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 5: you know, you don't have the power to do that.

881
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 5: They do not have the power to do that. I

882
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 5: didn't think about this until I really started digging into this.

883
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 5: You think of general motors, it's like, well, they're an

884
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:23,360
Speaker 5: American corporation. They can do anything they want any of

885
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 5: the fifty states or pretty much anywhere in the world.

886
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 5: That's not it. They are charted in a state and

887
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 5: they exist in that state, and their ability to do

888
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 5: anything in any other state is because that other state

889
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 5: said yeah, yeah, come on it, and that's what we have.

890
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 5: And so basically any states can now just say like, actually,

891
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 5: we don't do that in this state anymore. It's basically

892
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 5: two ways. The Montana Plan is going to go forward.

893
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 5: If your state has ballot issues, you can get it

894
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 5: on the ballot and vote on it in twenty twenty six.

895
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 5: There's still time to get things on ballots next year.

896
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 5: That's twenty three states in DC. If you're not in

897
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:56,279
Speaker 5: one of those states, then you can talk to your

898
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:58,400
Speaker 5: legislators get them interested in it. We are hearing from

899
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 5: legislators all over the country who are interested in getting

900
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:03,839
Speaker 5: this moving. And it's the kind of thing that has

901
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 5: overwhelming public support. You mid seventy percent of support for

902
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 5: any of these things. You know, they people don't like

903
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,239
Speaker 5: Citizens United, They want reforms. They like this reform. And

904
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 5: that is is true across Democrats, Independence and Republicans that

905
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 5: this is enormously popular. So go out and talk to

906
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:27,239
Speaker 5: your state legislators and this, talk to the folks who

907
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 5: organize things like this, like Legal and Voters and Common Cause,

908
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:31,839
Speaker 5: and get them on board for this and get it moving.

909
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 5: But this is something that every state can do. In

910
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 5: the minute you pass this in your state, your state's

911
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 5: elections are cleaned of all the corporate dark money. It's

912
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:40,240
Speaker 5: an immediate change.

913
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:43,400
Speaker 1: And if you want to get involved, here's Tiffany Mahler

914
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:44,919
Speaker 1: the steps you can take.

915
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 3: We need more people talking to candidates about these issues.

916
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 3: Bring it up just like you would bring up health

917
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 3: care costs, or bring up education, or bring up crime

918
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 3: or safety. The more that people bring up corruption or

919
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 3: money in politics when they're talking to a member of

920
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 3: Congress or a candidate, those conversations really matter in terms

921
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:09,719
Speaker 3: of what they're prioritizing, right and so the more that

922
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 3: they hear it organically, whether it is at one of

923
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 3: their town hall meetings, or they see it in a

924
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 3: letter to the editor, or they get a call into

925
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 3: their office or their campaign about it, the more that

926
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 3: that will begin to influence their platform and how seriously

927
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 3: they take actually changing the system.

928
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching this episode. We made

929
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: this series to get the conversation going about what happens

930
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: after trump Ism. Democrats need to be more than just

931
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: anti Trump, and part of that includes a bold vision

932
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:47,839
Speaker 1: to rebuild after Trump's disastrous agenda reshapes America. We'd love

933
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:51,400
Speaker 1: to create as much of a conversation as possible around this,

934
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:55,920
Speaker 1: so please share this episode with a friend, Click like

935
00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: on this video and comment so it can spread to

936
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 1: more people on YouTube.