1
00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:04,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:14,160
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

3
00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:18,440
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracey V. Wilson. Today we are continuing

4
00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:21,599
Speaker 1: our discussion of campaign finance in the United States and

5
00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:24,760
Speaker 1: the ways that money has been collected and spent, and

6
00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:28,319
Speaker 1: the efforts to regulate it. As I said on the

7
00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: last one, I find a lot of this depressing because

8
00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:35,320
Speaker 1: it just becomes a corruption party. We left off with

9
00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,199
Speaker 1: the McKinley campaign of eighteen ninety six, which got a

10
00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:42,000
Speaker 1: lot of contributions and was the subject of many accusations

11
00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:46,080
Speaker 1: of corrupt finance practices. So today we're going to start

12
00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:49,200
Speaker 1: by segueing into things by talking about the man who

13
00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:52,960
Speaker 1: became president when McKinley was assassinated six months into his

14
00:00:53,040 --> 00:00:57,680
Speaker 1: second term as president, and that is Theodore Roosevelt. So,

15
00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:01,480
Speaker 1: when Theodore Roosevelt ran for reelection in nineteen oh four,

16
00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:06,800
Speaker 1: a fundraising scandal arose around his campaign. At this point,

17
00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:11,680
Speaker 1: collecting donations from supportive voters had become commonplace, but it

18
00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:14,840
Speaker 1: was discovered that the Roosevelt campaign had a lot of

19
00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:20,720
Speaker 1: money coming in from corporate donors, specifically insurance companies had

20
00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:24,120
Speaker 1: given very large amounts of money to his campaign, and

21
00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:29,479
Speaker 1: they had done so in prior Republican campaigns. This came

22
00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:33,040
Speaker 1: on the heels of articles in the press suggesting that Roosevelt,

23
00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,919
Speaker 1: who claimed to be anti trust, was in fact supported

24
00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:41,680
Speaker 1: by various corporate trusts. Rite up in the Freeport Bulletin

25
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,880
Speaker 1: of Freeport, Illinois on October second, nineteen oh four outlined

26
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:50,080
Speaker 1: the likely donations, and it concluded with quote, of course,

27
00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:53,880
Speaker 1: the Beef Trust and all other trusts will support Roosevelt,

28
00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:57,160
Speaker 1: and a truthful answer to the New York World's inquiries

29
00:01:57,240 --> 00:02:02,040
Speaker 1: with reference to their respective contributions would make interesting campaign literature.

30
00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:06,680
Speaker 1: In response, Roosevelt, who won the election, mentioned in multiple

31
00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:10,680
Speaker 1: addresses to Congress in nineteen oh five that campaign finance

32
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:14,839
Speaker 1: had to be reformed. In December of nineteen oh five,

33
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,160
Speaker 1: he stated quote, in political campaigns in a country as

34
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:21,680
Speaker 1: large and populous as ours, it is inevitable that there

35
00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:26,000
Speaker 1: should be much expense of an entirely legitimate kind. This,

36
00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:29,399
Speaker 1: of course means that many contributions, and some of them

37
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:32,400
Speaker 1: of large size, must be made, and as a matter

38
00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:36,840
Speaker 1: of fact, in any big political contest, such contributions are

39
00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:41,120
Speaker 1: always made to both sides. It is entirely proper both

40
00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:44,360
Speaker 1: to give and receive them, unless there is an improper

41
00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:49,359
Speaker 1: motive connected with either gift or reception. Later in that

42
00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:53,560
Speaker 1: same speech, he continued, quote, all contributions by corporations to

43
00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:57,520
Speaker 1: any political committee or for any political purpose should be

44
00:02:57,560 --> 00:03:02,200
Speaker 1: forbidden by law. Director should not be permitted to use stockholders'

45
00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:05,840
Speaker 1: money for such purposes. And moreover, a prohibition of this

46
00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:08,880
Speaker 1: kind would be, as far as it went, an effective

47
00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:13,320
Speaker 1: method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt Practices Acts.

48
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,200
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh six, Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina

49
00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:22,520
Speaker 1: introduced legislation banning corporate campaign contributions. The Tilman Act was

50
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:26,120
Speaker 1: signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on January twenty sixth,

51
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:30,120
Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven. The next move by Congress that was

52
00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:34,760
Speaker 1: intended to advance campaign finance reform was the Federal Corrupt

53
00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:38,800
Speaker 1: Practices Act, also known as the Publicity Act, which passed

54
00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:43,560
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten. This Act instituted a regulation that required

55
00:03:43,720 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 1: candidates for the House of Representatives to account for their

56
00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:51,960
Speaker 1: campaign finances and disclose their fundraising and donation details. That

57
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,360
Speaker 1: same act was amended in nineteen eleven to extend the

58
00:03:55,400 --> 00:04:01,240
Speaker 1: same requirement to senatorial campaigns. In addition to requiring full

59
00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:05,280
Speaker 1: disclosure of all monies contributed and collected for campaigns, the

60
00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:08,800
Speaker 1: Federal Corrupt Practices Act also introduced a cap to the

61
00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:12,120
Speaker 1: amount that could be spent on a candidate's campaign. For

62
00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:14,720
Speaker 1: candidates running for seats in the House, that cap was

63
00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:18,280
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. For candidates running for Senate, the cap

64
00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:22,480
Speaker 1: was ten thousand dollars. Those numbers could be lower if

65
00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:24,880
Speaker 1: there was a state law in the state the candidate

66
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,240
Speaker 1: was running that set a lower cap. If that was

67
00:04:28,279 --> 00:04:31,320
Speaker 1: the case, the state law, the lower amounts set the limit.

68
00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:34,919
Speaker 1: Ten years after the caps were put in place for

69
00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:39,640
Speaker 1: senatorial candidates, Truman Handy Newbery was convicted of violating the

70
00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:44,760
Speaker 1: Federal Corrupt Practices Act. The accusations against him began when

71
00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:48,720
Speaker 1: he soundly beat Henry Ford in the nineteen eighteen primary

72
00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:51,920
Speaker 1: for a senator seat in Michigan. He had gone on

73
00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:55,560
Speaker 1: to win that seat. Ford put the might of his

74
00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:59,479
Speaker 1: wealth and influence behind pushing for an investigation because he

75
00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:03,880
Speaker 1: did not believed that Newberry should have beaten him. Thanks

76
00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:09,680
Speaker 1: to Ford obviously having very extensive name recognition. That investigation

77
00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:12,760
Speaker 1: revealed that Newberry had spent one hundred thousand dollars on

78
00:05:12,880 --> 00:05:17,599
Speaker 1: the campaign and had been found to have some irregularities

79
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:23,039
Speaker 1: in his election spending. But Newberry appealed the judgment and

80
00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:26,960
Speaker 1: his case ended up before the Supreme Court. Their ruling

81
00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:30,080
Speaker 1: was that under the Constitution, Congress did not have the

82
00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:34,680
Speaker 1: power to regulate spending on primaries. The guilty verdict in

83
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 1: the earlier case was overturned, and Newberry was determined to

84
00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,240
Speaker 1: be entitled to the Senate seat that he had won

85
00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:43,239
Speaker 1: in the campaign after he had won the primary, although

86
00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:47,320
Speaker 1: he was kind of chastised for spending so much. The

87
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:49,800
Speaker 1: issue of whether or not Congress could weigh in on

88
00:05:49,839 --> 00:05:54,120
Speaker 1: how primaries were conducted regarding election finance would come up

89
00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:56,359
Speaker 1: again a couple of decades later, and we're going to

90
00:05:56,360 --> 00:05:59,600
Speaker 1: talk about that in just a bit. In nineteen twenty five,

91
00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:03,960
Speaker 1: Theteral Corrupt Practices Act was amended again. At that point,

92
00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:08,080
Speaker 1: it became a requirement for any campaign contribution greater than

93
00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:12,479
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars to be reported. Additionally, campaigns had to

94
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:17,000
Speaker 1: account for all of their contributions and spending. All of

95
00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:20,559
Speaker 1: this regulation up to this point seemed like a pretty

96
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:23,600
Speaker 1: great idea on paper. Of course, there needed to be

97
00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:26,839
Speaker 1: laws about donations to curb money coming into campaigns with

98
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:31,240
Speaker 1: strings attached that included the expectation of favorable legislation for

99
00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:35,159
Speaker 1: the donator, but there really wasn't a system in place

100
00:06:35,200 --> 00:06:38,479
Speaker 1: to enforce any of this. In the case of Ford

101
00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:42,320
Speaker 1: and Newberry, for example, the investigation really only got going

102
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:45,240
Speaker 1: because Henry Ford was a prominent person who really pushed

103
00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:48,200
Speaker 1: for it. Nobody else had flagged it because there wasn't

104
00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:51,599
Speaker 1: anybody to cover this stuff, and there were always ways

105
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:55,480
Speaker 1: for people to get around regulations and lacks enforcement of

106
00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:59,520
Speaker 1: those regulations even once they were reported. The one hundred

107
00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:02,440
Speaker 1: dollars reporting limit in the nineteen twenty five revision of

108
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:06,560
Speaker 1: the SCPA did not include any penalties for campaigns that

109
00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:09,279
Speaker 1: failed to file their required reports. It's like you have

110
00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:13,200
Speaker 1: to do this or else. Shrug. There was nothing that

111
00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:16,680
Speaker 1: was going to happen in them. Additionally, people could easily

112
00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:20,000
Speaker 1: donate multiple times in amounts less than one hundred dollars,

113
00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:23,720
Speaker 1: or one hundred dollars at a time, making up multiple hundreds.

114
00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:27,280
Speaker 1: If they claimed they were donating on behalf of different committees,

115
00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:30,400
Speaker 1: they would just say this is a donation from this committee,

116
00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:33,239
Speaker 1: and then it was sale right through. In the early

117
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:37,840
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, political action committees or packs formed as a

118
00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:41,560
Speaker 1: way to skirt the earlier regulations that made it illegal

119
00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:46,840
Speaker 1: for corporate entities to donate to campaigns. By forming these associations,

120
00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:51,080
Speaker 1: companies could leverage their size by asking employees to donate

121
00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:56,440
Speaker 1: to create a voluntary fund. Folks may have experienced this

122
00:07:56,600 --> 00:08:02,480
Speaker 1: in their working lives today. US workaround was also adopted

123
00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:06,720
Speaker 1: by unions and trade organizations. This came on the heels

124
00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:10,720
Speaker 1: of the Smith Connolly Anti Strike Act that sounds like

125
00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:13,440
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have anything to do with campaign finance, but

126
00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:16,800
Speaker 1: it did. The major portion of the act enabled the

127
00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:20,520
Speaker 1: president to seize plants that were part of war production

128
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:24,120
Speaker 1: and manage those plants. The Act was catalyzed by a

129
00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:28,440
Speaker 1: massive number of strikes, about twelve hundred that had taken

130
00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:30,760
Speaker 1: place in the year and a half starting in December

131
00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:34,280
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty one. The concern, of course, was that

132
00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:37,920
Speaker 1: if a plant producing material vital to the war effort

133
00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:41,680
Speaker 1: went on strike, that could negatively impact the United States

134
00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:46,200
Speaker 1: in World War Two. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt vetoed the bill.

135
00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 1: In his comments on the bill, he stated quote, I

136
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:52,640
Speaker 1: am unalterably opposed to strikes in wartime. I do not

137
00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:55,960
Speaker 1: hesitate to use the powers of government to prevent them.

138
00:08:56,360 --> 00:08:59,040
Speaker 1: But he then outlined his various issues with the bill

139
00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:01,679
Speaker 1: as it stood. I noted that he really thought it

140
00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:04,080
Speaker 1: was going to create more problems than it solved, before

141
00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:07,320
Speaker 1: concluding with quote, I recognize that this bill has an

142
00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:12,320
Speaker 1: entirely praiseworthy purpose to ensure full war production. But I

143
00:09:12,360 --> 00:09:15,760
Speaker 1: am convinced that section eight will produce strikes in vital

144
00:09:15,760 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: war plants which otherwise would not occur. Therefore, I could

145
00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:22,360
Speaker 1: not properly discharge the duties of my office if I

146
00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:27,720
Speaker 1: were to approve. The section related to campaign contributions was

147
00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:31,720
Speaker 1: in section nine, and FDR had issues with that as well,

148
00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:34,760
Speaker 1: writing quote, Section nine of the bill prohibits, for the

149
00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:40,000
Speaker 1: period of the war, political contributions by labor organizations. This

150
00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:44,720
Speaker 1: provision obviously has no relevancy to a bill prohibiting strikes

151
00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:48,000
Speaker 1: during the war in plants operated by the government, or

152
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:52,000
Speaker 1: to a War Labor Disputes Act. If there be merit

153
00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:55,319
Speaker 1: in the prohibition, it should not be confined to wartime

154
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:59,320
Speaker 1: and careful consideration should be given to the appropriateness of

155
00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:05,560
Speaker 1: extending the prohibition to other nonprofit organizations. Despite the President's veto,

156
00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:09,800
Speaker 1: the bill passed through a Congressional override in nineteen forty seven.

157
00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:13,840
Speaker 1: This wartime legislation became permanent with the passing of the

158
00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:17,959
Speaker 1: Taft Hartley Act. In nineteen forty four, the Congress of

159
00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:22,720
Speaker 1: Industrial Organization, or CIO for short, formed the first political

160
00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:26,600
Speaker 1: action committee. The CIO, which formed in nineteen thirty five,

161
00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:29,679
Speaker 1: was a federation of workers' unions that included groups from

162
00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 1: both the US and Canada. Since unions couldn't donate to

163
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 1: political campaigns, the CIO pack created an organization through which

164
00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:41,800
Speaker 1: large numbers of workers who were members of the affiliated

165
00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:45,560
Speaker 1: unions could pool their money into one large resource to

166
00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:48,880
Speaker 1: put behind the candidates they felt aligned with their goals

167
00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:52,840
Speaker 1: and desires. In a moment, will return to that issue

168
00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:55,199
Speaker 1: of whether or not Congress could get involved in how

169
00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:59,600
Speaker 1: primaries ran, but first we will pause for a sponsor break.

170
00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:13,400
Speaker 1: Going back to that issue of Congress regulating primaries. In

171
00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:16,240
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, a legal battle led to the Supreme

172
00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:20,120
Speaker 1: Court reversing its earlier position that Congress couldn't make laws

173
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:23,959
Speaker 1: about how primaries were run. That case was Smith versus

174
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,920
Speaker 1: all Right, and the issue at hand was racial discrimination.

175
00:11:27,960 --> 00:11:31,080
Speaker 1: As far back as nineteen twenty three, the Texas Democratic

176
00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:35,720
Speaker 1: Party had limited voting in primary elections to white voters only.

177
00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:39,720
Speaker 1: You will sometimes see these referred to in textbooks or

178
00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:44,160
Speaker 1: history books as white primaries. This was made possible because

179
00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:47,280
Speaker 1: of a state law that enabled political parties to operate

180
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:50,360
Speaker 1: their primaries with their own rules as they saw fit.

181
00:11:51,040 --> 00:11:54,280
Speaker 1: But a black dentist named Lonnie E. Smith pursued the

182
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,920
Speaker 1: issue legally as a clear instance of racial discrimination in

183
00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:03,760
Speaker 1: violation of the US Constitution. According to newspaper reports, Texas

184
00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:07,679
Speaker 1: had an estimated five hundred and seventy one thousand black

185
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:11,319
Speaker 1: residents of voting age in the early nineteen forties. They

186
00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:14,200
Speaker 1: were being shut out of all the primaries, along with

187
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:18,440
Speaker 1: anyone else who was not white. The Supreme Court overturned

188
00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:22,599
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty five decision eight to one. Justice Owen J.

189
00:12:22,880 --> 00:12:26,760
Speaker 1: Roberts was the sole dissenter. He stated that the decision

190
00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:31,640
Speaker 1: indicated an intolerance for the decisions of earlier justices involved

191
00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:35,520
Speaker 1: quote as assumption that knowledge and wisdom reside in US

192
00:12:35,559 --> 00:12:40,480
Speaker 1: which was denied our predecessors. Sort of how time and

193
00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:47,680
Speaker 1: human knowledge work, right, We should all be theoretically more

194
00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:51,160
Speaker 1: knowledgeable than people who came before us because we have

195
00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:56,240
Speaker 1: discovered more in the intervening years. That dissent is real

196
00:12:56,280 --> 00:12:59,320
Speaker 1: weird to read, in my opinion. If you have filed

197
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:03,640
Speaker 1: taxes in the US ever in recent years, I should

198
00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:06,040
Speaker 1: say you've been asked to answer a question via a

199
00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:09,600
Speaker 1: check off, which is, quote, do you want three dollars

200
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,080
Speaker 1: of your federal tax to go to the Presidential Election

201
00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:17,600
Speaker 1: Campaign Fund? That idea began with the Presidential Election Campaign

202
00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:20,840
Speaker 1: Fund Act of nineteen sixty six, though at the time

203
00:13:21,320 --> 00:13:24,440
Speaker 1: the opt in was for a dollar, not three dollars,

204
00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:28,200
Speaker 1: and that was initiated as a way to curb corrupt

205
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:32,880
Speaker 1: donation practices. The opening paragraph of that act reads quote,

206
00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:36,200
Speaker 1: In the past, political campaigns for the presidency and vice

207
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:41,280
Speaker 1: presidency have been financed generally through voluntary contributions by individuals

208
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:45,960
Speaker 1: and corporations. In some instances, devices have been perfected to

209
00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:51,240
Speaker 1: disguise these voluntary contributions as trade or business expenses in

210
00:13:51,360 --> 00:13:54,439
Speaker 1: order to obtain a tax deduction for the amounts involved.

211
00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:58,600
Speaker 1: Each time one of these devices has been detected, Congress

212
00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:03,000
Speaker 1: has acted to prevent its continueuation, and conversely, each time

213
00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:07,079
Speaker 1: Congress has acted, it has made campaign financing more difficult.

214
00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:11,280
Speaker 1: Against this background, it has become increasingly clear that new

215
00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:16,800
Speaker 1: methods of financing campaigns must be found. The Presidential Election

216
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,480
Speaker 1: Campaign Fund Act set up a system where the tax

217
00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:24,280
Speaker 1: is paid each year to the government. Taxpayers can opt

218
00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:27,960
Speaker 1: for a small amount to be placed into this Presidential

219
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:32,479
Speaker 1: Election Campaign Fund quote for the purposes of defraying expenses

220
00:14:32,520 --> 00:14:36,160
Speaker 1: incurred by political parties and running candidates for president and

221
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 1: vice president. Political parties could only get reimbursement payouts from

222
00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 1: the fund if their candidate quote receives at least five

223
00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:48,640
Speaker 1: million votes in the preceding presidential election. But the new

224
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,360
Speaker 1: law was suspended in nineteen sixty seven and then reintroduced

225
00:14:52,360 --> 00:14:55,320
Speaker 1: in the Revenue Act of nineteen seventy one, which is

226
00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:58,120
Speaker 1: usually discussed in tandem with the next piece of legislation

227
00:14:58,160 --> 00:15:01,160
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. This tax us return often was

228
00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:05,360
Speaker 1: put into practice in nineteen seventy three. The Federal Election

229
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:08,680
Speaker 1: Campaign Act was passed into law in nineteen seventy one,

230
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:12,360
Speaker 1: and it went into effect on April seventh, nineteen seventy two,

231
00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,120
Speaker 1: and this marks what is often considered the start of

232
00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:18,840
Speaker 1: the modern era of campaign finance law because it did

233
00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:21,640
Speaker 1: a lot. It also kicked off a decade of just

234
00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:26,240
Speaker 1: constant back and forth about how campaign finances should work.

235
00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:30,560
Speaker 1: The FECA required that all campaigns report all of their

236
00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:34,520
Speaker 1: incoming and outgoing finances. It also laid out a lot

237
00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 1: of regulations for how packs operated. One big change was

238
00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:42,440
Speaker 1: that it enabled corporate entities, unions, etc. To put their

239
00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:46,080
Speaker 1: own money into setting up and running packs, and then

240
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:49,040
Speaker 1: the money that they collected through the packs, which are

241
00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:52,320
Speaker 1: also called separate segregated funds. If you ever see that,

242
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:56,640
Speaker 1: that means a political action committee's fund could be donated

243
00:15:56,680 --> 00:15:58,920
Speaker 1: to campaigns at the federal level so they could pay

244
00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,680
Speaker 1: for running the whole thing and then use all of

245
00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:05,920
Speaker 1: the money people donated to give to candidates. This led

246
00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 1: to a lot of problems because there wasn't any kind

247
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,560
Speaker 1: of regulatory agency or body that could really keep an

248
00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:16,320
Speaker 1: eye on these rules. Once again, the implementation really couldn't

249
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:20,560
Speaker 1: keep up with the regulation. Compliance monitoring fell to the

250
00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:23,160
Speaker 1: Clerk of the House, the Secretary of the Senate, and

251
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,680
Speaker 1: the Controller General of the United States General Accounting office.

252
00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:30,640
Speaker 1: All of those people had plenty of other duties. More

253
00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:35,240
Speaker 1: than seven thousand instances of fraud or campaign finance abuse

254
00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:38,240
Speaker 1: were brought before the Justice Department after the nineteen seventy

255
00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:42,680
Speaker 1: two election. Almost none of them got to litigation because

256
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:46,560
Speaker 1: nobody had the time. Uh. Watergate was the next big

257
00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:50,440
Speaker 1: scandal that impacted campaign finance reform. So this is a quick,

258
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:54,320
Speaker 1: bare bones reminder on the complex layers of what happened there.

259
00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 1: Five men were caught in June of nineteen seventy two

260
00:16:58,240 --> 00:17:01,240
Speaker 1: breaking into the Democratic Party camp paint offices in the

261
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:04,879
Speaker 1: Watergate complex. That was their second break in. The first

262
00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 1: was in May, and during that break in they had

263
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,720
Speaker 1: already stolen documents related to the campaign, which they intended

264
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:14,560
Speaker 1: to use to get President Richard Nixon re elected. Nixon

265
00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:17,639
Speaker 1: claimed to know nothing about the break in and managed

266
00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:21,280
Speaker 1: to stay out of the scandal long enough to get reelected. Then,

267
00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:24,920
Speaker 1: an anonymous informant told Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of

268
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:28,080
Speaker 1: The Washington Post that the president and members of his

269
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,080
Speaker 1: staff absolutely knew about the break in, and that Nixon

270
00:17:31,119 --> 00:17:33,520
Speaker 1: had paid the burglars to keep his name out of it.

271
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:38,880
Speaker 1: He had also tried to obstruct the investigation into the situation. Then,

272
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,280
Speaker 1: when it was discovered that Nixon taped all of his

273
00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:44,520
Speaker 1: conversations in the Oval office, the Supreme Court had to

274
00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:47,800
Speaker 1: order him to turn those tapes over, and they provided

275
00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:50,359
Speaker 1: evidence that Nixon had indeed been trying to cover up

276
00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:52,760
Speaker 1: the break in and his involvement in it. That is

277
00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:57,199
Speaker 1: the shortest, least nuanced version of the Watergate scandal we

278
00:17:57,240 --> 00:18:02,000
Speaker 1: can give you. So this wasn't exactly an event tied

279
00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:05,920
Speaker 1: to campaign finances, but it brought the issue of government

280
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:09,639
Speaker 1: corruption into really sharp focus and led to calls to

281
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:14,359
Speaker 1: tighten up regulatory efforts. Until this point that had just

282
00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:17,040
Speaker 1: been handled in a very catches catch can kind of way,

283
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:20,960
Speaker 1: even as various laws had been passed. This is a

284
00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:24,840
Speaker 1: similar inflection point to the way that the Swartwout case

285
00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:27,440
Speaker 1: had brought attention to the assessments that were being made

286
00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:31,240
Speaker 1: against government workers' salaries that we talked about last time.

287
00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:35,679
Speaker 1: Two years after the Watergate story broke, the Federal Election

288
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:39,560
Speaker 1: Commission FEC was formed as part of a massive overhaul

289
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:44,360
Speaker 1: of the Federal Election Campaign Act. This amendment is sometimes

290
00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:46,639
Speaker 1: referred to as a full rewrite, and that is because

291
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,840
Speaker 1: it did include a lot of changes, including providing for

292
00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:54,080
Speaker 1: federal funds to go to presidential primary candidates and setting

293
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:57,479
Speaker 1: limits on both the spending and contributing sides of the ledger.

294
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:01,639
Speaker 1: It required disclosure of contribution, and it limited the amount

295
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:04,800
Speaker 1: a candidate could spend of their own money on their campaign.

296
00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:09,520
Speaker 1: These regulations applied to anyone running for a federal office,

297
00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:12,200
Speaker 1: and of course, as we said, it's set up the FEC.

298
00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:15,840
Speaker 1: The FEC was established to round up the work that

299
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:20,240
Speaker 1: had been spread among multiple government offices. As an extra duty,

300
00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 1: it made all of that the function of one oversight agency.

301
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:30,280
Speaker 1: That work included monitoring campaign funds and their reporting, writing

302
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:35,560
Speaker 1: regulations regarding those things, and the authority to oversee enforcement

303
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:39,280
Speaker 1: of the regulations. The nineteen seventy four Amendments to the

304
00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:42,960
Speaker 1: Federal Election Campaign Acts that the nature of the Commission's makeup.

305
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:46,280
Speaker 1: The Speaker of the House, the President pro Tempore of

306
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:50,200
Speaker 1: the Senate would each appoint two voting members, as would

307
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:53,879
Speaker 1: the President. The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk

308
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:56,119
Speaker 1: of the House would also be on the Commission, but

309
00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,639
Speaker 1: they would not be voting members. That Commission started its

310
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:03,520
Speaker 1: work of officially on April fourteenth, nineteen seventy five, but

311
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:07,520
Speaker 1: the legislation that established the Federal Election Commission was legally

312
00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:10,480
Speaker 1: challenged right after it was passed, and we're going to

313
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:12,639
Speaker 1: get into that case after we take a break to

314
00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:24,520
Speaker 1: hear from the sponsors that keep the show going. In

315
00:20:24,640 --> 00:20:28,399
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, the Supreme Court heard the landmark case

316
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:32,399
Speaker 1: Buckley versus Valeo, which challenged elements of the nineteen seventy

317
00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:36,600
Speaker 1: four updates to campaign finance law. This case had been

318
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:38,720
Speaker 1: filed in the U. S District Court for the District

319
00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:42,560
Speaker 1: of Columbia by Senator James L. Buckley, a Republican from

320
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:45,639
Speaker 1: New York, and it was initially filed in January nineteen

321
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:49,720
Speaker 1: seventy five. Buckley had become the primary leader in the

322
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:54,600
Speaker 1: charge that changes to the Federal Election Campaign Act were unconstitutional.

323
00:20:55,280 --> 00:20:59,000
Speaker 1: Francis R. Valeo, the named defendant representing the federal government,

324
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:01,480
Speaker 1: was the Secretary of the US Senate and one of

325
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:06,040
Speaker 1: those non voting FEC commissioners. After lower court shifted the

326
00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:09,520
Speaker 1: case around and then upheld the constitutionality of the regulations,

327
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:12,679
Speaker 1: Buckley appealed to the Supreme Court, and that appeal was

328
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:16,920
Speaker 1: filed on September nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, and the judgment

329
00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:21,440
Speaker 1: was shared on January thirtieth, nineteen seventy six. The main

330
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:25,720
Speaker 1: argument in Buckley versus Valeo was that the changes to

331
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 1: the Act were unconstitutional. Primarily, limitations on the use of

332
00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 1: money for political purposes were in violation of the First

333
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 1: Amendment protections for free expression quote, since no significant political

334
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:43,439
Speaker 1: expression could be made without the expenditure of money. There

335
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 1: were other points within the filing, including the complaint that

336
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:50,120
Speaker 1: there should be no limitations on the amounts of expenditures

337
00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:54,960
Speaker 1: of volunteers made on campaigns. Basically, if somebody wanted to

338
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:57,679
Speaker 1: travel on their own expense to help the campaign or

339
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:01,960
Speaker 1: do anything else that cost money with no expectation of reimbursement,

340
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 1: there should be no limit on it. And that limiting

341
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: a candidate from spending as much of their own money

342
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:13,000
Speaker 1: as they wanted on a campaign was also unconstitutional. This

343
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:16,119
Speaker 1: was a big case and the court's decision on it

344
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 1: was a mixed bag. Contribution ceilings were not in violation

345
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment, per the Supreme Court in a

346
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 1: six to two vote. The Court upheld the limits as

347
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: set down in the nineteen seventy four law, which were

348
00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 1: a one thousand dollars limit for individual contributions to a

349
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: single candidate, a five thousand dollars limit on pack contributions

350
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: to a single candidate, and a twenty five thousand dollars

351
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: limit on individual contributions for a given year. So if

352
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: you're like, wait, you just said one thousand. The idea

353
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:48,760
Speaker 1: was that if you were a person very flesh with cash,

354
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: you could donate, for example, one thousand dollars to twenty

355
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:55,479
Speaker 1: five different people. But when it came to spending on

356
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 1: the part of a candidate, the court deemed the restrictions

357
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:04,360
Speaker 1: unconstantal as it quote reduced the quantity of expression by

358
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:08,640
Speaker 1: restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of the exploration,

359
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: and the size of the audience reached. This is because

360
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 1: virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society

361
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: requires the expenditure of money. So yeah, if you're rich,

362
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:23,199
Speaker 1: spend as much as you want. Go ahead. As for

363
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 1: the FEC creation and disclosure of contributions requirements, the court

364
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: upheld those, although the nature of the selection of FEC

365
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 1: officials was struck down, and that was because there was

366
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: a little bit of a mismatch in power and appointment

367
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: because Congress appointed four of the commissioners, but they then

368
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 1: had executive powers, which just didn't quite work out. The

369
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: appointment structure was amended in May nineteen seventy six, with

370
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: the President appointing the six voting members of the commission

371
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 1: and the Senate then confirming them. With parts of the

372
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: Federal Election Campaign Act revisions struck down by the Supreme Court,

373
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: there was another round of updates in May of nineteen

374
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 1: seventy six, the same round that changed the FEC appointee process.

375
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: In addition to that update, the limits on expenditures were repealed.

376
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 1: The exception to that limit was that if a candidate

377
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: accepted public funding, then the limits would still apply. Yeah,

378
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: so that kind of refers back to that, do you

379
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: want money to go into the presidential election campaign fund?

380
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: If they take from that fund, they would still have

381
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: the limitations. New revisions to the law that were not

382
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 1: prompted by the Buckley versus Valeo decision were also included.

383
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: These were related to how packs could fundraise. The ways

384
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,160
Speaker 1: in which a company or labor organization could solicit donations

385
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: were much more clearly defined, and who could be solicited

386
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: as part of those efforts was also limited. Another set

387
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: of amendments to the FECA came in nineteen seventy nine.

388
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: In this case, it was largely about the nature of

389
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: reporting campaign finances and making that a simpler process. The

390
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: amount of money candidates could receive through public fundraising grants

391
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,640
Speaker 1: was also bumped up. All of these limitations and caps

392
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: on contributions led to a workaround which is called a

393
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:23,199
Speaker 1: party building expense. These expenses were not campaign specific, so

394
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: it was possible to take in as much money as

395
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,360
Speaker 1: anyone wanted to give without limitation, because you could say

396
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 1: it was to make the party stronger, not for this campaign.

397
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: And this so called soft money was often donated by

398
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: exactly the groups that had been regulated and limited in

399
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: prior legislation, so a lot came from labor unions and corporations.

400
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 1: So as the tumultuous decade of the nineteen seventies ended,

401
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 1: there were more regulations to limit campaign finance than ever,

402
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: but there was also more money flowing into political party

403
00:25:55,400 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: coffers than ever. In the four decades since about nineteen eighty, they,

404
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: of course, have been a lot more changes to campaign

405
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: finance law and plenty of inappropriate collection and use of funds,

406
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: and we said we were mostly going to take this

407
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: through nineteen eighty, but we're going to include a list

408
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: of some of the most impactful events since then. So

409
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six, the FEC filed the case FEC

410
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: versus Massachusetts Citizens for Life Incorporated. MCFL had published a

411
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: voter's guide that encouraged voters to cast ballots for pro

412
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:34,720
Speaker 1: life candidates, which the FEC considered campaigning using its general treasury.

413
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: But because MCFL wasn't a for profit corporation and did

414
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: not take any money from for profit corporations, it was,

415
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: per the Supreme Court ruling allowed to advocate, and this

416
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: set a precedent for nonprofit corporations having the freedom to

417
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: advocate in campaigns. But that decision opened to the door

418
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 1: for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, claiming that they were

419
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 1: also a nonprofit and should be allowed to donate funds

420
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: for candidate ads. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled

421
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 1: against them because a Chamber of Commerce got its treasury

422
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: money from member dues, and those dues came from business entities.

423
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety six presidential election was rife with the

424
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 1: use of those party building campaign funds as an excuse

425
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: to take in just huge sums of soft money. The

426
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: Clinton campaign was embroiled in a scandal when the Justice

427
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: Department investigated the DNC's fundraising and discovered that the People's

428
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: Republic of China was attempting to funnel money into the DNC.

429
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, an effort was made to

430
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: curb some of the ways political groups were circumventing the

431
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: law with the passing of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

432
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: that was sponsored by Senators John McCain of Arizona and

433
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: Russ Finegold of Wisconsin. This bill had been in play

434
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 1: before McCain's failed two thousand presidential run. President George W.

435
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: Bush signed the bill into law after it barely squeaked

436
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: through the Senate. It included language intended to end the

437
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: various soft money measures that had been used to make

438
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: donations that would have been prohibited by earlier reform law.

439
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 1: If you've ever wondered why ads you see online or

440
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: on television have this line where a candidate says they

441
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: approve the message, it's because the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

442
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: included a clause that required that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform

443
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 1: Act was challenged almost immediately by a group that's somewhat

444
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: surprising in its mix. It was filed as McConnell versus

445
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: FEC because Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell spearheaded the effort,

446
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: but he was supported by the American Federation of Labor

447
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: and Congress of Industrial Organizations and the ACLU and the

448
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: NRA and the California Democratic Party. That's a spectrum. Basically,

449
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: everyone wanted to be able to to keep that money moving. Yeah,

450
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: So the main arguments were that the ban on soft

451
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: money and stipulations in this act, which people call BICKRA

452
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: regarding content, source and timing of political ads both infringed

453
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: on the First Amendment. But the Supreme Court upheld almost

454
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: all of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. One of the

455
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: elements that was struck down was a ban on contributions

456
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: from minors, and that's miners meeting people under the age

457
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 1: of eighteen, not minors, not as a profession people that

458
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: work in a mind unless those are miners under the

459
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: age of eighteen. Since McConnell Versus FEC, there have been

460
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: a variety of legal maneuvers regarding campaign finance. But the

461
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: most impactful I think most people would agree was the

462
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: twenty ten decision in Citizens United versus FEC. Citizens United

463
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: is a conservative nonprofit group that had funded a film

464
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: called Hillary the Movie, which was a partisan documentary that

465
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: was slated for a video on demand release right before

466
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary. The FEC blocked this documentary's advertisements and

467
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: release as electioneering communication banned under BIKRA as a big

468
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: money campaign contribution. So Citizens United filed suit based on

469
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: the case that their First Amendment rights were violated by

470
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: the regulation. The case went before the Supreme Court with

471
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: arguments on March twenty fourth, two thousand and nine. The

472
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: case was then re argued in September of that year,

473
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: and the decision was handed down on January twenty first,

474
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: twenty ten. So this case is often summed up as

475
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: the one where corporations were ruled to be people, but

476
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: of course that's an oversimplification. The elements of the majority

477
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: decision that has gotten shorthanded that way is the determination

478
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: that political speech is a vital part of democracy, even

479
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: if that speech is from a corporation. Justice Anthony Kennedy

480
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: wrote in the majority decision that quote independent political spending

481
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: was covered as free speech under the First Amendment. Basically,

482
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: as laws, as it's not affiliated with a candidate's campaign,

483
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: a corporation can spend as much as it wants, saying

484
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: whatever it wants about politics. This decision is based on

485
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: the presumption that independent political spending is unlikely to become

486
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: embroiled in corruption, which of course is not the case.

487
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,479
Speaker 1: The most troubling result of this decision is that it

488
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: grants incredible political power to the wealthy without any legal

489
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: need for disclosure about sourcing or spending of money. It's

490
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: really opened to the door to outside groups creating what

491
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: are referred to as super packs, so political action committees

492
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: that don't give directly to candidates and thus are not

493
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: governed by any FEC regulation. Yeah, sometimes you'll see some

494
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: confused takes that the FEC regulations were gotten rid of

495
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: as part of this. They weren't. They're still in place.

496
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: Those caps on donations and spending still exist, but they

497
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: don't apply to superpacks outside groups. So that's where we're

498
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: going to end this. And I will say again, if

499
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: campaign finance laws seems like a big, depressing morass of

500
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: already powerful people exploiting and skirting the system to get

501
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: what they want. Listen, you're not wrong, and it's constantly

502
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: in a state of legislation. People with power will do

503
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: what they can to retain that power, and the same

504
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: goes for wealth. And this entire subject is, as I said,

505
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: constantly being discussed, debated, relegislated, and challenged, and it will

506
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: be as long as the US exists. So as painful

507
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: as some of this is, at least for me to

508
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: talk about, and it can be very confusing and it's

509
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: hard to sort through all this stuff, it's really vitally

510
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: important that you understand how elections actually work if you

511
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: live in the United States. If you live outside of

512
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: the United States, same thing for your country, but also

513
00:32:55,280 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: also helps to understand how other countries work. I'm sorry

514
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: this is depressing. I promise the next one will be fun,

515
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: because I don't think I can take another one of these.

516
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: I have fun email as an apology from our listener, Matt,

517
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: who bless him wrote up his email as a document

518
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: because it's a little long ish, so I'm gonna edit

519
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: a little as we go. There are so many cat

520
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: pictures and they are exactly the flavor I love, and

521
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: I will tell you why when we get there, he writes, Hi,

522
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy, I tend to be worthy, so I'm

523
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: going to try to keep this brief for you best

524
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: I can. I had a moment yesterday in my kitchen

525
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: where I found myself doing what can only be described

526
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: as I'll hold my breath exasperated, grown of delight, which

527
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: I know isn't a combination I knew was possible either.

528
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: Now I cannot recall which recent episode it was where

529
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: the two of you discussed the merits or not of

530
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: puns and whether you think puns are fun. This anecdote

531
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: is why I felt so compelled to share. During behind

532
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: the scenes on July fourteenth, Tracy was saying her mom,

533
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 1: in an effort to make a ramin adjacent dish, made

534
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: what she described as a faux fondue, and Holly interjected

535
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: with a quick would that be phone do? With a

536
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 1: quick apology, said I belong in jail for the terrible pun.

537
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 1: I actually think I'm the one that hates puns more.

538
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,919
Speaker 1: I think I hate him. I think you probably hate

539
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: him more. I think probably like a really well crafted,

540
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: delightful one. I'm like, that's fun, but a lot a

541
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 1: lot of the ones I hear are sort of the

542
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: most obvious plumberny joke. Yes, uh, but Mac goes on,

543
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: here's where the hold my breath, exasperated, grown of delight.

544
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: Part of it all comes in. I am an occupational

545
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: therapist and I work in cognitive rehabilitation and mental health

546
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,399
Speaker 1: while working with teens struggling with depression and suicidality. One

547
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: of my best stories came out of my famous humor group.

548
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: We would talk about the mental and physical health benefit

549
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: be a chemical, social relational of humor, comedy, laughter in general,

550
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,879
Speaker 1: and yes, puns. Essentially, kids had to find a joke

551
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: from my joke books or come up with one of

552
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: their own, and draw them out on comic book strips

553
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: and then present their joke and animated representation to the

554
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: rest of the group. A really beneficial task in a

555
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:21,760
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and the best part, all the while,

556
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: I got to spend every spare moment telling grony dad

557
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: joke level puns. The shining moment came one day while

558
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: running this group for the umpteeth time and a teenage

559
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: gal who had been hiding in her sweatshirt with full

560
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: rain cloud energy, who had not said a word or

561
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: looked up the entire time. Finally ripped off her hood

562
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: and glared at me and said, you know what, you

563
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: belong in the punitentiary and practically dove back into her hoodie,

564
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,760
Speaker 1: but this time with just a hint of a satisfied smirk.

565
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: The entire room burst out laughing. Nothing better dishing up

566
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: a sick burn for a group leader. As the kids say,

567
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: she understood the assignment. Certainly one of those why we

568
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 1: do this work kind of moments. So back to the

569
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: theatrics of me and myke kitchen at seven am, exclaiming

570
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: out loud, but punitentiary was right there after. Holly said,

571
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: I belong in jail for that one. Also, I feel

572
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: like the work you're doing is really important, So thank you, Matt.

573
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: The cat tax is incredible. Pete and Elliott are gray kitties,

574
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: which I have two brothers who are gray kitties, one

575
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: of whom is like a gray morning coat style and

576
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,240
Speaker 1: we have one solid grade there's both have morning coats.

577
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:35,759
Speaker 1: These cats are so stinking cute, they like they're like

578
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 1: little feline arrows. To my heart, they are so adorable.

579
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: And then there is also a suggestion for possible future episode,

580
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: and Matt is going to be my punitentiary soulmate. That

581
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: sounds fine. We'll talk about gray kitties. It'll be good.

582
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 1: Thank you for this because it did make me chuckle.

583
00:36:57,960 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: And here's what I really want to thank you for.

584
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: Or it made me think of puns in a more

585
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: positive way because if they can be used for occupational therapy, like,

586
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: that's a a validation of their existence that I had

587
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: not thought of or heard about before. And now I

588
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: will be gentler when I encounter puns because I know

589
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 1: that sometimes they're just good for mental health and not

590
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: to dog on anybody else's delight in that regard. If

591
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us, you can do

592
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can

593
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 1: also find us on social media as Missed in History,

594
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: and if you would like to subscribe to the podcast,

595
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 1: you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or wherever

596
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in

597
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

598
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

599
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.