Today we explain one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions in modern history; the case that defined campaign donations as speech and therefore protected under the First Amendment, regardless of who made them. This episode explains the history of the case, PACs, Super PACs, the ruling, the effect of the decision on our campaign system, as well as some common misconceptions.
Our guides through the case are Professor Jeff Bone from Saint Joseph's University, Maggie Severns from Grid, and Professor Hye Young You from New York University.
Transcript
Archival: There aren't a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way where you can basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed.
Archival: So we're here today once again to say enough is enough. It's time for the people to take back their elections. It's time to overturn Citizens United.
Archival: You [00:00:30] know, I had to raise a lot of money for my campaign. So I there's nobody who operates in politics that has perfectly clean hands on this issue.
Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.
I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: And this is Civics 101, the podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works. And today we are going to break down the Supreme Court decision that Jimmy Carter called stupid, that Barack Obama openly criticized at a State of the Union address, that former [00:01:00] Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview would be "the impossible dream" to overrule... Citizens United versus FEC, 2010. In this episode, you are going to learn about the case and a lot of initialisms, the FEC, BCRA known as bickra, PACs and Super PACs. And you're also going to learn about corporations, dark money and, finally, how this decision has affected political campaigns in the [00:01:30] last 12 years and all in about 20 minutes. 30 minutes.
Hannah McCarthy: Can we just get the name out of the way first? I know the FEC stands for the Federal Election Commission. But who or what is Citizens United?
Nick Capodice: Citizens United is a nonprofit organization that has for a long time made ads and documentaries that support conservative politicians. The head of Citizens United, David Bossie, was [00:02:00] Donald Trump's deputy campaign manager.
Archival: It the people on the left are upset is because he's keeping his promises. He says what he means and he means what he says.
Nick Capodice: They're funded by the Koch brothers and a lot of other sources. They are a PAC, a political action committee, which I'm going to get into in just a little bit. Do you remember we got to interview Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president in 1988?
Hannah McCarthy: Do I ever.
Archival: And it's got to be 50 states, 200,000 precincts. I don't want to hear about reds, blues and purples. And it's all just nonsense, you know? I mean, god.
Nick Capodice: Citizens [00:02:30] United were the ones who made one of the most infamous political commercials in history, the racist Willie Horton attack ad in 1988.
Archival: Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.
Hannah McCarthy: oh, right. The ad that helped George H.W. Bush win the election.
Nick Capodice: And in 2008, they released a film called Hillary: the Movie, which was purely a hit piece on former first lady and presidential [00:03:00] candidate Hillary Clinton.
Archival: Hillary is really the closest thing we have in America to a European socialist.
Archival: It's that oh, isn't that amazing? Oh, it's a woman. She can walk and talk.
Nick Capodice: This movie is at the center of one of the most famous or infamous decisions in our lifetime. Hanna A decision about who can give to political campaigns and how much. And we begin our tale with one of the most expensive political campaigns in history.
Jeff Bone: So [00:03:30] if you want to go way back, historically, there were no limits in the 1800s.
Nick Capodice: That's Jeff Bone. He is an assistant professor at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.
Hannah McCarthy: No limits at all on campaign spending in the 1800s.
Nick Capodice: None at all. And this wasn't really talked about as nobody was really spending massive amounts of money on campaigns.
Jeff Bone: But this became an issue towards the end of the 19th century, with the rise of donors like wealthy corporations and [00:04:00] other individuals who were starting to dominate political campaigns.
Nick Capodice: But that big campaign was 1896 when William McKinley was running for president.
Archival: I believe this is a recent event that imposed upon the patriotic people of this country.
Nick Capodice: $16.5 million were raised for his political campaign. In fact, his chief fundraiser, Mark Hanna, said, quote, There are two things that are important in politics. The first [00:04:30] is money. And I can't remember what the second one is.
Hannah McCarthy: I know inflation calculators aren't 100% accurate, but is there a rough estimate of what that comes out to today?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, roughly about half a billion dollars. More than Mitt Romney raised in 2012. And then more and more campaign donations from corporations were becoming quite concerning to the public and the press.
Hannah McCarthy: And just to be clear, what do we mean when we say corporation is.
Nick Capodice: Such [00:05:00] a such a tricky word to define. Simply? A corporation is a legal business entity that's separate from its owners.
Jeff Bone: Corporations have existed far before the United States, and the concept was borrowed from England and from Europe, generally speaking, where corporations were given charters typically by a monarch, the responsibility of a corporation, [00:05:30] which, by the way, were huge. We're talking about corporations that existed to engage in trade with the East occasionally to be colonial powers in North America. And they did serve a purpose. I don't know if we would call it a public welfare purpose today, because it was really serving the interests of the governments back home.
Nick Capodice: Today, just about every large business is a corporation. You and I could make one right now. We could just be the two shareholders who invest in it. We make money [00:06:00] on stocks and dividends, and you and I are not personally liable for any company debt. Corporations can be one person too. You can just have one shareholder.
Jeff Bone: And just to be more clear on what that practically means, corporations can engage in contracts, they can have bank accounts, they can do things that any other individual person can do. But this is a bit of a fallacy because of course, corporations aren't people. They can't when it comes to politics, run for office. They [00:06:30] don't have political beliefs in the same way you. Or I do and other living people do. However, the law does accord them the privilege without much responsibility behind it to have these liberties.
Nick Capodice: The first legislation about corporations and their relationship to political campaigns begins with that trust busting, safari going bull moose.
Hannah McCarthy: Or maybe just Teddy Roosevelt. You could go with that.
Archival: I am leaving because somebody must [00:07:00] leave, or else the fight would not be made unless.
Jeff Bone: There was a political scandal of the time that there was a large donations from corporations towards Republican candidates, including including at the top of the ticket, Roosevelt himself. Now, this is in the era, too, of trust busting. The Sherman Act was brought in a few years before that to cut down on corporate power, generally speaking, and its dominance and ability to create monopolies [00:07:30] and and and be beyond the control of of the government to regulate. So there was swift action.
Nick Capodice: Teddy Roosevelt signed into law the first campaign finance law in US history, the Tillman Act of 1907. This act prevented corporations from giving money to candidates directly, which Roosevelt had indeed benefited from himself in the past. So this act washed his hands of the taint of corruption.
Jeff Bone: Which remedied the political scandal that had media entities [00:08:00] like The New York Times making statements that this is the problem. This is leading to potential corruption by allowing corporations to contribute whatever they want and to decide who's going to win the outcome of these elections.
Hannah McCarthy: Is the Tillman Act is still in effect.
Nick Capodice: In a sense it is. Corporations are still not allowed to directly give to campaigns from their coffers.
Hannah McCarthy: Though I have a feeling there's a workaround.
Nick Capodice: There is a workaround and we're going to get there. So that's how things stood over the years. [00:08:30] A bunch of other acts came along that tweaked campaign funding laws, but the problem was there wasn't really anybody minding the store who should be in charge of making sure nobody breaks the law when it comes to campaign financing. And there is a bit of an irony in who gets the ball rolling.
Hannah McCarthy: I know that campaign song.
Nick Capodice: That's Nixon now. Richard Milhous Nixon signed the [00:09:00] Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972. One of the provisions of which required campaigns and political committees to report the names, addresses and occupations of donors of more than $200 to campaigns. I mean, it is kind of funny, isn't it?
Hannah McCarthy: It is kind of funny. And by the way, everyone, the reason why Nick and I find this kind of funny is that the 1970 is that 1972 is also the year of the Watergate break in and the beginning of the investigation, which uncovered that Nixon's [00:09:30] reelection campaign involved money laundering and illegal slush funds, all of which resulted in his resignation.
Archival: And all the decisions I have made in my public life. I have always tried to do what was best for the nation.
Nick Capodice: Nevertheless, in 1974, partially in response to Nixon's shady dealings, the Federal Election Campaign Act was amended to create a new regulatory agency, the FEC, [00:10:00] which, as you said, Hannah stands for Federal Election Commission. And what do they do? They enforce campaign finance laws, one of which is a bit of a workaround that wall donations are limited to candidates. Donors could donate unlimited money to political parties instead if and only if the party used that money for what were called, quote, party building activities. This is what is now referred to as soft money.
Hannah McCarthy: Party building [00:10:30] activities. Is that like helping people register to vote?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And making commercials that aren't about specific candidates, but are about issues, you know, like the people need to know that crime is an issue and candidate X is weak on crime. It doesn't say don't vote for candidate X or vote for candidate Y, but it's pretty darn close.
Hannah McCarthy: I feel like there's an awful lot of wiggle room in there
Nick Capodice: A ton. So much wiggle room that Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold reached across the aisle to create a new act. [00:11:00] And it was so important that a Democrat and a Republican did this together. They put it in the name BCRA or "bickra", the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. It's also called the McCain-Feingold Act. This act said that corporations cannot make a political ad that names a candidate 30 days before a primary or a caucus or 60 days before a general election.
Hannah McCarthy: And this is where the creation of Hillary, the movie comes in right
Nick Capodice: So close, Hillary: The movie was created in direct response to [00:11:30] another movie.
Archival: Members of Congress. This is Michael Moore. I would like to read you the USA Patriot Act!
Nick Capodice: Michael Moore's documentary about George W Bush's response to September 11th was released in 2004, a scant few months before the election between George Bush and John Kerry. Michael Moore, by the way, has made several movies about politically charged topics. And [00:12:00] someone filed a complaint to the FEC saying, hey, this movie violates because it was funded by corporate entities. It names a candidate. George W Bush ads for this movie should not be aired 60 days before the election. And you know who made that complaint?
Hannah McCarthy: Who?
Nick Capodice: A certain little nonprofit called Citizens United.
Hannah McCarthy: The same corporation that made their own political ads. And now they're mad that someone else is doing it.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. The FEC dismissed [00:12:30] the complaint, though, and Citizens United went on to make their own movie in response. Four years later, Hillary the movie again, a 90 minute attack on Hillary Clinton. It came out just before the primary between her and Barack Obama. The FEC said that ads for this movie could not air before the primary. Citizens United sued and it moved up the court system to the very top. And what happened next resulted in one of the most influential Supreme Court decisions in US history. [00:13:00] And that's coming up right after the break here on Civics 101.
Hannah McCarthy: But first, if you want a primer on more Supreme Court decisions, along with a breakdown of every branch of government, our election system, our foundational documents and a history of our main parties. Nick and I took what we learned over many years of getting to know our government and systems and put it into a book. It's called A User's Guide to Democracy How America Works and You Can Get It at Your Bookseller of Choice.
Nick Capodice: And by the way, the cartoons in our book were drawn by the brilliant [00:13:30] Tom Toro, who has just illustrated a children's book called I'm Terrified Of Bathtime. You should check that out while you're at it.
Hannah McCarthy: All right, we're back. Citizens United versus FEC is being argued in the highest court of the land. So, Nick, what is the question they're arguing?
Nick Capodice: Well, at first it's what we call a very narrow question. It's very specific to one moment in time, can Citizens United distribute and advertise Hillary the movie on on demand [00:14:00] cable just before the primary? But as so often is the case, narrow questions can become big, sweeping rulings.
Archival: We'll hear an argument today in case zero eight 205 Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Olson.
Archival: Mr. Chief Justice and may have pleased the Court.
Nick Capodice: There's a famous moment in the argument where the person representing the FEC, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L Stewart, is asked by the justices, Well, [00:14:30] what about a book? We're talking about a movie here, but what about a book.
Archival: That's pretty incredible? You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned. I'm not saying it could be banned. I'm saying that Congress could prohibit the use...
Nick Capodice: Can the government ban a book critical of a candidate if it comes out before an election and the more conservative justices latched on to that and did not let go? They were very anti [00:15:00] banning books. The court meets to discuss how they're going to vote. And it seems like it's five four in favor of Citizens United. Chief Justice John Roberts was poised to write the opinion and Justice David Souter the dissent. But New Yorker reporter Jeffrey Toobin revealed that Souter's dissent was not your run of the mill dissent. It was very critical of Chief Justice Roberts and that it, quote, aired the court's dirty laundry. So Roberts said the case would be reheard in the next session [00:15:30] and Justice Kennedy would write the opinion. And Justice Souter retired.
Hannah McCarthy: Wow. Will we ever know what was in Justice Souter's dissent?
Nick Capodice: We will if you live that long, Hannah. His papers are set to be released in 2060. So in the next session, the decision was announced. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote and read the opinion. And in a rare occurrence, Justice John Paul Stevens read his dissent, which was longer than the opinion, aloud from the bench. [00:16:00]
Hannah McCarthy: It never happens, right.
Nick Capodice: Sometimes.
Archival: Well, American democracy is still imperfect. Few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a shortage of corporate money in politics.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay, so the thing that everyone says about Citizens United, the sort of pop culture phrase that we all know about it, is that Citizens United decided that corporations are people. Yeah. Did it say that? Is that in there? [00:16:30]
Nick Capodice: No, it did not. Interestingly, that is not in Justice Kennedy's opinion. The decision says political speech rights do not depend on the identity of the speaker. That speaker can be a person or a group of people.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. So campaign donations are considered speech. Speech is protected by the First Amendment. Corporations also have those protections. So does that mean that corporations can now give to campaigns?
Nick Capodice: No. And this is a very common [00:17:00] misconception. Corporations, even after the ruling, still could not give directly to candidates, but they could give indirectly through what are called PACs. And now we need to get some definitions out of the way.
Maggie Severns: Yeah. So all these different groups, PACs, super PACs, dark money groups, they're all just different ways of setting up a group that's going to spend money on an election.
Nick Capodice: This is political reporter Maggie Severns. She covers policy for Grid. [00:17:30]
Maggie Severns: A PAC is a political action committee. It is kind of a bucket where money goes in and money goes out. Now, PACs have been around for quite a while and PACs have pretty strict limitations on what they can take in and how they spend. So a PAC can give money directly to a candidate, but they can't give that much money. The most kind of traditional PACs might be PACs that are kind of associated with a company or a political group, and they're not part of that group. But everyone [00:18:00] who is involved in technology might all give $5,000 to the technology PAC, and then the technology PAC gives $5,000 each to candidates that are doing what people in the technology sector want. And for a long time, that was PAC spending. That's all it was, is, you know, you kind of take in these donations from a lot of people that believed in one cause and then you would give those donations to a campaign.
Hannah McCarthy: All right. $5,000 is the limit for campaign contributions from a single source. A [00:18:30] bunch of people give that amount or less to a PAC they care about. And the PAC is in charge of allocating that money.
Nick Capodice: Right. And the ruling in Citizens United did not change that. Your PAC cannot give more than $5,000 directly to each candidate. But then we get to super PACs.
Maggie Severns: Now, a super PAC was created after Citizens United, and they can take in unlimited amounts of money for anyone. So they could take that $3 million check, [00:19:00] whereas a PAC can only take in the low thousands of dollars depending on who they're getting their money from. So a super PAC is really what enabled that big money spending because then a super PAC can go out and buy an ad and drop $2 million on an ad. You have all kinds of super PACs. Some of them just support one person. Some of them support, you know, all Republican candidates or all Senate races. So Citizens United really opened the door for a super PAC to exist because there was no unlimited political [00:19:30] spending before Citizens United.
Hannah McCarthy: Now, just to make sure I have it, super PACs don't give money to candidates, but they spend money to support candidates. A regular old PAC can give money to a candidate, but it's limited. Individuals and corporations can spend unlimited money to support a candidate, but they can't give it directly to them.
Nick Capodice: Right. And there's this hard rule about that, referring to coordination. [00:20:00] Super PACs may not under any circumstances have any sort of coordination with the campaign. They can't tell them what to do. If I'm running for office, I can't call the super PAC that's like spending millions of dollars to get me elected and say, Hey, could you run an ad where I'm in a pickup truck and I'm talking to folks at a diner and I'm looking real concerned, and then my opponent is drinking champagne at a fancy restaurant. Can you do that for me? Not allowed.
Maggie Severns: Talking about people trying to get away with one thing [00:20:30] or another. You can look at coordination as being a really interesting example of that. So there's this thing called redboxing or yellowboxing where when a committee... Let's say that I am the D triple C and I'm in charge of electing Democrats to Congress. And I think to myself, man, I really could use a ad, a super PAC, to run a bunch of ads about how this candidate's opponent is really bad on the economy. But I can't talk to the super PAC, right, because there's no coordination [00:21:00] between a candidate or a committee and the super PAC. They're supposed to be totally independent. What folks started to do all these different, you know, and this goes for both sides of the aisle. They were all kind of experimenting, as you would actually on your website, put a little yellow or red box. And it looks very like Web 2.0. It looks very kind of dorky. And it'll say something that sounds kind of cheesy and coated saying like, people in Missouri need to know this. You click on the box and it'll take you to a page that they've developed with all the language [00:21:30] that they would like in the ad.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm not telling you what to do with the gun, but I'm going to leave it right here on the table for you.
Nick Capodice: I know Maggie sent me a link to an archived website. Thank you Internet Archive, with a box just like that. The box said Ohio needs to know. And I clicked on it and I saw a bunch of messaging and a link to archival footage from the campaign trail.
Hannah McCarthy: Footage that might just be perfect to put in an ad.
Nick Capodice: hypothetically, of course, that was the funny thing. It was like, here are the arguments [00:22:00] we feel and here's just a ton of footage for B-roll. It's just... It's just generic candidate on the campaign trail. Do what you want with it and it's not just redboxing. There are Twitter accounts that come out of nowhere with suggestions for super PACs. Books full of opposition research gets sent to offices. There are ways around coordination.
Hannah McCarthy: Now, I want to get back to something you said about the decision. And it was confusing for me because I did think, [00:22:30] like so many others, that this case was about corporations being allowed to give huge sums of money to candidates through super PACs.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, this caught me off guard, too.
Hye Young You: Every students have perception that Citizens United fundamentally change American politics and campaign finance system.
Nick Capodice: This is Hye Young You, a professor of political science at New York University. Hye Young said that this is her number one misconception that her students have about the case.
Hye Young You: But when we look at details, yes, [00:23:00] there are parts that Citizens United really transformed campaign finance in the US. But at the same time, there are sections that Citizens United didn't touch at all. For example, the direct campaign contribution made to the candidates. That has not changed at all by the Citizens United. So but, you know, students have this perception. This is, you know, the boom, you know, everything changed after Citizens United. And also but because of the political rhetoric, a lot [00:23:30] of students assume that corporations and big banks. Right. The big corporations, they spend tons of money to sponsor superPACs after Citizens United, which is not true.
Hannah McCarthy: But why? Like, if I were the head of a company and I knew a politician was going to pass legislation that helped my industry, wouldn't I do whatever I could to get them elected?
Nick Capodice: Aha. But if you're a big company that's in the public eye, like Google, Apple, AT&T, McDonald's, you have shareholders, [00:24:00] you have a board to answer to. You have the public and the press watching your every move and tweeting about it. All of those entities are going to find out who you gave your money to. And for example, Hye Young referenced the January 6th insurrection.
Hye Young You: After it, You know, some of the consumers, the activists or some of the people on Twitter and social media, they actually revealed, you know, these are the corporations who donated to the politician who endorsed January six [00:24:30] riot. And what happened after that? A lot of corporations, they withdrew you know, they withdrew their donation from those politicians. And they are you know, they don't make a donation in the next election cycles. Right. Companies, you know, even though they have a lot of power and wealth still know you need to cater to consumer preferences. You need to cater to shareholder preferences. So there are some constraints that corporations are face. And that's why even though a lot of people, including [00:25:00] President Obama, Senator Warren, you know, really worry about the explosion of money. Yes, we had an explosion of money, but not by the corporations, but mostly by wealthy individuals who are really politically active.
Nick Capodice: And I do want to add one wrinkle to this. Jeff Bone sent me a report about a way that corporations have begun to start to increase spending on campaigns that absolves them of all public scrutiny. Briefly, there are large nonprofits called 527s, the [00:25:30] biggest of which are the Republican and Democratic governors associations. So corporations have been giving to them. And that's public information. We all know it. And then those associations give that money to other super PACs to influence state and local elections.
Hannah McCarthy: Aha. And since those 527s which I'm I have never heard about before, they are just massive generic buckets that then go to other places. It's impossible to hold a corporation accountable. Right, as there [00:26:00] are so many steps.
Nick Capodice: Right. And the last ten years, about $1 billion have gone to these associations, half of which came from public company treasuries. And in that time, Republican 527s have received twice as much money as Democrat 527s to influence local elections.
Hannah McCarthy: However, Hye Young said the biggest donations in the wake of Citizens United, the explosion of money has been from wealthy individuals to super PACs. Right. So how much are we talking?
Nick Capodice: A study [00:26:30] was done on just the publicly available information on donations not to speak of unavailable data, but about 400 families are responsible for half of all presidential campaign financing.
Hannah McCarthy: That's a lot of money from a very few people. And when you're a candidate so heavily funded by one super rich person, you're probably going to do things that satisfy that person.
Nick Capodice: Right? Right. And nobody else.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, but you said not to speak of the [00:27:00] unavailable data. I do want to speak of the unavailable data, the non public data. Are there donations given that we don't know about.
Nick Capodice: Well, there shouldn't be because PACs have to tell you who gives to them. Here's Maggie Severns again
Maggie Severns: PACs have always had to disclose their donors. The Supreme Court, when it did the Citizens United opinion, it said that this principle of transparency and disclosure that's kind of been around with PACs for a while should also apply to unlimited political spending. So as long [00:27:30] as you are disclosing what you're doing, then the spending is constitutional. For example, one thing that we've seen more and more with super PACs is that someone will give to an organization, maybe a 501 c for who will then transfer that money to the super PAC. Well, do you know where that money came from, if it's being transferred from one group to another?
Hye Young You: Yeah. So there are a lot of nonprofit organizations and so it's the 501c, so that's a basically [00:28:00] our IRS code, right? So when IRS tried to set a tax rate and 501c is basically a tax exempt nonprofit organizations. And for example, NYU is a 501c3, which is the education, NRA National Rifle Association is a 501c4 Planned Parenthood is also 501c4 so 51c4 is a social welfare organization according to IRS definition. And these organizations [00:28:30] that they are supposed to work to improve social welfare.
Nick Capodice: These nonprofits, since they're supposed to work for social welfare, cannot spend more than 50% of their budget on campaign contributions.
Hye Young You: But the downside, or the one opaque thing downside is when you donate, you can as an individual, if you're a wealthy individual or ordinary citizen, you can donate to Planned Parenthood, you can donate to NRA. Right. But those donations are not [00:29:00] disclosed.
Hannah McCarthy: So someone could donate to a 501c3 anonymously, and then that money gets transferred to a super PAC and nobody knows who did it.
Nick Capodice: Right. This is referred to as, quote, dark money that's becoming more and more prevalent. And these donations are not traceable. And if you're curious how all of this super PACs, dark money, all of it has affected how campaigns are run. Here are some numbers. In 2008, the year of Hillary, the movie, [00:29:30] the FEC reported that a total of $1.6 billion was spent. By contrast, the 2020 election over $14 billion, 5.7 billion on the Trump Biden race and the rest on the congressional races. Now, each office is different, but nowadays it costs a lot of money to run for Congress. The average is 1.1 million for a House seat, 6.5 million for the Senate.
Hannah McCarthy: Now, we started with you saying how politicians [00:30:00] and Supreme Court justices have criticized this decision. Did anyone you spoke to say there were any positives to this decision at all?
Nick Capodice: I want to be forthright here and say that all three guests I interviewed were, quite frankly, critical of the decision. And so I asked Jeff if there was a plus side, a pro to the decision, and he gave me one.
Jeff Bone: On the advantage side. Businesses and multinational corporations are fairly nimble about responding to [00:30:30] crisis. And I'm just thinking about even currently in the situation between Russia and Ukraine, you. See corporations responding in ways that perhaps governments are slow to or there's constraints on government. And so there is a fair comment that businesses express some important democratic values and have agency and should be regarded and have an ability to speak to issues that are [00:31:00] political in nature.
Nick Capodice: You see, companies can move faster than politicians. They can do stuff without it going through Congress. These massive donations create a relationship between corporations and politicians, and that politician might ask a company to do something because the politician is unable to. And then I asked Hye Young for an advantage, a way the decision was in the nation's best interest.
Hye Young You: I'm not sure whether I can make that argument, because if you look [00:31:30] at the sheer amount of money in American elections, that's a mind blowing, right? Especially the the amount of independent expenditures, you know, spent by super PACs. So do we really need this amount of money in elections? And, you know, US is a country that elects basically everybody; judges and prosecutors. And if you look at other countries, it's extremely rare to find a cases that the judges elected or prosecutors [00:32:00] elected. So now this is super PACs. They are not just spending money on presidential elections and Senate elections. They are infiltrating the lower level elections. County sheriff and judges. Right. So in this sense, it is a national super PACs and they are having so much power in terms of shaping every election result and every layer of the government.
Jeff Bone: When an individual or a business has [00:32:30] a substantial financial chest of, a war chest to support the political process, those are our lawmakers. Those are the ones that determine what the regulations are going to be. Citizens United, by being a clear win for large money to say there is no limits that the government can impose upon businesses and wealthy donors that want to influence an issue or use [00:33:00] that money to advertise on behalf of a candidate, are picking a winner or are letting those with money be those with power in the political process. And the impact on our politics is going to be corrosive as a result.
Hye Young You: If you can just cater to one billionaire, you [00:33:30] don't need to appeal to a broader set of voters. Right. If one billionaire could finance ten politicians compared to 200, for example, 20 million people, I think that has a very different implication in terms of representation, political accountability and politicians behavior.
Hannah McCarthy: What about the future of Citizens United? I can't help but look at that number, $14 billion and wonder if it's [00:34:00] ever going to go down or even stay static. Our super PACs just going to keep giving more and more.
Nick Capodice: So one of the rallying cries of those who don't like the decision is, quote unquote, overturn Citizens United because it is a court ruling. Only the Supreme Court itself can, quote, overturn its decision, though I will say every few years someone in Congress proposes an amendment that will establish corporations as entities without First Amendment protections [00:34:30] or put restrictions on dark money. And I asked Maggie about those amendments, and she kind of laughed and said, Yeah, yeah, you see those every now and then. Amendments aren't at all likely to be successful, and I'm not trying to be a killjoy or anything, but amendments require two thirds of both houses of Congress and three fourths of all states to be ratified and added to our Constitution. So, yeah, it's just not going to happen.
Hannah McCarthy: So for those who do not like such a staggering sum of money and political campaigns, what's the good news? [00:35:00]
Nick Capodice: Well, I think there's two little pieces of good news, the first of which is a rising trend of politicians on both sides of the aisle raising significant sums not from super PACs, not from dark money, but from people. Lots and lots of small donations.
Archival: Anybody here know what the average contribution is? Right. $27. [00:35:30] Now, this in itself is revolutionary because it's true.
Nick Capodice: And the second upshot? Maggie made me stop and think about what all this money buys in the first place.
Maggie Severns: Some money that's spent on elections is spent in a very effective way. And political ads do move people's opinions somewhat. But especially as media gets more and more sophisticated, I think that [00:36:00] consumers are getting more and more sophisticated. So people I think people have a sense, one, that they're being kind of ripped off by Washington. They also in some cases, this money doesn't sway an election as much as you would think. You know, when really well deployed it can. But I think that kind of sophisticated consumers of political news can also increasingly kind of sift through things and form their own opinions. So I think it's important to remember that people aren't powerless in this situation. You're not you know, there's no kind of earworm [00:36:30] in your brain telling you exactly who to vote for and how to think. There are some kind of troubling things happening, but people can still take in information and make decisions for themselves.
