 Good afternoon want to welcome everybody to to new America. I'm Mark Schmidt I'm the director of the political reform program here, and I'm delighted to have Have you all here for this discussion of? We're calling beyond corruption and look at some different ways of thinking about Issues of money and politics. We're gonna have a kind of three-part event here today. I guess the For the first part will be we're joined by Congressman John Sarbanes We'll make a few remarks about the issue and I'll introduce him in a minute And then we'll move into a kind of panel discussion That will be led by Larry Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice, which is a co-sponsor of this of this event With with the basic topic being some of the issues that I've raised in the in this paper that's out out front called political opportunity trying to trying to Bring up some new ways to talk about these issues And and we're joined for that by Congressman Sarbanes and also by Anne Ravel from the chair of the Federal Election Commission And I think both what's interesting about this is that both both and and Congressman Sarbanes are well and John are relatively new Voices on this issue in the at the federal level and and bringing some new Some new perspectives both in there in their individual presence and in their ideas Congressman Sarbanes has represented the third district of Maryland Since 2007 it's a district that includes I think parts of four different different counties And and he lives in Towson He's a member of the energy and commerce committee and the subcommittee on health of the of the energy and commerce committee Which is a pretty powerful Place to be and he's really been an incredible leader on on on this issue in particular Bringing together a number of ideas that that that took the form of the government for the people act governed by the people act last year which had I think I think a hundred and 140 cosponsors Yeah, that's well You say that's the danger of starting yet. You do have to start from scratch But that's that that is a no-joke level of support for for a set of ideas that really draw on a lot of creativity both, you know in he both In Congress but also drawing on things that are beginning to we're beginning to see working at the at the state level and and the and the And the municipal level, so it's an exciting opportunity Congress Sarbanes is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School and We're really I'm really thrilled to have his his presence on this issue, and I'm looking forward to his his remarks Thank you. Thanks very much. It's great to be here Thank mark and the new America Foundation. I'm a big fan of the work of this foundation, and I want to thank you and rabble for being here We had an at times Inspiring and at times disparate in conversation in my office a while back about The the battles that are underway And I certainly want to thank the Brennan Center for the work that they do and Larry Norton. It's great to be here with you so I want to start This conversation on money and politics and what we can do to address it by I guess posing the question of whether Campaign finance reform which is really the center of the solution to the problem Is this is this a tree falling in the woods that nobody is going to hear and I? Believe deeply that that's not the case. I wouldn't be committing so much of my own energy And effort to this issue if I didn't think that there was a real opportunity To get traction with it and ultimately bring about a solution that can be Transformative what I wanted to do and I'm going to try to keep this about 10 or 15 minutes Because I do want to get to the panel discussion then hopefully we can have Questions and answers from from the group here I wanted to talk about the problem as I see it and then talk about the solution talk a little bit about the Government by the people actually understand the design of it and then we can bring it to a close When you talk about the problem these days in terms of the impact that money is having on Politics on elections on Governing on the democracy you can look at it from two different Perspectives one is sort of the inside Perspective how is it having an impact on the way things are done on Capitol Hill? In Congress in the halls of Congress on members lives the other is what is the impact on the outside? What is the public's view of what's happening in terms of this? Increasing influence that money is having on our political system. I'm going to start with what I think in some ways is is The less salient Perspective which is what's happening on the inside and then I'm going to move to talk about what's happening On the outside when you look at what's what's going on with money's influence in Washington on Capitol Hill the first thing you notice is that There's not as much diversity of Perspective on the Hill because of the effect of money in campaigns And what I mean by this is many of you have heard the phrase the money primary This is the primary you have to get through before you even get into a Democratic or Republican primary It's the primary where you have to raise money in order to be a viable competitive candidate The average cost of a congressional campaign a winning congressional campaign in 2012 was $1.6 million so if you're going to be competitive and ultimately have the aspiration to win You got to raise huge sums of money There's a lot of people out there that don't know a lot of people with a lot of money And they self-select right from the beginning they might be terrific candidates. They might be active in their Community they may really want to serve the public But they look at what it takes to run a competitive race and they basically opt out from the very beginning So that's that's an impact on the inside because the diversity particularly the socio-economic diversity that's present on Capital Hill in the Senate in the house. I think is undermined by this inability to get through the money primary the second thing and this is this is something I feel and Certainly my colleagues feel is the tremendous amount of time That fundraising takes away from the things that we ought to be paying attention to By some estimates the average member of Congress is spending anywhere from 30 to 70 percent of their time on fundraising Which is a clear departure obviously from the expectation of the constituents and the voters that sent them there What is the casualty of that? Well one casualty is you don't have the time that you should Spend to actually read the material and become knowledgeable about the legislation that supposedly were brokering and Passing and that's a real cost The second casualty is Relationships if you talk to members of Congress who've been there for two decades or more They remember a time fondly when they didn't have to spend all their time in Washington Fundration for starters they spent more time in Washington because there wasn't this imperative to jump on a jet plane and get back to your district You know on Thursday afternoon and then fly in on a Monday But when they were in Washington, they had time for relationships If you talk to members of Congress a lot of them could count on one hand The number of times they've had lunch with their colleagues in the last two three four years Because the fact of the matter is if you have enough time to have lunch you have enough time to make fundraising calls and Your staff will be on you on you to go do that so if you think of relationships as really Being the glue that kind of keeps a legislative body together where the lubricant that allows you to Work with each other reach compromise past legislation that is completely absent now from the institution and It's happened with predictable results even if We were Conducting things under regular order and that means committees are getting together. They're actually hashing through Legislation and that doesn't really happen so much Anymore think about the impact that money is having on the way public policy machinery in Washington works in this way if Two members are sitting across a conference room table from one another and they're trying to hash out Some solution some compromise on a piece of legislation that one or the other of them is as introduced They bring certain lenses to that exercise one lens They bring which is very fair and appropriate is what would my constituents think? How will they react to this piece of legislation and how will they react to my making a compromise here? There are some other place the second lens that you bring and this is an important one is What does this mean for the country? When we step back and we think about whether this is good national public policy Does it make sense to do this? Should I end up here? Should I make a compromise to reach that? objective and Traditionally, I think those were the two basic lenses that were brought to the discussion increasingly there's a third lens and it's become a dominant lens often and that is as you look at a piece of Legislation as you decide whether you're going to make a compromise. You're thinking to yourself What would my money patrons think about that? How would they react to it because you know you have to go raise $1.6 million in order to be competitive in this world So that's the lens that I think is producing a lot of the gridlock and distortion of how public policy is made Occasionally when we do break through the gridlock. It's because The money patrons are getting together and putting pressure equally on both sides to meet a particular Agenda that they have So often when we do break through the gridlock, we're breaking through it in favor of special interests and not in favor of the country There's a terrific quote that I like to cite Back in 1982 Bob Dole at that time the Senate minority leader of the Republican Party Said this when these political action committees give money They expect something in return other than good government It is making it much more difficult to legislate We may reach a point where if everybody is buying something with PAC money, we can't get anything done That was 30 years ago that Prophecies been fulfilled Because we have plenty of PACs operating up on Capitol Hill and we're not getting anything done Now let me talk about the outside impact of all of this Which I think is the most pernicious effect of of money's influence in politics and on governing and that is the deep deep Synicism and distrust that is really permeating the electorate. I think people look at Washington And they don't see themselves here anymore They believe that special interests and big money are calling the shots that it's an insider's game and That the voice of the average person really is of no consequence What so ever you look at what happened in? 2014 just now in the November election the lowest turnout since 1942 And I believe that's a result of a lot of rational voters Saying to themselves why go vote? if the person I'm voting for gets to Washington and immediately is captured by special interests and My voice isn't going to matter anymore. Why don't I just stay home and maintain a little bit of self dignity? I think that this is the reaction that millions of Americans are having when they look at this this Undue influence that money has in Washington on our elections and on the way we govern the metaphor I like to use is that a lot of good decent Americans have fled the political town square Because they don't think their voice matters and what happens unfortunately is When good people flee the town square extreme elements rush in and those are the voices that you hear more of and it Contributes further to the cynicism that the public feels to me. This is the primary reason Why we have to design a different system I mean I could make the case to you as a member of Congress that I don't want to spend 30 to 70% of my time in Washington fundraising that I want to get back to regular order where we're actually looking at legislation based on the merits and Reaching compromise to get things done. I Could make the argument based on what it's doing this system is doing to members of Congress and how it's really in some Way sucking the life out of us, but I prefer to make the argument on behalf of Citizens out there in the country who are angry Dispirited and frustrated because they feel like their government doesn't belong to them Anymore, so there's there's two basic strategies in my in my view for how you begin to address This problem of undue influence of big money in politics One of them I'll call sort of the containment strategy and the other is the empowerment strategy and it's very analogous Mark to what you've begun to describe in your paper, which is an excellent Structure a kind of framework for how we can look at this issue Going forward and you'll hear about that momentarily So one one strategy is you try to put some limits on big money out there And of course, this is the battle that's been fought in the Supreme Court over the last few years It's a battle unfortunately that we're we're losing right now Which has led to the effort to push for a constitutional amendment to try to repeal the effects of Citizens United and give Congress the ability to Regulate money in politics in a more robust fashion But it's a tough row to hope as you know This court is not our friend when it comes to putting reasonable limits in place and a constitutional amendment is a very difficult thing to get done Now I support the efforts around that because I think it's a good way to organize the way people are feeling But just looking at it practically it is a tough thing to make happen You have the amendment process to put to try to put limits in place you have disclosure as another mechanism for Trying to affect the behavior of these big money players. You have non-coordination rules that people are looking at To try to rein in the way they operate But if you think about it all of those things I just mentioned Are about refereeing the conduct of big money players It doesn't really do anything to empower the everyday citizen to bring them in to the solution and I believe that even as we pursue all those other remedies to try to contain and limit some of the Big money actors out there if we're gonna address the cynicism that the average person feels That's driving them out of the political town square and frankly up into the hills out of desperation If we're gonna address that we have to design a solution That brings them in that in a sense brings them out of the bleachers and in to the ring because they feel like they have power They have ways and they have consequence to the way the system Operates and that's the empowerment strategy and that's what HR 20 and a government by the People Act is all about Mark refers to this. I think quite cleverly as political opportunity and you can talk about this But it's basically the notion of you know, let's go give some power some opportunity some voice and access to those Millions tens of millions hundreds of millions of Americans out there who feel like they don't have any and that's the way We design the government by the People Act to try to address that feeling Let me very briefly tell you what the act does in order to lift people up and give them a sense of power It's got three components. The first is we wanted to make it easier for everyday citizens You know in a world where money is speech according to this court How do people of modest means have speech? Well, we thought a refundable tax credit a small tax credit of twenty five dollars Would help the average person get into the game So that's the first piece refundable tax credit We call it the my voice tax credit because it gives people that sense that their voice in fact is consequential The second piece which is just as critical is A six-to-one match of public funds that will come in behind a small donation If it goes to a candidate that is trying to do the right thing That is limiting the amount of PAC money that they receive and are dependent upon that is reducing the amount of high donations that they're Accepting and has gone out and built an Outreach to a small donor network of everyday citizens out there if a candidate does that then every Small donation that comes to that candidate will earn a six-to-one match of public funds from what we call the freedom from influence matching fun you got to have these you know these These names for all the all the work Now why is that so critical? Well, we had a tax credit From 1972 to 1986 as some of you may know in the federal tax code for contributions to federal candidates It's actually exactly the same it wasn't refundable But the amount was the same was a 50% tax credit on donations up to $50 In each of the two years of an election cycle there was very little uptake of this and the reason was that it wasn't It didn't matter it wasn't worth it to a candidate to go find that small donor Because if you got a raise one point six million or back in those days, maybe it was a half a million Getting a twenty five or fifty dollar donation from a small donor is still not enough to make you Forswear the K Street fundraiser the place where you can raise a thousand dollars from everybody who shows up What the six-to-one match does Is it completely changes that equation? Now the candidate wants to go find that small donor because a fifty dollar donor is Now worth three hundred fifty dollars to the candidate that's real money That's competitive with the current ways that you raise money and let me let me put it in these terms I Would say that most members of Congress. I don't think I'm telling tales out of school in order to make it worth it to go to some Lobbying affair or go to a fundraiser on K Street one of these kind of traditional places you raise money has to believe they're gonna walk away with $10,000 to make it worth it Well, there's no way under the current system that you can go have a house party with You know a bunch of people that live in a neighborhood in your district and raise enough money to compete with that And so often that competition goes in favor of the deep-pocketed sources But if you had the government by the People Act you had HR 20 a system like that a matching system Here's what would happen Somebody in your district would say I want to throw a fundraiser for you a small donor fundraiser They'd invite 30 people each person would give $50 using their $25 tax credit. That's $1,500 You then get a six to one match of public funds coming in behind that. That's another $9,000 You walk away from that event with $10,500 It is worth it to you as a candidate to turn in that direction And here's the other good part of it if you go to the K Street fundraiser you may raise $10,000 But I guarantee you that there's not anybody in that room who's gonna make phone calls for you knock on doors or lick envelopes and Probably most of them can't even vote for you because they don't live in your district if you go and you do a house party and You invite 30 people and they each come give $50. Those are folks who are gonna knock on doors They're gonna reach out to their neighbors who are gonna lick envelopes and they can all vote for you You're matching up an old-fashioned kind of organizing imperative with fundraising Instead of it being split apart the way it is now that's the promise of reform like what we proposed in hr 20 and the last piece Is a form of super PAC protection a candidate in the last 60 days of a general election And have no fear constitutional scholars in the room This has been designed very carefully so it doesn't cross the jurisprudence of the court That candidate can access some additional public funding through a supercharge on the match basically So the point is that once you've created this network of small donors It's there to help you you can turn to them in the final days of a campaign And they can in a sense come to your rescue and help you keep your voice On the field on the playing field up through election day And when that happens you can see candidates across the country that would be able to Compete and prevail even in the face of significant spending by outside groups The last thing i'll mention before i stop and i've gone on too long is Is this possible can we do this well we have 138 original cosponsors when we introduced the bill two weeks ago On the anniversary of citizens united we're adding cosponsors every day It's a bipartisan bill Because we have one republican And 137 democrats But we can build from there And what's interesting is the polling data Is very strong and we've had stan greenberg has done two polls on this so linda lake has done a third And what it demonstrates is that the sentiment in support of this kind of empowerment reform cuts across A political spectrum I've got a few numbers here i'll give you an example Democratic women 72 percent democratic men 84 percent Independent women 60 percent men 66 percent republican women 57 percent men 53 percent Support the kind of reform we're talking about in battleground districts HR 20's design is supported by 71 percent of democrats and 69 percent Of republicans and 60 percent of the electorate In 2014 according to exit polling and other things named this kind of reform as a top priority Going forward into 2016 To put a fine point on this idea that that this feeling goes across the spectrum think about it in these terms The occupy movement on the left And the tea party movement on the right In their purest forms They come from the same place They come from a feeling out there That there is some shadowy elite of powerful forces in new york and washington that run a country and everybody else is being left out If that feeling is is powerful As this polling day to suggest and anecdotally i can certainly relay based on the conversations I have every single day with people in my district and i'm one of those few who can drive back home Every single day and talk to people in my district my constituents Then this does not A tree falling in the woods. It's not going to be heard I really believe that this kind of reform could be a seismic event that everybody feels Out there in a country now will it be easy? Absolutely not Will we get it done tomorrow? No, will it cure all the ills of the world? No Would it be an incredibly powerful declaration on the part of the american public that They've had enough and they want to get their government back from special interests that they want their voices To matter Absolutely, would it set the table for even further reforms going forward that could make a difference? I think so So i'm not in this because I'm naive i'm not in it because i just want to go through it Exercise i've stepped into this and i'm going to continue to push for it because i think it could happen I think that the feeling out there in the country is deep enough and broad enough that if it is organized around solutions like this one and others That we can actually achieve this kind of change and so I'll close with this We're headed into a season of presidential sweepstakes and all the news From here on out is going to be about who's the next big thing in american politics And i have interest in that and i'm going to you know, i'm going to support the democratic nominee and i'll do it with enthusiasm and I expect to be inspired along the way But i'm starting to think more and more that maybe the next big thing in american politics isn't a person Maybe the next big thing in american politics is an idea and maybe it's the idea That people are going to take government back from special interests that they're going to reassert their voice And that to me Is a lot more exciting than personality politics That to me is more inspiring And election day when you're running a candidate campaign is november 4th Election day when you're running an idea campaign is the day you bring Your reform to the floor of the house or the senate We don't know when that election day is going to be But we want to be ready for it and we're building a national coalition of diverse constituencies Across the country who are stepping up to support this reform because they believe it will make a difference Thank you all very much for the opportunity to speak to it Thank you very much congressman. That was fantastic. Um, I guess i'll just say a couple words about this, uh Paper and we'll get the discussion going with which uh, which larry will moderate and then we'll we'll open it up a little bit I really like that theme of uh Of being ready and I and I think I take some inspiration Some of you probably know rick hasen who read the election law blog and he wrote a piece a year a couple years ago Where he said, you know, you know, you shouldn't expect that you're going to have a breakthrough on this idea tomorrow and Actually, that's that's a moment what you should understand is this is your moment to really begin to rethink some of these ideas And you know, i've been involved in this field for about 18 years I first got involved in the hill one thing when I worked on the hill and think we're totally the whole framing of the issues Was very different at that time And I think we've learned a lot since then and I think it's an opportunity to step back and actually ask some questions about Like what do we actually what's our vision of politics? What are we actually thinking about? What are we trying to do here? And part of what I talked about in this uh in this paper is the you know We're kind of governed by metaphors a lot when we talk about politics So very often, you know, a lot of effort goes into the into the idea that it's all just about preventing corruption That's the only thing the supreme court has given us and there we see well the supreme court says what has to be a quid pro quo corruption I think we all know there are a lot of other kinds of corruption But we have a vision of politics where their politicians who they have a clear idea of what the public interest is But you know that donor shows up and says, yeah, remember that 10 000 dollars We put together that k-street fundraiser. You got to be with me on this That's our that's our kind of vision of how corruption works and it certainly works sometimes like that But that's not everything because very often we have people elected who simply have a different idea of what the public interest is And we have very limited Pathways of kind of what's even on the table For for what those ideas are that's part of I think why we've had trouble kind of coming up with a full range of ways to respond to The economic crisis or or or inequality There's just the menu is is is too narrow Because there's only certain things that are kind of get past the The the the money primary so very often when we think we're talking about corruption We really want to be talking about something more like political equality more like, you know Breaking down some of the inequality in the economic the way the way economic inequality is reinforced in the political system And in turn reinforces economic inequality Uh overall in a way that kind of makes you know leads to stagnation We want to think in terms of equality, but equality is a tough value. I mean the supreme court says You know, it's alien to to our our concept of the first amendment They said that not in citizens united, but in buckley vallejo in the 1970s Uh, it's not a framework that they've seen as justified for uh For how you think about about regulating money in politics and kind of with some reason There's a lot of inequality in life. You can't you know work all of it out I mean, I worked I worked on the hill for a member of congress who'd been an nba star So, you know, you kind of came in with some inequality Right there and there's a lot of inequality that there's inequality of organization You know, uh, there's a there's this vision of a kind of paradise where everybody's exactly equal Is a hard one to really realize So I felt like we needed to you know, kind of get past those two choices and think about it in a somewhat different way And thinking about it in terms of political opportunity also gets gets you out of the trap of Of really talking about where you're restricting the first amendment because we really I I don't want to be in a fight with the first amendment I think freedom of expression is incredibly valuable I think that the you know the breakthrough in the american history where, you know, just as homes and brandized Recognized that as a real value. I think it's a really important part of our tradition Uh, and I think I think elections are elections are confined elections have have rules and some of those rules do restrict Reexpression like, you know, no no electioneering Within 75 feet of a polling place and things like that. But you know, for the most part, we want to try to uh To respect those values and we can do that best by creating more opportunity Rather than rather than trying to restrict all the all the other avenues That money enters politics and you know what there are going to be other avenues to which money and economic inequality enters politics And people have started writing about I mean, you know, we're here at a think tank People have started writing about the ways in which you know money going through think tanks kind of corrupts and changes the process There's a huge amount, you know, all the You know all the kinds of different kinds of lobbying that goes on and communications that that aren't actually about the election But influence politics and actually influence the election. I mean last year you had a lot of Koch brother ad Koch brother funded ads that were just a tax on obamacare, which is an issue But obviously if you do enough of that you have some effect on the election as well So I think by thinking about About political opportunity, which includes all the kinds of ideas that The congressman sarbanes has been talking about here things that we see working in new york city We see them working in a place like minnesota, which has a the refundable tax credit It includes all of those ideas that kind of make it easier to get into the election and compete and You know, listen to the voices of small donors rather than the the big fundraisers But the idea includes a lot more than that as well. I think it should include You know thinking about how do we make it easier for people to actually organize to be heard? So that so that you're not just looking in terms of individuals. It has to include thinking about technology What's happening in the world that makes it possible to do some of the things That the government by the people act proposes You know things like you know act blue that has helped a lot of You know small donors find candidates that might really reflect their views and there are republican counterparts to that act blue I think got a head start. There's a great project called nation builder, which kind of reduces all those startup costs There's a You know, there's a concept of business now of the lean startup all the things that you shouldn't have that you used to have to do In order to start a company and all those things you used to have to do to start a political campaign too You had to figure out how your email was going to work You had you basically had to do all the things that would go into starting, you know a medium-sized company Things like nation builder make it possible to just jump over a lot of that everything is kind of available to you If we combine those ideas with legislative ideas and are kind of realistic about what we're trying to do I think we could get to a very different place than what we were talking about in the in the era of the more traditional kind of containment approach to money and politics All right, I heard a lot of hints there in terms of what I might want to ask about So before before we jump in I I do want to thank new america for hosting this event I'm a big fan of new america and the work they do and the people who are associated with it And I also want to thank them for partnering with us on this excellent paper that mark has put out and While that was a pretty good Summary it really is worth reading it through it's it's short But it very very rich in talking about I think Some of the challenges in in frames that exist right now when we talk about money and politics and and When we fight court battles over money and politics And and and presents I think a very interesting New framework for that work This is obviously For those of us who are focused on The democracy issues like the le brennan center and and New america this this is a critical and challenging time As the congressman mentioned is recently the fifth anniversary of citizens united we've got All kind around the country all kinds of new restrictions on the franchise And there there are so many data points to point That point to what the congressman talked about earlier a kind of A disillusionment with the political process and a belief among a significant part of americans anyway that their voice doesn't matter anymore So quickly I just wanted to mention that for the brennan center this paper is part of our New ideas for a new democracy series We take very seriously the idea at this critical moment We do need to be thinking about innovation policy innovation in this space and I I do think Mark that this is a great inaugural paper for that series We also I just want to recognize that both chairman rabble and and the congressman are really Have been two of the foremost national leaders on on coming up with new ideas and Thinking about exactly what it is that we want out of our democracy. I think that might be a good place to start We've already heard a little bit from Both mark and congressman sarbanes about What their idea What we want out of our democracy But maybe maybe we can be a little bit more specific about that. What what is it? That What kind of democracy would you like to see what kind of democracy do you think? Reformers should be aiming for and and maybe we can follow up that with The role of money and politics and all that maybe you could start with that Let me Start a little bit with what it is that makes me view The political reform and political Campaign issues the way I do and it is that I've worked At every level of government federal state and local mostly in local And so I have a really strong feeling about Just what the congressman was talking about about what I call civic engagement. It's very similar to what Mark is also talking about and it's that how important it is To have transparency and to have people involved in government for one thing it legitimizes it and for another reason it's that people and And trust in government comes with their involvement, I believe and it's funny. There's And I know this is not answering your question specifically, but you know, I know that The issue of trust in government is sort of interesting because when the FEC was established There there's a Pull that's done every year pretty much which asks people You know, do you trust your government to do the right thing and right after watergate? The respondents Saying yes, we're about 34. I think or 36 percent Um today it's 16 percent and I think that's horrible I think that says something really really bad about us and so we need to do exactly as they both suggested I think it's important to get more people involved more people voting more people participating more people in the dialogue and You know, we can talk about the reasons, but I think one of the problems, of course Is that there are you know, not sufficient and and the congressman talked about economic disparities, but there's Even for the majority of women in this country. There's not significant representation of women There's not significant representation of other other minorities And I just think we've got to do things that bring more people into the into the dialogue and that's Really what political reform should be doing That actually answers my question So I hear a lot about the idea of more participation Mark and congressman sardines, um You can you can correct my summary of of your paper, but But part of what I hear you saying Is that a really big problem in in our in microseen america today is that both of you saying is barriers to entry That a lot of people are just a left out of running for office And are left out of being heard From the people who are in office and that Limits on On spending of the wealthy Can only get you so far and in fact, you know may not even really be all that possible that there are all kinds of ways that money influences the political system, so political opportunity certainly sounds like A great reframing lifting people up so that their voices can be heard question I have about that though is Is it too is it too late for that? I'm just going to read out some numbers That that bernice and our others have put out politico politico reported after the election that in 2014 the top 100 donors Spent as much and the truth is probably more because there's all this all this dark money out there as The 4.75 million small donors in the election Since 2010 Less than 200 people Have given 60 percent of all money to super PACs my boss michael wallman often talks about an arms race between the small donors and and the big donors and It's starting to feel like it's that that that arms race is already over mark points to new york city Where where a lot of the fundraising is done along the lines that congressman sarbanes talks about their house parties And and candidates are really focused on small donors, but I have to tell you I've been working The effort in new york state and a lot of legislators in new york states say You know what it doesn't matter Somebody a candidate will set up a candidate specific super PAC. They may they may raise small donations From people are giving 100 200 checks at the end of the day It's going to be the guy that gives the million dollar check to the super PAC That's going to matter. Is there is there still a chance for this kind of political opportunity? Yeah, I I mean I think that's something that I you know We think about a lot It's it I think there was a moment when we started to see the Really large number of small donors particularly around the two obama campaigns But around a number of other campaigns as well Where where it seemed like you could kind of ride a really positive way Towards these reforms the last you know Three four years have really created some some big challenges as these other as these other pools of money have Have emerged and you know, I like to think of them almost as it's not just like money wanting to get into the system It's it's like, you know, there are people who kind of are brokers of access to money who have a huge amount of power In the system because they are they are the they are the key points that help you Get out of the regulated system and and and into this into this unregulated world You know at the end of the day There's a concept that I think most political scientists are familiar with but that is a little bit counterintuitive, which is just that You know There it's not that money doesn't matter sometimes people say oh money doesn't matter and there's you know The new york times has done like david brooks did this and a couple of other people have done it It's not that money doesn't matter But there's a threshold and then there are diminishing returns You know, so the key to a barrier the barrier to entry into a competitive political campaign Is just getting to the point where you can be heard which is different in every kind of race, but it's something Beyond a certain amount above that the money you're spending doesn't really matter that much So for example, I'll use you know use the example of new york in 2009 when mayor bloomberg ran against Against bill thompson the the comptroller thompson had with the city's public financing system He had a I think about 18 million dollars bloomberg spent somewhere between 85 and 100 million dollars Well, it was turned out to be a pretty close race So thompson clearly hit that threshold where he was able to be competitive with the help of the small donor system and some amount of money that bloomberg spent somewhere between 20 and 100 million was you know, he wasn't getting anything more Beyond that point. So it's not that we have you know, it's easy to have the sticker shock at the big giant dollars And the big giant dollars intimidate candidates from getting into races They they give these brokers power. They have a a lot of negative effect But the number alone is not the most significant thing once you get beyond a you know a certain level I agree with that. It's easy to get trapped into this Frame of can we equal the amounts that are coming in? Whether it's from a self funded Candidate or it's the super PACs that are on attack The better question and and mark's alluded to this is sufficiency Can you raise sufficient funds that you can continue to keep your voice in the mix up through election day? and I think that is quite possible I think that if you particularly establish Because you're incentivized by a small donor matching system to do it establish a broad network of small donors You then have them available to come to your aid in those final days of the campaign and again, they don't have to Contribute enough to match The spending that may come at you from an outside group or a super PAC They just have to get you enough that your voice can stay in the mix I can guarantee you and I think there's examples of this That a candidate who has built a strong relationship with their constituents Who has emphasized the power of small donors? And and the voices of everyday citizens They can arrive at election day and if they've had enough Resources to be able to keep their voice in front of those voters Even if they're being outspent two to one or three to one or four to one they can often prevail in me And in fact when you look back over the last couple election cycles you see examples of this happening the other point I want to make is The focus often when deciding whether money Matters or doesn't matter Is on the outcome On election day But we have to continue to look at money's impact past Election day when david brooks was writing that you know it all comes out in the wash He was citing races where You know the republican and the democrat essentially were able to raise about the same amount of money three million four million dollars so he concludes well That wasn't really the determinator In the election because they both raised about the same amount What he's not looking at Is the fact that whoever wins? arrives in washington Having had four million dollars contributed to their campaign much of which may come from special interest So you have to continue to look past election day to determine the impact That that that's being had by money In politics and and frankly that's A problem what i'm describing existed before citizens united and even if we fixed citizens united would continue to exist There's the dependency on direct campaign contributions, which is the most distorting i believe of how public policy gets made in washington And that's the kind of thing that you address when you create a different place for members of congress to go To raise money for their campaigns, and you you're advancing the Madisonian ideal that government will be dependent upon the people Alone we've gotten very far away from that if we don't get back to it. We can't expect to address the cynicism in the public And you know One question that i have is you know Part of this is also the perception of the office holder themselves. I suppose right congressman and you know when you when you have a When you have the coke brother saying that they're going to spend a billion dollars in an election Won't that have an impact regardless of where they're raising their money from Won't the threat of big money out there have an impact on On decision-making and the way that Office holders relate to various issues I think it does there's no i mean you can't pretend that it doesn't affect people's outlook But i don't think it has to be determinative and and frankly i think that the This latest announcement that they're going to spend eight hundred ninety nine or eighty nine million dollars whatever it is through this shadowy consortium groups although They seem perfectly prepared to just talk about it openly Because i guess they realize a lot of people fled into the hills and aren't aren't paying attention, but i think it was greeted Less with fear for example by members of the of the democratic Caucus in this case because i was at the retreat when that number In philadelphia when that number was released Then it was greeted with A kind of combination of anger and determination That we will not let this stand now if you translate that Feeling where you connect to the feeling that i think people out in the country have as well About that and organize That energy in a positive way into the kinds of reforms that we're talking about I just don't believe at the end of the day that The coke brothers are more powerful than three hundred million americans who decide That they want to get their government their government back And i'll say one other thing in some ways the coke brothers Are the most supremely uninteresting people in the world because they're just two billionaires Who are trying to buy influence and and access and everything else The way it's been done for hundreds a year The more interesting story would be Some guy in a neighborhood who owns a diner or has a bunch of friends in a book club who says you know what? I'm going to become a power player by getting 30 of my friends together having them each contribute 50 Earn matching funds and be able to say to a candidate that wants to do the right thing Here's resources that allow you to run a competitive campaign and by the way to get back to your first question What am i looking for in the democracy? a representative democracy And i emphasize that because i think what's happened is And the reason people are giving up is they don't feel like they're being Presented anymore. We're celebrating this year the march from selma to montgomery 50 years since that amazing protest for the right to vote And i'm encouraging people As they think back on that to realize that the journey of empowerment doesn't end at the ballot box It continues as that ballot box makes its way To washington and if the ballot box gets hijacked We're commandeered by special interests and a bunch of lobbyists before it gets to washington Then the franchise Has been compromised because no longer are you being represented? That person is actually going to have to go do the bidding of special interests and big money So if we want to preserve Our representative democracy, we have to not just preserve the right to vote We have to preserve the right to have your vote mean something And that's what the kind of reform of money and politics that we're talking about is designed to do Okay, so we have a lot of agreement on this pal. I want to I want to see if I can foster some Disagreement So again mark i'm going to take some liberties with Maybe in summarizing what you've said and please correct me if i'm wrong, but Two points that you made That Struck me were that number one you talked about kind of The limits to limits that You can try to limit political spending and you made this point you alluded to this a bit in your in summarizing your paper, but you know We we've become so Ideological ideologically partisan That you can run and add An anti-Obama care ad eight months before an election in a congressman's district and everybody will know what that's about And that's really political spending, but I don't think under any proposal. I've seen something like that There is a proposal to restrict that kind of speech And you all you're even in some ways harsher In your in your or more skating and your criticism of what disclosure Might bring it. I think the way you put it is that that mostly what disclosure Of political spending will tell us is that almost everybody in office is backed by a lot of rich people And that it's there that that That It's too much to expect from the public With all that money that is out there that they'll really be able to make informed choices based on that kind of information So I'm I'm wondering given that summary of either Chair Ravel or congressman Sarbanes if you have any disagreement with either of those points Great, I might want to clarify them Well with regard to limits I and I agree with Mark in the sense that Limits Have limits and There have been times I've been ambivalent about it and thought yes Maybe they're right back in the day when some people said let's have 24 hour disclosure and no limits and That maybe that's a solution to all the super PACs and the other independent money that's coming in and that might be Appropriate to be able to balance it out. At least we know who's giving money, but I now thinking about it through the lens of participation and engagement I think that All of the things that the congressman has talked about and even mark has talked about about ways to get more people involved That they would best work in tandem With limits because I think that limits at least will in some ways encourage people to candidates to also Use small donors as a way to To contribute to their campaigns. So I think just as a matter of just You know One way to encourage even more money coming through small donors With regard to disclosure though That is where I have the most serious disagreement and I I am not under any illusion That disclosure is going to solve campaign finance problems and the issues that we've been talking about about people's disaffection, but There is a lot of evidence that When people know more about Politics and political campaigns that they do feel more trust in the system There's been studies done that say this and the reverse is true if they don't have that information That's when they feel distrust and less empowered and less involved I think there's a direct correlation between disclosure and information and You know the feeling of trust and empowerment and and and also I think disclosure Well a lot of people aren't going to be Understanding and just thinking that it's just oh, it's more rich people behind things There are a lot of examples in politics Where disclosure has made a huge difference and I can think of one There's a bunch of them from california, but there's one that's really kind of an amazing example And it was in the harry reed case against sharon angle and There were This is not disclosure. It's just like I guess it was disclosure too And there there were ads being aired throughout nevada That were in spanish and they were called novates and it was to urge people Hispanics not to vote in the campaign to sit it out don't vote for harry reed because he and obama are trying to Send people back to mexico and So there was kind of a big, you know sort of backlash and there were a lot of people who and they claimed that they were from Some hispanic group But because of disclosure It was discovered that who was actually behind this were people There was like one hispanic who had been in a republican administration whose only Interest in immigration was to actually send people back And nobody else everybody and and as a result I mean it made a really big difference in terms of the of the hispanic vote in nevada And I there's a ton of examples like that people use them as voting cues I think it's really important for busy people who don't know Um about sort of backgrounds of people to have that information and that's one of the reasons dark money Is so problematic because and I I saw this in california people Talk about getting concerned and really interested about these issues when 11 million dollars of dark money was dropped two two weeks before an election People were outraged about it because nobody knew who was behind it. It came from out of state Nobody had ever heard of this group before So I I think disclosure I'm getting worked up Makes the difference I think the point is that Disclosure can't solve Completely the problem that we've been talking about It's an important component No question and so we we need to keep pushing and and frankly that's one Area where the court seems ready to To give us You know give us an opportunity So for that reason alone you might pursue it vigorously because I think it is it can make a difference But at the same time I do think you need this empowerment strategy because Um There's another level at which it can be demoralizing if again, you're you're just You feel like an observer in your own Democracy kind of on the sidelines watching it play out And it's sort of like watching, you know lifestyles of the rich and famous or something you sort of You see all these big money players out there And now yes, there's a better set of rules for how they're going to Conduct themselves non-coordination and and disclosure and potentially even some Limits if you can if you can make that happen but again The average person is still sitting out there in the bleachers and saying This is great, but where do I fit it? And so I think That has to be An integral part of any Package of reform measures that we put forward because You can you can watch those big money players Sitting in your house on television What's going to get you to come back into the political town square? Is believing that your voice is actually Consequential and that's the piece that's Swirly missing Right now, but you have to resource it you have to make it robust. So it's not It's not a bait and switch on that voter out there and when we were designing the Governor by P black There were two audiences that we we needed to address One were members of congress We had to convince them that if they participated in this they could actually still be competitive And we we can show that we built a model. We run the numbers from their 2014 fund raising through the model and we can show Many of them do better a majority of them do better if they participate in a system like this But the other audience were those disaffected Members of the public out there and they needed to look at this and when they peeled it back come away saying These aren't talking points. This is in gimmick reef This is real reform and i'm at the center of it That's the path back from this deep cynicism that's out there one of the paths back, but i think an important one If i can defend myself I mean i think i think there are a couple points here one is i think you know We uh I limits are important But what you want to the value of creating a system like this is it puts less pressure on the limit So there's less payoff to evading the limits. There's less even though you might have some outside spending It's not usually in a place like new york for new york city, for example It's not candidates themselves Or they're operative setting these things up. It's kind it's spontaneous and it's people trying to Trying to get into the system rather than rather than candidates evading limits So I think you need you know, we want to make limits work and that's important on disclosure I mean obviously, uh, the chairwoman's points are great examples of why disclosure is really important for these big This big outside spending. I'm not sure it's that valuable for all, you know, the run of the mill Uh contributors and it's not something this model where I you know I as a voter will look at all the people who contributed to a candidate and kind of figure out why whether I should vote for them Or not as a kind of idealized model that doesn't really work I'm a just to be a little provocative I think we ought to think about whether as part of small donor empowerment We think we rethink what's the level at which a donation should be disclosed It's currently 200 dollars at the federal level. It's lower in some states You know, it's a lot. It's also a lot easier to see that now You know, you might do a google search on somebody and the first thing that comes up actually is their fec record I don't know that that's I think we ought to really consider whether that does or doesn't discourage people There's some academic research on that one area that i'm really interested in and I think we're going to do some work on this later Uh, it gets very little attention is the amount of workplace pressure that now is placed on people Sometimes to make contributions sometimes to you know, spend it I mean the fec has had a couple interesting cases on this one where employees of a union not members of the union employees were Were directed to take their weekend and campaign for a candidate The other cases where workers at a coal mine Were ordered to take the day off and attend a rally for uh for mit romney I mean there's a lot of and i'm just beginning to to dig into some of the research on this There's a lot more of this out there than we know about and if your worker if your boss is telling you what your should do politically You know, you you don't you know, you kind of have a right for them not to see You you have a little bit of a right to privacy below a certain level and there's so much more of that that we know about I hope some people here will come back when we have an event on that in a couple months So I I definitely want to leave time for audience questions A couple of points I just wanted to wrap up on and and maybe be a little bit provocative myself One is we're talking about you know setting up a a system that allows for political opportunity And and congressman sarbanes outlined his The elements in his bill and mark you've talked about new york city You know one of the things about the new york city system is you have a campaign finance board that is committed to that system That really enforces that system that that not only works for enforcement, but that is Constantly looking for ways to ensure that small donors are central in that system and that um That the system has changed so much over the last 30 years Making recommendations for that system to be changed going to the city council and getting those recommendations Adopted, uh, it's hard to imagine That at the federal level I didn't see a question mark Is that is that is that a provocative question? or thought It is it is hard to imagine it but um along with the long view That we've been talking about today. Um, I think that with enough um public Outrage public desire that there be enforcement that that people you know Take these issues seriously I think it can change. I'm I have not given up If so if I had I'd be in california right now enjoying 80 degrees sunshine And certainly, you know In doing some research about the different states and municipal systems I've kind of come to the conclusion that there is one secret sauce That you know you could make any kind of system work or not work But having an agency that's really devoted to it that's really trusted that not only enforces it But you know holds those hearings to say what worked and what didn't is willing to make recommendations Shares a commitment to the bait, you know, they're they're people on those commissions don't agree with each other They're sometimes they're totally nonpartisan, but you know, they have their their views But they share they share the values of the commission That's the secret sauce. Yeah, and let me let me add about that. I mean It's not as if and commissioner wine trove is here It's not as if we don't really take this seriously and in fact we do want the public to Come in and take a look at what we're doing at the fec and just for everybody in the audience next week On february 11th. We are having the first ever in the history of the fec Open hearing for the public to come and testify about any issues that you have With campaign finance systems So we would welcome you and anybody else to come and talk to us because The commission has too long been insulated from hearing what the american public feels about this So I we should uh Allow us a question and while while we're getting the question. I wonder if you could comment on some Mark talks about technology helping for participation. I wonder if you could comment on that Yeah, I I'd really like to because this is a math something that I think is really going to make a difference And I've spent a lot of time um thinking about talking to people and talking to people in silicon valley where i'm from about using technology to get greater civic engagement greater participation Along the lines of what mark already talked about and there The time has shifted in silicon valley and people are now thinking very seriously About government and about how what they can do With technology can make a positive difference in our society there. It's no longer just about a nice new iPhone every year and so They there's lots of groups. I mean you mentioned a couple There's some others who are trying to Engage people in new ways That may not even include Money or contributions. I mean there could be contributions at the end For example, there's a group and it's being funded by um, Sean parker at napster or by For a lot of money It's called brigade and one of the things that they're doing Is working on a buzzfeed like A platform that will either have questionnaires for people Online all of this online and you know some of us will take all these questionnaires and say yes You should live in new york city as opposed to san francisco or whatever Instead what they're hoping to do is get A series of questions about people's views and and then at the end of it. They will say Based on your responses here. We think that you would be supporting This candidate or that candidate Would you like to sign up? And show your support and say that you are going to be supporting that person You don't have to give money you can give money if you want and they're hoping Millions of people they're looking for a really big platform Will sign up and that way they can avoid the money issue Indicate to the candidates Here's your support these people have actually put their names on the line And they're going to do this not only at buzzfeed questions They're going to do with games and other things that will appeal to a vast audience And there's lots of other groups that are thinking in the same ways and I think it's going to have I'm very optimistic that it's going to have a big impact on trying to get the kinds of Involvement not just of the small donors We have now a bit of all the people that they can as long as we can get more access to the internet from all communities as well Because that's a you know, that's a fiscal issue too. But anyway, I don't want to go on too long I want to have a lead druntman who my colleague here and there's a book coming out about lobbying Will moderate the q&a or will moderate the audience participation. So Hi My name is rowey. I'm the executive director of an anti corruption organization called not in my country And we create web and mobile applications that empower people to fight corruption So the things that I'm hearing from the panel here are music to my ears of using Technology in new and interesting ways. My question is And by the way, I think your proposal congressman is fantastic And I and I am very interested in getting behind it But I also wonder if we should be doing more to enforce laws that already exist On the on the books the one that comes to mind that no one ever seems to bring up Is the false claims act which was passed at the end of the civil war, which was a a period that Some people might know Involved a lot of corruption war profiteering government contracts so on um, what's interesting about this law Is that it empowers whistleblowers by saying that anyone that has information related to Waste fraud abuse or corruption in government contracts if you bring the information to the doj And it proved they you can prove that that that this is in fact the case the contractor can be charged Three times as much and the whistleblower gets 15 to 25 as a reward But you don't that the american public doesn't seem to know that that's there And we're always talking about the investment side of corruption, but not about the execution Side on the other end when all this money gets funneled into The pockets of the elites shall we say? And i'm wondering if there might be more that we could do to promote The false claims act for example Well, I I confess i've not thought about the application of the false claims act to this area of money and politics And i'd have to think through exactly What the nexus Would be in terms of using the false claims act I mean Obviously it's premised first and foremost and fundamentally on the idea that a false claim is being made So you have a definitional Challenge there in terms of looking at The kind of activity that goes on in the making of donations and then the spending Of money in campaign So i'm intrigued, but I I can't tell you that I have an immediate reaction to it And and I have a quote plan the idea that the all these rulings the Supreme Court made out all of them, but At least a hundred are null and void Corporations, there's no way you could read a constitution to say they have rights They are committing fraud on the court and they quote a precedent that says that And that has to be so we have to get the if you pass the new law They can vacate it they could they can do all kinds of things with it Congress makes the laws They cannot vacate the law Are Do away with the other one one of the main point it has to be part of a bigger plan If we don't have a justice department that's going to enforce the rule of law We don't have an office department and people That are going to get rid of these stupid illegal wars We're we're not going to have problems. We don't get rid of the wealth divide. Anyway, thank you very much I think we'll just let the those comments stand Hi, my name is Richard Skinner And uh one of the criticisms that's often made of programs to encourage small donors is that they're going to empower more extreme candidates because Small donors are more likely to support extreme candidates as opposed to large donors who might be more access oriented I think there's actually quite a bit of evidence Against that proposition, but I'm wondering if anybody on the panel has concerns That's something like a tax credit scheme or a matching scheme Would end up empowering people farther to the left or farther to the right Well, I'd love to address that because I've heard that critique I think the problem with that is that People that worry about it are looking at the small donor universe as it exists now And not thinking about the small donor universe that we can create with the kinds of incentives that that we've put into our legislation what I mean by that is You do have this universe of small donors that responds to You know a kind of light your hair on fire appeal And it tends to be a polarized group on one side Or the others so people look at that and they say my god if we're gonna We're gonna go into a world where we're trying to create You know millions of more small donors. Aren't we just gonna end up with that kind of a of a group I think that there's there's such a thing as say the rational small donor who right now Isn't going to give 25 dollars because they've figured out That it doesn't matter They so in other words when you make the appeal unless they're motivated by some, you know, some kind of passionate response If they look at it analytically And I think that's where most americans would be as potential small donors They're gonna say i'm not gonna give 25 or 50 dollars because there's somebody out there who can give a thousand or 5000 Who's gonna get the attention of the canada? I think what you do with a matching system Is you encourage these rational small donors to get into the game because now they're saying well, you know what $50 Actually will get some attention and if I Organized 25 or 30 of my friends to do the same thing I'm gonna have the candidate standing in my living room Instead of standing on k street So I think we need to be careful not to predict what a small donor universe would look like Which I think would be a kind of universe of rational small donors who now want to step into the game and become Power players by just looking at what the small donor experience has been up to this point in time I think we've seen in new york city that it's also the the candidate behavior itself changes So you have candidates affirmatively going out and and trying to organize small donors Whereas as the congressman was saying before it would have never occurred to the candidate to say Hey, I'll I'll ask my my friend joe to get 10 of his friends And they only have to contribute $20 each and suddenly I've made a lot of money and I we have definitely seen that happen in new york And I don't I don't think in new york city. You've particularly gotten Ideologically extreme candidates running under the system and winning under the system I think that can I just say I think that's That's basically right. I also think there's a lot of things that that you've built into your bill congressman That think about this so like having the The matches and credit available only for in-state contribution Means that you don't have a lot of the times when people study this they look at you know People like michelle bachman who have big national mailing lists of small donors But if you're if you're really giving the preference to in-state or in district Donors you have a very different calculus there But you know some of the time isn't there things we don't know we don't know what a Tax credit system would really you know, hopefully it would bring in a lot of different people who are not currently donors And who are probably not as as engaged, but we you know a lot of this requires some experimentation I would love to see a state or city really try just a pure voucher Just you know, here's your 25 bucks to all the only thing you can do with it is make a political contribution to To a candidate to a party maybe to an organization and begin to see what would happen There's a lot that we that we should be eager to know more about Adam lia's with demos mark. I'm hoping you could say a little bit more about the constitutional implications for this so What are we moving beyond corruption as a legal framework towards political opportunity? What kinds of policies would be upheld that are that are currently struck down? Well, I think if you I think what you know, we don't know how far the court Wants to go Beyond where it is. I mean pretty much everything we're talking about here would be whatever framework you use would be upheld No matter what you you don't really need a whole new framework In order to be pretty confident that something like the government by the people act would be Would would be upheld, but it would give you more room to do that Well, one of the things I'm trying to do here I mean a way kind of my thinking about this began with the conference of the brenden center Which was a lot of people were I think you were there too You know, there's a lot of you know real legal superstars thinking about how do we think about the legal framework for this And I kind of came away thinking I want to make sure we're thinking about the legal framework Not as a thing in itself like what are we going to tell the supreme court? But as the legal framework and the in the actual way we talk about this in the real world need to be You know need to be kind of the same thing And need to reflect One another and and happen at the same time. So that's that's a big part of my goal here is to kind of bring those two things in alignment problem at all having in post I guess my question is to the congressman and Mark mostly about You know an issue that you have with a lot of congressmen is that they're raising money not just for themselves But for the party and so you know and this goes for probably most congressmen Would a lot of people opt in or opt out? Because most of the money that they're raising, you know, you have like john bainer raising 22 million dollars most of that's going to the nrcc um, I mean how how would this system impact that and is there a way to Address the fact that a lot of fundraising isn't about winning their own election. It's about helping the party well I guess my proposal starts With having in mind the candidates who are thinking about You know winning their race each time and wanting to have confidence that they can be competitive It also starts with the expectation That you would have Candidates who now Don't really have a difficult time being reelected and therefore may have More expendable dollars to contribute to others who would Frankly have to get about the business of Reaching out to their constituents in a more meaningful way than maybe they've Become accustomed to because challengers would now have access to Public funding if they go out and work hard and knock on doors and and collect small donations and so forth so Um, I don't think that answers your question. I will I will observe this A few weeks ago. We had this Provision that was passed as part of the crominobus that significantly limit Lifted and raised the limits on What high donors can contribute to the political parties? and If we had had A small donor matching system concept more in the the mix at the time People on the hill were looking at well. What do we do to make sure parties can you know remain strong? You might have had a proposal for a hybrid system of small donor matching for political parties Which would be Small donors stepping up and saying we'll we'll support The funding of conventions and and some other party apparatus, but we'll do it with small donation plus public matching fund which ends up being a hybrid of where we're headed And where we're coming from because as you know, those were things that were publicly financed for a while And then that's dropped off and now it's going to be replaced by private donations The beauty of a hybrid approach is you got the private donation coming from the small donors from lots of everyday citizens You have the public component coming from the matching fund the end of the day The beauty of it is those parties and candidates the extent you have a system like that are dependent upon The public a combination of the public being small donors And the public being public matching funds and that's that's a better place to be than where we are now Yeah, I think I think you know I was talking before about how a lot of the A lot of the way money works politics is is how somebody obtains power by being a broker of money So certain members of congress have a lot of influence over other members You know a freshman member of congress doesn't have they have more ability to raise money than they did before they were elected But it's not necessarily easy and somebody and they and they're going to have a one or two tough races ahead Somebody who can get them that money has a lot of power within the institution if you create other channels For you know both for challengers and even for those for those freshmen The ones who all wanted to be on the financial services committee after they got elected in in 2006 or 2008 for example You know you create other ways for them to operate you kind of diffuse some of that internal power In the institution as well means I'm just an ordinary citizens and I get mail it says Give me five bucks because the Koch brothers are going to give me millions of dollars and I'm going my five bucks Are you kidding that it just is incredible? But I really support what you're saying and my question is Has montgomery county's done something like this? And and how because I think I heard that at another session that I was about uh, reversing citizen United I'm going from here to a forum in montgomery county To talk about this issue and montgomery county did in their last councilman accession Pass a small donor matching system bill Which there's great expectations about it has to be funded I mean you have to you have to get the county government now to set aside sufficient dollars to resource and underwrite this System but it's very similar actually to the design of our bill in terms of the matching The multiplier and so forth it's all premised on what we've been talking about here, which is to encourage small donors to step in and become Kind of lift up the campaign finance on their shoulders and in return expect To see more accountability from elected officials I will also observe because many of you in here are probably thinking about this That uh, maryland's new republican governor was elected with public funding And was outspent quite significantly But put together Pretty good grassroots operation in part because he needed to to qualify for the the public funding He said yesterday in his state at state speech that he's going to Propose putting the tax check off back On to the maryland tax return to help fund this going forward Um, we'll see what else can be done perhaps to broaden public financing to other Seats or other Offices within maryland because right now outside of Montgomery county It only exists for the governor and the lieutenant governor But you're seeing examples in arizona and main and connecticut in new york city Uh, to demonstrate this is not a fantasy. This can actually work and it has real positive consequences A lot of good stuff happening in maryland I think it was one or two more years Do you is is there a chance that that would have any kind of Impact the election of governor hogan in terms of republicans Uh, you know, you mentioned you have one republican on your on your bill I mean you think that there's a chance to reach out to some more republicans based on that or or that he would You know that there would be any impact from his election wider than wider than just one a one time Well, I think what it It is is it's just an example that you can point to that the benefits of this You know to the extent anyone party and you and you might assume that it's the democratic party because these reforms are coming First out of the democratic corner views this as a benefit for them their examples to refute that and Frankly the modeling that we did Of members of congress and how they would fair under this proposal if they were to participate shows that um Republicans are doing just as well Under that scenario as democrats would do so match that up with The fact that when you go out and pull people across a political spectrum you see Really common sentiment about this and the need for this among Conservatives and even when you talk about putting public dollars behind it through this matching plan You look longitudinally at these surveys and you're seeing increasing support Not just across the whole spectrum But from the conservative side of the spectrum. I think there's great potential there. I think that we need to Have a conversation that crosses party lines And you may end up in a room sitting across from Someone and saying we don't agree on anything substantively But we do agree that everyday citizens deserve to have their voice heard In washington and let's see how we can collaborate to create a system that will do that I'm jared sonica I just have a quick following up on that last question a bit because I think as we've seen within congress and just throughout Other public discourse that laying out the facts that you like these numbers that you're running does not necessarily the facts themselves Don't necessarily convince people a lot of time. There needs to be a narrative So i'm curious what your strategy is for within your party and reaching across the aisle to convince People to support this legislation when the donors that have been behind them for so long have every incentive to Combat you and they're going to be whispering in their ears while you're trying to talk to them as well Well, that's a good question because we do have to build a compelling and sustaining narrative The one I find the most appealing because I think it kind of gets people's attention and it captures Exactly what we're trying to achieve is to say to any audience Somebody is going to own your government It's not just going to sit there somebody's going to own it And either it's going to be big money and special interest in which case when it comes time to make policy That's the direction that lawmakers will lean in Where it's going to be you it's going to be everyday citizens in the public Let's go design a system That puts you in charge that makes you the owners of your government again And then you will have the rightful expectation And it will oftentimes be met that when those people go to make policy They'll make it for you instead of making it for the special interest fundamentally. That's what we're talking about And there are many different avenues to ensure that government is being owned again By the people and that's why we chose this name come by the people. I mean Abraham Lincoln knew what he was talking about We need to get back to a government by the people not by special interest not by Big money. It is such a fundamental tenant of our democracy That It's odd that we're having to make such an argument about it in a sense But if we present this narrative To the to the public and we offer solutions Because part of the problem is everybody's lamenting the problem And the public doesn't necessarily feel like They're a practical solution And I want to I want to try working with people like the folks on this panel and others to begin moving the discussion into the solution space because that's where we'll find hope And with hope comes energy and with energy comes results and progress and I fundamentally believe that we can make this happen. It's not going to happen overnight But it will happen in part because it has to what other options are before us right Let's I I mean I I think that's terrific I just want to add a couple things particularly about the issue of making sure that ultimately we will have to get to A much broader coalition In support of this, I mean any kind of reform to the process people have to feel like It's it's a just system whether they're whether their policy outcomes win or not And part of democracy and Larry asked about the vision of democracy part of the vision of democracy You know is is feeling like you don't always get what you want But you kind of have a confidence that the process that got you there was fair And that's and that's what you need to what what you ultimately will um We'll need to get to and I think you know this issue Years ago when I was first involved in this issue It was kind of an elite bipartisan issue where there was no grassroots interest engagement at all It was like the era of mccain fine gold Before that the bill was called gold water boron, you know, it's just like distinguished esteemed Men in figuring out what to do with no grassroots interest now. We have a lot of grassroots interests It's a really great moment, but it's predominantly on one side So we have to get to the point where we have You know, it's not going to be an elite bipartisan issue again. We're not going back to that and that's good It's got to be an issue that people feel in their bones And it's got to be get to the point where what people Feel in their bones that leads them to the tea party or that leads them to other kinds of Makes them conservatives makes them libertarians or whatever what they feel in their bones about the system And what other people who have sort of different underlying values or policy preferences feel They realize like that there's a there's a solution that is is Make will make both of them feel like they're at least heard even if they don't always win Can I just add one small Comment about that I I actually see if you follow the press and follow op-eds and the like A movement in that direction you see You know people from the small business association saying, you know, this does not benefit us Number of conservative voices that have come out and certainly members of the tea party I think it's there's a time where we can start to expand the group of people who really care about these issues And we really need to do that for sure in order to make it something that that all the people are going to You know get behind, but I think it's I think I have hopes that it's going to be sooner than you think