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JAISAL NOOR: This is The Real News, and I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore.
Tuesday marks the fourth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Citizens United.
It was determined corporations and unions have the same free-speech rights as people,
therefore removed restrictions on corporate and union spending on elections.
Now joining us to discuss the fourth anniversary of Citizens United is Richard Briffault. He's
the author of many works, including Dollars and Democracy: A Blueprint for Campaign Finance
Reform.
And just a note for our viewers: Richard is joining us on the phone due to technical difficulties.
Thank you so much for joining us, Richard.
RICHARD BRIFFAULT: Thank you for having me.
NOOR: So, Richard, four years after this historic, landmark Supreme Court decision, tell us exactly
what has been the impact of this decision on elections in the United States.
BRIFFAULT: Okay. It's a little too hard to say that for everything. And often what happens
with something like this is the impact is felt more dramatically sort of lower down
in smaller elections in some jurisdictions. So, as you indicated, what Citizens United
said was that corporations and unions now have the right to spend in unlimited amounts
in elections. They still can't give to candidates, but they can spend on their own independently
or, you know, with other groups.
We didn't see that much corporate money in the presidential election or in the congressional
elections the last two times, in fact, and when we did see corporate money, it was often,
you know, family businesses, closely held businesses, not big corporations. Very few
Fortune 500 companies. There may be more of those involved at the state and local level,
but that data, it hasn't been gathered as much.
In some odd ways, the corporations that are most active are actually nonprofit corporations,
which have been able to serve as vehicles for the spending by very wealthy individuals,
who could have spent before but would have been spending in a very open way. Now, by
setting up super PACs, by setting up a 501(c)(4) nonprofit so-called groups for civic betterment,
social welfare organizations, they can kind of mingle their money with other people's
money under a group with a name like's Americans for Good Government and without being effectively
disclosed. So the real upsurge has been less big business money, although there's some
of that, and more actually in wealthy individuals, who legally could have done this before, but
maybe now feel more comfortable doing it because they can run their money through nonprofit
corporations.
NOOR: Now, Stephen Colbert had a hilarious range of skits about these super PACs.
BRIFFAULT: That's exactly the kind of name that these organizations use and that don't
tell you anything about what they're about.
NOOR: And so what kind of scale of spending are we talking about here?
BRIFFAULT: Well, at the federal elections last time, we were talking in the, I don't
know, $200-300 million range, which sounds like a lot, but it's actually still only a
small percentage of the total amount of money in elections. So it's hard to say, because
it's not all effectively reported. Probably--and even if it's more than that, it's probably
not more than 10 or 15 percent of what was spent in the presidential congressional elections
last time. There's still a huge amount of other money that's in the system.
NOOR: So a doomsday scenario, as some had predicted, would you agree hasn't quite materialized,
at least yet?
BRIFFAULT: It hasn't materialized. I think most big companies, even though they clearly
have the wealth, most what are called publicly held companies, companies that have shareholders
and are traded on the stock exchange or stock exchanges are kind of nervous about being
out there in a very public way. I don't know if you saw the incident involving the Target
Corporation in Minnesota. They gave some money to an organization which in turn was using
that money to support a candidate for governor. Their view was that he was good for them on
business issues. But he also had a very kind of an anti-gay rights, anti-marriage equality
platform. And they prided themselves on being pro-equality, and they were very embarrassed
by it. And I think the example of--and there was a boycott, there was a lot of attention
to it. I think the example of what can happen with bad publicity may mean that many corporations
are reluctant to get involved--not 100 percent, but you don't see very many big companies
getting directly involved in at least federal elections.
NOOR: And I think it's important to, you know, bring up the point for those that did predict
or do say that we're in this kind of--we're in a situation where we won't have democracy
until this is repealed. What's your response to that? Because there's always been money
in politics in America.
BRIFFAULT: Yeah. I think actually it's the wrong target to aim at. It's not the corporations.
It's the money. And it's not only corporations that have a lot of money in our system. You
know, in the last election, the biggest spenders, you know, the people who pumped $100 million
of their own money into the election, were individuals. You know, a single wealthy couple
put $100 million dollars in the election. That's a lot of money. And there are people
in this country who have that much money. So all you need is a handful of extremely
wealthy people. And if you only target corporations, you're also missing other very wealthy individuals.
NOOR: And we always like to talk about solutions on The Real News. Talk about what is being
done around the country to challenge this and what can happen. Just what are the laws,
as far as the laws that states can pass, to limit spending in local but also federal elections?
BRIFFAULT: Okay. Well, given the current Supreme Court, unless there's a constitutional amendment
or unless there's a dramatic change in the Court, neither of which I expect in the near
future--and it's very hard to get a constitutional amendment passed, and certainly the current
Congress is not going to even take the first step. Leaving aside a dramatic change in constitutional
law, you can't limit spending.
So the two kinds of strategies that are being pursued at the state and local level--'cause,
again, Congress is not going to do anything in the near-term--one is better disclosure
of the money that's out there and trying to reach these secretive organizations, the dark-money
organizations that tell you--the Americans for a Better Tomorrow, who say, okay, we just
spent $10 million, but won't tell you where they're getting their money. And many states
are moving to improve disclosure of those people.
Second is public funding, which doesn't limit the amount of money the rich or that corporations
can spend, but to some extent can dilute its impact by giving other candidates money that's--taking
small donations and matching it, often multiple match, a 4-to-1 or a 5-to-1 match, in a way
that empowers relatively small people, people with small resources, is the second thing.
And third, some states are doing a lot of work on what's called pay-to-play, lowering
the ability of people who do business with the government--government contractors and
others--to give money in connection with elections. It's not clear whether they can extend that
to this independent spending, but that would be something that could be tried.
So those would be the three things--better disclosure of these independent groups, more
public funding, which, again, doesn't stop anybody from putting money in but, hopefully,
dilutes the impact, and some kind of targeted restrictions, particularly on people who have
direct stakes in government action 'cause they do business with government.
NOOR: And there's also a move to amend this Supreme Court decision.
BRIFFAULT: There's a move to amend the Constitution. That's a long-term strategy, which is--nothing
wrong with that, but I think you've got to be prepared to spend a very long time on that.
To amend the Constitution, you've got to get it through--get two-thirds majorities in both
houses of Congress. You know, the current constitution, you're not going to get it for
sure through one of the houses of Congress [incompr.] Congress. Now, that Congress can
change. And then you've got to get it passed, ratified by three-quarters of the states.
So this is definitely a long-term strategy and not something that's going to happen any
time soon. But it's--you know, I'm not saying people shouldn't try it. I'm just saying it's
a long-term strategy.
NOOR: Well, thank you so much for joining us.
BRIFFAULT: Okay. Glad to be helpful.
NOOR: You can follow us @therealnews on Twitter. Tweet me questions and comments @jaisalnoor.
Thank you so much for joining us.