Gov. Steve Bullock on Getting Big Money Out of Politics [10-17-19]

Foreign. This is Larry Lessig. This is the third season of the podcast Another Way. The subtitle for this season, as you know, if you're listening, is POTUS 1, our effort to frame a commitment to fundamental reform and to get the candidates for president to accept it. And so I'm extremely happy and eager today to speak with the guest that we have today, the extraordinary governor from the red state of Montana, Steve Bullock, who is running as a Democrat in the Democratic primary for president. And as you'll hear today, Bullock has been a reformer at the state level since he began in state government. He was the attorney General that took the first case up to the Supreme Court after Citizens United, trying to challenge Citizens United, only to have his case slapped down by the court without even giving him the the honor of a hearing. So he has been a reformer from the very beginning. The focus of our conversation will be his support for reform at the federal level and if Indeed he becomes POTUS 46, what he'll do to make sure that that is the last president elected under this corrupt political system. That's the topic. Stay tuned for the episode. So, as you know, Equal Citizens has produced these podcasts. My salary and running these podcasts is a multiple of the number 0. So the costs for me have been quite low. There are production costs, however, and there's distribution and marketing costs, and there's the cost of keeping the small but incredibly talented team at Equal Citizens going. Every year for one slice of the year, one short slice of the year, and only one short slice of the year, we ask people to help us keep the project going. And so if you're one of those people who's enjoyed these podcasts or believes in the work of reform that we have been engaging in, I hope you'll go to our website, EqualCitizens US, and see what we've been doing and find that donate button, which is not the biggest button, not the most important button, but at least at this time of the year, an important button, and click on it. And we hope you can join us in a small amount every month, a fraction of your cable bill every month, so that we know we have the resources to keep this project going. I can't tell you how excited I am this year, and I wouldn't have said I was going to be this excited a year ago. I am really surprised at the success we've had, not just us. I don't claim credit for this myself. The success that this movement has had in getting people in this election season to focus on this issue. And we want to continue that push so that by the election in 2021 clear dimension of choice among the candidates who stand before America is who will, in the words of some, drain the swamp or who will, in the words of others, end the corrupting influence of money is in this political system and get us a democracy, a representative democracy that can represent us equally. Maybe not again, maybe for the first time. Today, we're gonna talk to Steve Bullock, who comes from Missoula, Montana, where he is the Governor of Montana. He's a graduate of Claremont College, Columbia Law School. He was an ADJ professor of law at Georgetown Law School. He became the Attorney General in Montana and was an aggressive fighter after Citizens United for Reform that would make it possible for Montana to continue the really effective regulation that Montana had had to keep the corrupting influence of money at a bay in their elections. He then was elected governor, first by a plurality and then by a majority in 2016. And he has been an incredibly popular governor fighting for reform in a whole rang of important progressive issues in Montana. He is an exciting addition to this campaign. Whatever your candidate might be right now, you should listen carefully to the promise that he can make about how he will make reform happen. Welcome. Governor Bullock. I am so incredibly happy to talk to you because, you know, we've been trying to elevate reform candidates, and you've come right out of the gate with one of the strongest reform platforms that there is. And so first, I'd like to thank you as a Democrat and as a citizen for taking the lead to make this issue so central. But I want to try to unpack a little bit about what you've talked about here. And I want to first make clear one really important point. I've seen it's referred to a number of places, and let's just get it on the record here. We've been talking about candidates who we call POTUS 1 candidates. That's kind of a playoff of HR1. What that means is they both believe fundamental reform is necessary and that they'll take it up first. Are you that kind of candidate?

I am, Professor Lessig. I mean, this has been the fight of my career. 10 years in public office actually organized the states. When Citizens United first came up, took the first case of the US Supreme Court after Citizens United. I'm taking steps all the way along. It's the fight of my career, but I think it's also the challenge of our time. So I am one of those candidates that. That's my Day one agenda. And if we want to get all the stuff done that Democrats are talking about through this primary. I think this is at the base foundation of all of it.

So we're completely agreed about that. So that's great to clear. And I want to take your plan is extraordinary. It covers an amazing range of reforms and we could spend hours going in the details of that. I want to focus on two really critical parts. One, I want to talk a little bit about the Citizens United bit because I agree this has been your fight forever. And then second, I want to focus drill down really deeply on your big idea about how to change the way Washington works. But let's start with Citizens United. So you've called for an amendment to reverse Citizens United. You've actually lived the life of a anti Citizens United activist in a deeply red state. Montana passed a referendum with 75% of the vote to overturn Citizens United in 2012. And you took that case to the Supreme Court. ATPV Bullock of course the Supreme Court didn't even give you the dignity of having an oral argument. They slapped you down summarily. It was really terrible, terrible decision on their part. But help us understand what Mitch McConnell does not understand about red states when it comes to Citizens United. Why is this so popular in a state like Montana?

Well, I think Montana had this history of corporate corruption where copper kings, these wealthy copper barons, literally controlled every local, state and federal election. You know, it wasn't even known just in Montana. Mark Twain talked about one of them, William Clark. He said, you know, he buys politicians like most people buy food and raiment. The corruption no longer has an offensive smell they in Montana, but it was regular Montanans that took their government back in the 1900s. And we've taken this view and I've actually been able to get some of the most progressive legislation passed through 2/3 Republican legislature. Because at the end of the day, folks recognize that it's their voice and their engagement that's being crowded out when you have dark money spending and all this corporate spending. So I think that we've been able to show that even in what might be viewed as a Republican state, if we're actually really listening to the voters, we're listening to folks that want to be engaged that their vote and their voice is so much more important than all this money and they want to make sure that it can be heard.

So to do that, you, you know, obviously your campaign document doesn't have an amendment attached to it. You say you want an amendment to reverse Citizens United and quote, set reasonable campaign limits what do you think that includes? What's the scope of restrictions you think the government should have the power to impose?

Yeah, and I think even before we get to the constitutional amendment, you know, there's a lot that we can do for sunshine and transparency and we've done a lot of that in Montana as well. But, but I think just a wholesale of trying to get back to a Buckley view of the world where it's not just quid pro quo corruption, where we actually look at how money can corrupt the entire system, where corporations can't make unlimited spending. An amendment that just takes head on what was, I think one of the most misguided decisions in my lifetime. And that was that Citizens United decision. Now I think that you can do additional regulation of campaign spending and campaign activities in a way that doesn't necessarily encroach on the First Amendment. Because when we look at the compelling interest, there should be nothing more compelling than making Washington D.C. work and that regular folks voices can be heard.

Yeah. So if you had an amendment, obviously you could force the court to accept a different framework. You know, the complexity in Buckley was that Buckley said that rich people could spend unlimited amounts of money. And what Citizens United said was, well, if rich people can spend unlimited amounts of money, so long as it's independent, corporations should too. So if you reverse Citizens United for corporations, are you also saying that we should have a system where Congress can say rich people can't spend unlimited amounts of money independently of a political campaign?

Yeah, and I would love to see that happen by all means. Now you as a, you know, the constitutional professor, all defer to you on whether that could ever actually occur. Would love to make it though. I mean, the way that Citizens United essentially equated corporations with people, where corporations really are nothing more than a creation of government and an aggregation of dollars, it seems like that should be a pretty easy lift to be able to overturn by a constitutional amendment. Now, whether we could ever put caps on an individual's and an individual dollars flowing in these campaigns in independent expenditures, I think that, you know, would be sort of like the third layer hurdle to try to hop over. But there's so much we have to get done even before we get to that point.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, your plan has really powerful disclosure requirements. All things that Congress can do tomor the amendment. Of course Congress can't do tomorrow even if it wanted to. When you think about the prospect of the amendment, I'll be frank with you. The thing that's frustrated me about amendment talk is that like you, I think there's so much we can do before we get an amendment and that most of the energy should be focused on that. Even though I completely agree we need something like an amendment. But when you think of the politics of an amendment, you know, this is where you're the expert, not me. How do you envision 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states here? I mean, you're convinced a state like Montana would pass it. And that's pretty important because Montana is pretty typical of red states. So we could imagine getting many red states to pass it. But in the United States Congress, do you really think we've got 20 plus Republican senators who would pass an anti Citizens United amendment?

I don't know that we do, Professor. That from the perspective of like a law that I got passed in Montana saying 501c4 disclosure spending or dark money spending in the last 90 days has to be completely disclosed if you're going to make any of those spendings. You know, I got that through a 2/3 Republican legislature. So I have hope when it's posed to local city councils, when it's posed to people all across the state, country, they clearly say they would like to see Citizens United overturned either by an amendment or by a judicial decision. You know, we know, look, the equal rights amendment, that we've been working on it for about a century. That's why I think that at the end of the day, right. That we know that we have to do something to undercut what Citizens United has done in this representative democracy. I think we should push for constitutional amendment, but no one should think, well, there's nothing that we can do until we amended the Constitution.

Hear, hear. Right, okay, one last point on this amendment question. So some people have said if we can't get Congress to propose an amendment, there should be what's called an Article 5 convention. You can't pull this professor thing on me because you are a professor too. So no, I'm not going to allow that move. You know, so an Article 5 convention which would have the power to propose amendments, including of course, an amendment like this. Do you have a view on the Article 5 convention process or is this something you guys haven't thought through yet?

Well, I haven't really fully thought through it. I mean, the, I think the challenge is making sure that we have an engaged enough citizenry that if we're ever going to open up the Constitution, you know, we would want to make sure that there's a lot of thought as far as where else an article 5 might end up going. That's why I think the more narrow targeted of trying to address what is holding us back in so many ways, it's a big lift. I mean, I wouldn't suggest otherwise. And there are folks that have been working on it ever since Citizens United almost. But I think the popular sentiment and the good thing is like, if you get outside of Washington, dc, if you get outside of sort of the bodies of power, most folks, Democrats or Republicans, all think that the system's pretty corrosive right now.

Absolutely. I mean, I've spent a dozen years on the road talking about this and I have never found outside of Washington more than three people together who think that the existing system is anything other than corrupt.

No, that's right. That's absolutely right.

Okay, but let's shift to what I think is really the exciting and big idea. And it's really unique among campaigns out there in the Democratic process for nomination. The big idea is basically once you're elected to federal office, you have to shut down your campaign for half the term of office. And what shut down your campaign means is the dissolve and send the money somewhere else. You have a whole list of places you can send the money you might happen to have. But basically, as an incumbent, you have won. You go do your job for half your term at least, and then beginning halfway through the term, you can begin the process of building the support necessary to run for reelection. Have I summarized it in a fair way?

Yeah. Other than, you know, on the one hand, it's a big idea. On the other hand, thinking that the people that we elect to represent us will spend at least half their term actually doing their job should be almost a pretty no brainer, if you will. But that's exactly it. That once you get reelected or elected, you can't until halfway through your term's over, Start preparing for that next election by doing things like having a campaign account or raising money. Money, because, you know, one estimate was last Congress, they spent 1.5 million hours actually raising money, you know, and they're told from the beginning when they come, you not have to get on the phone and start having fundraisers right away and think about how that time could be spent. Just the opportunity cost of that time, you know, actually going to committee here or listening to constituents or, heaven forbid, building relationships with other members, including members from the opposite side of the aisle.

Yeah, I mean, it's so depressing when a member of Congress goes to Congress and is told that his or her job really isn't Anything to do with what the framers thought a member of Congress was supposed to do, his job is to basically be a fundraiser. I like the fact you cite in the beginning of the discussion of this a Huffington Post article that leaked this image that the Democratic Campaign Committee had shared with all newly elected members of Congress about how they should allocate their day. And up to half their time was supposed to be call time. I'm proud that I was the one that leaked that image to the Huffington Post. Glad to see it continue to live. So it is outrageous and it completely corrupts and destroys the capacity of our Congress to do its job. But it's a very tricky proposal. Right. So it's first of all important that you're talking about a restriction on members of Congress. I take it that's because you believe it wouldn't be possible to impose the same restriction on people who are not members of Congress.

Well, I think two things. And first of all, you know, the idea of once you're done with an election, having to close your campaign account. We've been doing that in Montana for years. Like when I got elected governor, I could only, you know, anything left in my account had to go to those expenses that had been incurred during that election, not thinking about the next one, and then did have to dispose the money to charities and other things. No, I think for both elected members and non elected like you could just as we have filing deadlines and filing time frames that you could turn around and say that, you know, if it's a House member, not before one year out could you actually file and start whether that is an elected member, you know, an incumbent or a challenger. Think about like this president did something unique right after he was sworn in, he started his reelection, make the same for the president two years in and the challengers could only start two years in as well. And I think what that does too is that, you know, it's not just the content of the time, you know, those 1.5 million hours or the four hours a day where you're not talking to constituents, you're talking to moneyed interests. But it also, so many good people turn around and say, I'm not gonna run for office just because of the war chests that are already built up by incumbents, that puts challengers on a much better footing as well.

Yeah, but okay, now, but we have to speak lawyer to lawyer here for a second. Right. Because obviously if you're talking about, I mean, this proposal doesn't do it, but if you think you are doing it because you also would have the power to restrict people who are not yet members. This court would have a real problem with that. Right. I mean, there's no constitutional basis for stopping someone from campaigning for office prior to a certain date under the reasoning the court has given for regulating political speech, is there?

Well, and I think, and look at, even an elected member could be out there campaigning, I suppose, in doing their job. But I think it's worth testing. Just as we've allowed limits to be set, just as we've put filing timelines to be set, there's no reason why at the same time then the time period for soliciting those contributions at least shouldn't be well tested and seen where a court would go. I mean, from that perspective, that, and maybe it's nobody's challenged the fact that we have to close out our accounts and start in Montana, but it's worked out pretty darn well there. And the thought is that the interest is in making sure that you're not limiting their ability to start thinking about this, start taking the movements. But the actual if we can set limits on how much can be contributed, because at some threshold, people are concerned that an individual contributing to a campaign, that could be corruption. I don't know that it's that much of a stretch to say the time frame of when those contributions could be received.

Well, it would maybe, you know, we both could agree that would be a good idea and we should see it like that, although I think it's hard to see how the court would get there. But what's really interesting, and I thought this is where you were going with the proposal, is there's been a lot of great work to suggest that actually Congress could do a lot more to set the ethics rules of members of Congress than Congress could do to pass a law to regulate how people run for Congress. So inside Congress, you can say here's how a Congressperson has to behave. They have to spend half their time at least being a member of Congress, which means for the first two years of or three years of being a senator or first year of being a congressperson, you don't campaign, you don't raise money for your campaign. Now, I'm not sure whether the court would uphold that, but it would be a whole new enterprise for Supreme Court review for them to step in and start policing how Congress tries to regulate its own members. And it creates a real opportunity, I think, to clean up at least the perception of Congress doing its job, which I agree with you, is a really important part of the Problem.

Yeah. And unfortunately, I think it is more than just a perception. I mean, when you look at climate, income inequality, drug prices, gun safety, so many of these things can be tracked back to the lack of action really is the corrupting influence of money in the system.

Yes. And you know, another one of the late entrants in this campaign, Michael Bennett, who is also a keen reformer, he talks about what he describes as the corruption of inaction, which is produced by these Citizens United super PACs, where everyone's terrified to do anything and so on every single important issue, money can stop anything from happening much more effectively than money can buy something actually happening. Because that's just the nature of our separated powers, that you can stop things more easily than you can make them happen.

Well, and it's not even the expenditure. I mean, when I took ATP versus Bullock up to the US Supreme Court and the, yeah, it was a summary disposition, but on a 5, 4 decision. I mean, I even had testimony from Republican former statewide officeholders talking about what just the threat of that potential spending could do to our state House. And at times, as Senator Bennett says, the inaction that occurs. So it's not even the spinning effect money, it's just knowing that that money could be spent if a senator or a representative steps out of line.

It's the economics of a protection racket. And you, I mean, not only, I mean the judge, the decision that was appealed up to the Supreme Court was so rich and informative about the nature of this corruption, but your legal, I mean, the legal work of your team, I'm sure you're not going to take full responsibility for it, but the legal work of your team in building the case was extraordinary. And so for the Supreme Court not even to have the decency to give you the opportunity to make the argument was really extraordinary. And, you know, people who want to see the real law here should look at that case.

Yeah. Especially because of the fact that the Citizens United decision was accepted. Right. And expanded for rehearing so that they really didn't even have a factual record upon which they grounded that case. And in Montana, we actually did build a factual record and was so pleased that I did have great people working with me. I personally argued it all the way up through our state Supreme Court. And we had great support from friends of the court all around the country because this was the first case after Citizens United to go to the court. And it was the first one that really, actually had a rich, factual record built. So I had great optimism. But it reminds me what the Power of one justice can do not just to our democracy, but to workers rights, women's rights, environmental protection, so many other things that are so important.

Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. All these other issues that we can't get anything done. I like to begin to ask, like, what are the issues that are not affected by money? I mean, can we list two? I mean, are there two things that Washington does that doesn't get bogged down because of this corrupting influence of money?

Well, you, you could even look at. No, I think 30 states have passed a gas tax, Right. And on the one hand, nobody wants to be increasing revenues, but you also have crumbling highways, the federal government, you couldn't even get a base infrastructure bill through if it requires additional revenues. And you have through Republicans saying no new revenues no matter what. So, yeah, I don't. Other than the naming of a post office, which is. Doesn't seem to be swayed by money, and it seems to be about the only thing that can come out of D.C. anymore that may be the only thing that the corrupting influence of money in the system hasn't screwed up.

It's so sad. And, you know, I think from Mitch McConnell's perspective, the job of government is to appoint judges. That's the only thing that we have as an objective anymore. And of course, course, they're appointing as many as they possibly can.

Well, and Mitch McConnell, as you well know, has made sort of his career of really destroying any regulation of campaign spending and campaign finance. And I think that what really is, at the end of the day, when you get out of the city of Washington, D.C. and talk to people, that they do have expectations of how Washington should be finally working for them. So the more that we can make this into not an inside the Beltway issue, but around the kitchen table issue, because like, when Lindsey Graham literally says, we got to get these tax cuts through to make our donors happy at the same time that 44% of Americans wouldn't have 400 bucks in their pocket if their car broke down or they had a medical emergency. You know, that things just aren't working. And they're not working for most people.

Right. And now I want to flag a statement you made. I mean, to most people, to say something like, Mitch McConnell has spent his career destroying federal election laws, that sounds kind of slanderous. But the truth is, as you know, this really has been his purpose, his mission. He has said that Citizens United is one of the best decisions of the Supreme Court. And he worked incredibly hard to appoint to get FEC commissioners appointed who did not believe in the law, who, who did not want to enforce the law. And of course right now, in the middle of an election season, we have an FEC that doesn't even have a quorum. So it can't actually even police this election process because it has no legal right to.

No. And I think that's symptomatic of everything that's wrong in some respects, you know, that I'm never going to have an expectation that the FEC is going to take care of all the ills of greed and self interest, but not even have a functioning Federal Election Commission at the same time where the Senator McConnell's the world, and he's certainly not alone is trying to dismantle even base disclosure. You know, because if nothing else, if you think about it, Citizens United, as wrong as that decision was, it was falsely premised on with the day of the Internet and instant disclosure, at least people are going to know who's trying to buy the elections and who's being influenced. Well, we've seen in the aftermath that certainly isn't true.

Yeah, no, that's right. Okay, so you're so the, the big idea. I mean, obviously until we amend the Constitution to deal with Citizens United, the obvious way around your big idea is for independent political action committees to be established on the day of the election and you know, the candidates not sending out campaign pleas for people to send money, but the political action committee is to set up, you know, an immediate opportunity to send contributions and they can even be targeted contributions. So it could be eventually going directly to a campaign. So this is again to emphasize how this is an important step, but it would take further change to make it fully effective.

Yeah, this at least changed the behavior of the individual members. Another thing, and I did it in Montana because trying to live within the confines and parameters of what the Citizens United decision is, I did an executive order that said if you want to contract with the state of Montana, so bid for any substantial contract, you as a company have to disclose all the ways you're either spending or contributing to influence our elections. I'm not going to tell you that you can't contribute, but as a result, and the companies have been compliant, think about if the federal government did that. I mean, sometimes sunshine and transparency is at least is going to start changing corporate and individual behavior. But if not, you know, if elected officials are going to be kind of like nascar, sponsored by all kinds of interests, be that on the outside PAC side or dark money side, we ought to at least know who's doing the buy in here.

Yeah, no, I agree. Okay, so then, so then the other part of this that I think is really important and obviously is a part that concerns me about the proposal. So you've done this. This big idea solves the problem of time because we can get back to the time when members of Congress spent at least half their time governing. You know, that used to be the norm. Used to be more than half the time. You know, a member of Congress would spend 18 months governing and in the last six months running for office again. And that's of course not. That's right now, but it would be an enormous gain to get us back to a time when they were spending a year governing, even if the next year would be spent running for office again. But what it doesn't change is the dependency because your system still leaves these members dependent on these donors. And what we know is there's about 150,000 donors to campaigns, and these people right now spend more than half their time, I think, sucking up to these 150,000 people who fund their campaigns. And your proposal leaves us with that because it's, maybe they have to suck up more in the year that they have to raise the money, but it's still these people who are calling the shots. So I'm really interested about why you didn't take the step that so many of your colleagues have taken to say we have to change the way they fund their campaigns or where they get their money from so that they're not dependent on this tiny, tiny few.

No, And I think, you know, like, I think your efforts of the Democracy dollar or giving money to individuals to commit if then that candidate will set some limits, has some real good value and merit along the way. And it should be one of the things that we look at going forward. I think part of the point of all of this and one of the reasons why I think your voice and others are so important in this is that, you know, you can't, you can't like, I guess, just kind of squeeze one part of this without impacts in other places. I mean, to your same point, like, even if we went to all democracy dollars, we're still going to, if we don't change super PAC rules, if we don't change coordination rules, you're going to have so many substantial problems along the way there. So I think that we do have to have, have sort of a full frontal assault on all of these pieces that we can get achieved and attained. And I recognize that under this that, yeah, no, you'd still be speaking to individual contributors. I mean, in state of Montana, we have some of the, I think the second lowest contribution limits in the country. And even under this court, they were recently held up. I think you should have as low of limits as possible. It actually makes you engage with more people along the way. I think that there ought to be like, I think I'm the only candidate in the field that has announced that I'm going to be taking the federal, you know, election match. Because bravo. More than just. It's something that, well, I think it's at the core of what this whole system always was about. And then I can also tell a smaller donor, dollar donor that, you know what? I know you may not have $2,800, but the $250 that you do contribute will be matched. And I think, you know, part of this is making sure everybody feels like they actually have a stake in this system. And I've always said that at times my $25 donor is important as anybody else because the 25 bucks might be a lot of money for that person. And they're invested in the belief that government can work and work for them.

So we're completely agreed about that. In fact, John Sarbanes, who was the real architect to the campaign finance part of HR1, talks really passionately about how important it was in his own district when he adopted a rule that he was not going to take any large contributions until he raised all these small contributions. How important it was to people who were asked to give $5 or $10 because then they felt part of the system again. They felt like they were being listened to because they were at the same level as everybody else. So if we agree about that, so why isn't it there? Like, what is the. What's the thinking? I mean, you must have a campaign staff. There must be somebody who said, don't do it because blah, blah, blah. Can you say what the blah, blah, blah is? Because it seems to me so central to the solution here.

Well, I think it can be part of the solution. No, it wasn't. Somebody saying, oh, don't include that. I think the idea of what I've been trying to do on transparency is relative to everyone else, pretty radical. The idea of what I've been trying to do on saying spend half of your time is further than we've gone in other places. So tried to put together here are some things that no one else have really been talking about to get people thinking and moving along the way. Now, once you got some of that. You know, I think that there are always challenges getting a entrenched Washington, D.C. to say, all right, we're going to be spending taxpayer dollars on campaigns. So getting that through isn't without some challenge. You know that cities like, yeah, New York did it. I think that in Washington State, they're doing it. So it's nothing that I discount at all and could well end up part of the solution.

Could well end up. You mean we can convince you in the campaign to make this a central party. You're saying like in like the second term of the Bullock administration might consider changing the way campaigns are funded?

Well, I'm hoping that you will get equally passionate about the sunshine and transparency and ending this permanent campaign. But no, I could see this as a part of it. It's. And central. I mean, the first thing that I think that we need to do before we can get anything else moving, and that really is the sunshine and transparency, because I think that's the immediate one that I know that, like, I think we're going to be in trouble if governing becomes by executive order in a grand scale. But there are things that you could do in that first week to really add that sunshine that I think makes a big difference.

Right. I mean, the president has power to do a lot of it. Why are you convinced it would help? Because, you know, one way to read the transparency story is we're gonna just give the data to the public to confirm what the public already believes, that a bunch of rich people are funding campaigns. Like, I mean, does it help us really pick between candidates if every single candid is taking money just from rich people, which is basically what Congress is right now.

Well, I think for 501. So another one of the outgrowths, right. Of there were several outgrowths of Citizens United that I don't think were fully anticipated. One is the coordinated super PACs, and the other is the 501C4 dark money spending. And I think what that does more than anything, the transparency piece, is that it either starts to dry up or it actually reshapes from the sunshine. This 501C4 spending, you know, you think prior to citizens united, about 2% of the expenditures of outside groups was money that was non disclosed. I think in these midterms, about half of it was. And I know from my own experience in Montana when we passed a law that said 90 days out, I don't care if you call yourself Americans for America, for America, whatever your group is, you have to disclose if you're going to spend in our elections. Well, even Americans for Prosperity stayed out of our state elections and last night. And I think that alone can be a big step towards starting to reclaim our democracy.

Okay, so if the assumption is that transparency would drive the money out, I get it, that could be good. But for example, what we know happened after Citizens United. Again, you're right, this was not anticipated and this was affirmed in the McCutcheon case. Basically, right now you've got these super rich people who are approached by the Democratic party or the Republican Party and told to write checks for, you know, $3 million. And then the committee like breaks it up and sends it out to the representatives across the country of the candidates across the country that need it in a way that facilitates the election of those candidates. But what everybody knows then is that those people writing those $3 million checks are the most important people in our political process. And that the person giving $25 is tiny compared to that person. And until you change. Right. I mean, transparency at least will help us understand that a little bit. But won't it lead us to think, geez, you're right, this is just a completely corrupted system and rich people have a thousand times more power in this system than anybody else does?

Well, yes, but it's also then the ending the corporate spending in our elections as well, which I think is so, so important. You know that. But no, at the end of the day, the value of that $25 individual and that voice is who we need to be focused on. Now look, you can look at this cycle of where that has gone. Not always as idyllic as some would suggest, because you have campaigns spending 60 to $80 online for Facebook and Google Ads to attract that $1 donor. I don't think that that's really built sort of that much more grassroots participation and engagement. No, I agree with you either for sure.

Yeah. No, that's why I think the matching fund proposal that HR1 had or the Democracy Dollars proposal that, I mean, you know, Andrew Yang has $100. Kirsten Gillibrand, before she dropped out was $200 an election, which in some elections means $600. Those would be game changing innovations in the way people raise money.

Yeah. And that's what was great about it being actually HR1. Right. The first bill. Because that's one of the things that we came out right away and said. Yeah, everything in that are steps that we should be taking going forward. Because if we really want to talk about all these other big issues facing us, if we're not Confronting this, it's all for naught.

Okay, so just register me as the professor begging for the amendment to this extraordinary plan, that much more expensive, explicitly says we've got to change the way campaigns are funded if we're going to end this corrupting dependence. And if we had that amendment, you know, at least you get an A plus from me on this. Let me ask a couple other questions before we run out of time.

Sure.

So when you look at the range of. Here's a really important. Sorry. You're the better lawyer at this. I want to make sure this legal point is clear. You know, Vice President Biden has spoken about the public funding stuff as if the only way it could happen is if there's a constitutional amendment to. To authorize it. That's not your view. Right. You believe these HR1 ideas of matching funds or democracy dollars would be constitutional under the existing system, is that right?

I do, I do. And I think that the other thing is that, and I think you've written quite a bit on this, but it's also. Most of them are an opt in system, aren't they? Yeah, so. So at the end of the day, yeah, as long as you're not completely even under the existing Citizens United regime, if someone is opting in like I'm opting in to public financing, well, that's a decision that I make. And once I do that, it's with those limitations as well. So no, I don't think that it would take a constitutional amendment.

Good. Okay, that's clear. So when you look at the range of other candidates, I mean, obviously what's so exciting about this election compared to any in the last 40 years, is that this election has more reform talk than any has had. And when you look at the other candidates, you know, what is it that you feel like makes you stronger here? Is it the fact that you've succeeded in a red state? Is that what makes us think this is the guy who's gonna carry it over the line for us? Or what do you think makes this better?

Yeah, I'd love to believe it's more than just that I've succeeded in a red state. That talk is cheap. Yeah. I was the one that wrote the brief in Citizens United at the time. We even got four or five Republican states to sign on. Been the one that actually passed our Disclose act, which changed things. Was one of only three states to ban laws restricting foreign spending in our elections. Was the only one that did an executive order saying that if you want to contract with the state, here are the steps that you have to take? You know, I mean, I think that I agree with you that it's exciting that so many people are now talking about this. But think back to Citizens United. We actually Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

Yes, that's right.

And controlled the presidency. And people gave a lot of speeches about it. I think they raised money off of it, but nobody really took any concrete steps to change things.

Yeah, you're right about that. Okay, two more questions. So one really important reform proposal you don't talk about, but which is spreading, and Maine has embraced it in a big way, and it's even embraced it for the allocation of their vote in the presidential elections is ranked choice voting. So have you thought about whether you think ranked choice voting has a place in particular? For example, if we had it in the general election for presidential candidates, then these third party candidates wouldn't have the effect, as they clearly did in 2000, of spoiling the election and flipping it for someone who wasn't actually what the majority wanted.

Yeah, I mean, I do think that there are some merits to it, and I guess I haven't given it the incredible amount of thought in as much as that I worry, which may not be fair, but I look, I worry at the lack of participation already. Right. And part of that, I think a lot of that does go back to the money, that people's voices don't seem heard. I think we have to recognize that most people's lives are too frantic or hectic or busy to even engage in the political system, and then they don't think that their voice matters. So I guess my only concerns in some of that is does it seem like complexity to folks where we're just trying to get them to sufficiently engage?

Yeah. And the other side to that is many people think that, you know, there are people who say, look, I'm not going to vote because if I vote, I want to vote for. For Jill Stein, and if I vote for Jill Stein, it's gonna cause trouble, so I'm just not gonna show up. But if you say, look, go vote for Jill Stein, and then after you've cast your vote for Jill Stein, then put Hillary number two, and all's good, like you've expressed yourself Jill Stein, or, you know. Yeah, but you're not gonna have the consequence of making it so the person you don't want to win actually becomes president. So. Yeah, so that's what Maine has found, I think. And it would be. I think it could be a really important reform. One last question, which Obviously, big question, but I just wonder whether your team and you have thought about it, especially coming from the state of Montana. What about the Electoral College?

I think, you know, it's funny, as we were talking at the start of this conversation about how hard it would be to get a Citizens United initiative through, if we were going to amend the Constitution, I would want to begin with Citizens United or the Equal Rights Act. I think as Democrats, you know, we now have 22 states in this country that are completely controlled, both houses and the governor, by Republicans. Rather than saying what we need to do is get to a straight popular vote and get rid of the Electoral College, I think the better question is, why aren't we as Democrats competing sufficiently in those places that we used to win? And that's a big part of mine, like, look, if we can't win back voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, or you look at a third of the counties in Iowa voted for Obama twice, then Trump, if we can't connect with folks that if they're voting their education, their health care, their economic interests, their environmental interests, they ought to be voting Democrats. Well, I think we got a big problem.

Yeah. And you know, you can say that because you actually succeeded as a relative. I mean, you're a progressive Democrat in Montana and you succeeded in getting your second election more than you got a majority supporting you for governor. So. So it can be done. I agree with that. And I would agree with you that, you know, I don't think the Republican states, especially the small Republican states like Montana or Idaho, are going to give up the extra representation they get through the Electoral College. That's just not going to happen. But let me ask you about a proposal that I think that, that everybody should be in favor of. So imagine that electors cast their vote in a fractional way and they didn't cast their vote in a winner take all way. So if you got 40% of the vote in Montana, you get 40% of the electoral vote, or the electors would cast 40% of the vote for one candidate and 60% for another. And if the fractional vote were all the way down, like, you know, you could get 1.222467 votes in Montana. If you are a Democrat and you run in Montana, then what that would do is it would give presidential candidates an incentive to run everywhere. And what we know is right now, presidential candidates have no incentive to run everywhere. They only have an incentive to run in the 14 battleground states where in 2016, 99% of spending was. So that change, which of course, would take an amendment, but that change would still give Montana or Idaho a special thumb on the scale because they would have more electoral votes per capita than California. But it would at least open up the whole nation to being part of the presidential election system, as opposed to the swing states which turn out to be older and wider and have an industry which is not the industry of the future. I wonder whether that is the sort of solution that might bring both sides to the table.

Well, it could. Well, and I'd also point out you say Montana and Idaho, states like Delaware and Vermont are actually smaller population state of Montana, that it might be one worth certainly taking a look at sort of the other alternatives and ways to try to get people to really make this a national campaign where they're connecting everywhere across this country.

Yeah, that would be an important change. Governor, we've come to the end of the time you have for this conversation. I'm so grateful, not just for this conversation, but that you entered this race. My friend Paul Begala told me you would do it. And when you did it, I was so happy because I think that having more voices making this the central issue is what's going to make it so in 2021. We have a POTUS one package that's passed. Thank you very much, sir.

Thank you for having me on. And as I continue to add to this, I'll keep working to get an A plus out of you, Professor.

Okay, I'm a pretty easy grader, but I need this in my package. All right. Thank you, sir.

Take care.

Bye. That's the end of this episode of Another Way. Stay tuned. We've got some incredibly interesting other candidates who are going to be in this mix and eager to include some who've not yet found the time to be in our mix. In particular, Senator Sanders will be an important addition to this conversation. And Vice President Biden would be an incredibly interesting addition to this conversation because he has had more experience in Washington than perhaps any of these candidates fighting and thinking about the question of reforming that corrupt system. So help us get them here. That means write them and tell them you've got to be here. You've got to be in this conversation because it is so extraordinarily exciting that we have an election where, depending on your count, nine or 12 candidates have committed to making fundamental reform the first thing that they do. These podcasts are produced by citizens us. You can find us on the web at Equal Citizens US. And you can find this podcast at EqualCitizens US. Anotherway. There's a place there to share the podcast to give us your feedback and give us your ideas. I know there are more ideas out there given the number of people listening, so please share them and also share these podcasts broadly. This issue has got to be central. You know that and a constant conversation in the slow democracy movement about how to make this issue central is what will raise it in the minds of many, at least those who will think about it to be a central issue in this campaign. Many of the ideas discussed in this season of Another Way are also discussed in a new book. I'm publishing this book fall called they Don't Represent Us. You can as and maybe you should like right now pre order that book. It's coming out on October. No, it's coming out on November 5th. And you can learn more about it at hc.com representus HC stands for HarperCollins.com represent us.