S6E1: The Maine Initiative That Could End SuperPACs

On November 7, 2023, I woke at about 4:30, maybe 5, in a cool hotel in Portland, Maine. And I trundled out of bed, took a shower, climbed into my car and drove to a beautiful small town called Hollis, Maine. Hollis is a town with a population of about 5,000, 94% white. $85,000 per year is the median household income. The average age is pretty old, 46.8 years old. And I stood at a polling place outside of a town hall like building, which was basically just a white rectangle in the middle of a parking lot. And my job was to gather signatures on an initiative, an initiative that I think, and this episode will introduce, will change the way money matters in American politics today. Maine's been at the center of the fight to change the way money matters in American politics everywhere. In the 1990s, Maine was one of the first states to embrace public funding for statewide and local elections, state elections. Maine's been at the center of other Democratic reform, like the rank choice voting revolution, which they began in America in Maine. And on that day, the day I was in Hollis to gather signatures for an initiative that will be on the November 2024 ballot, the citizens of Hollis, Maine voted to support an initiative to ban foreign governments that own, control or influence entities in Maine from making campaign contributions or financing communications for or against candidates or ballot questions. They approved that initiative by 89%, 1293 votes in favor, 164 against. Now, of the voters in Hollis, it's a slight majority for Republicans. 27% are Democrats, 30% Republicans, 4% Green, 38% unenrolled. And so it's a purple district in a purple state that is overwhelmingly committed to the idea of ending the corrupting influence of money in Maine politics and in politics generally, they wouldn't let me enter the polling place to gather signatures. I had to do it outside and I had to do it kind of awkwardly related to where people would be leaving the polling place. They would come down a ramp, but I had to stand at the other end of the ramp, which was about 25ft from the end of the ramp. And so as I set up my table and launched into what would be a 13 hour shift gathering signatures, I was quite convinced nobody was going to come and sign my initiative because I'm not actually very, I don't know, bold, brave, pleasant, attractive. I don't know, I'm not the sort of person who's going to naturally draw people to me to sign an initiative. And so I was a little bit afraid That I was going to spend those 13 hours, literally the longest I've done anything in my life. I've never done anything for 13 hours. I thought when I started about my wife who was in labor one time for more than 24 hours, another time for about 24 hours, and thought, geez, I now understand what real labor is. I was going to stand because there were no chairs, stand for 13 hours gathering signatures on this initiative. About an hour into my gathering, maybe two, I think it was about 8 in the morning, an extraordinary guy came up to me named Stavros Mendel. Stavros had represented Lewiston in the main House of representatives from 1998 to 2002, and he was the chairman of the local Trump campaign. And in Maine, for Trump to appear on the ballot for the primary, he had to gather signatures. Even though he had been a candidate before and president before, he had to gather signatures. And Stavros was there to gather signatures for Donald Trump. And so as he came and introduced himself to me, this perfectly pleasant guy, basically my age, shocked me because I thought, wow, me liberal, anti Trumper, as deeply as anyone could be. Me thinking, geez, here is a Trump supporter, and not just a supporter, somebody who was going to spend hours that day engaging with a 5050 split between Democrats and Republicans about supporting Donald Trump to be on the ballot. So in kicked all of my natural prejudices against the other side, prejudices that of course have been fed by media that profits from making me hate the other side. That was the point of season five. But here I was triggered to want to dislike this man. He asked to see my initiative. I handed it to him. He read it, he said, I love this, I love this. And he signed one of the first to sign the initiative. And he said, I'm going to tell every one of my Trump signatories to sign your initiative as well. And true to his word, as he stood there and gathered signatures for Donald Trump, taking much more abuse than I did, because of course there were many people he approached who were not going to sign the initiative for Donald Trump. As he had his people sign his petition, he told them to come sign my petition, and they did. And indeed my impression through the course of the day, invoking all the prejudices that I have as a liberal Democrat, was that the most eager to sign my initiative were right wing Republicans. The most angry about the corrupting influence of money were the right wing Republicans. Not that the Democrats weren't as well, of course. That's what we've been fighting. I've Been fighting with many Democrats for many, many years. But here I was reminded of something we are trained to forget because we spend all of our time talking about issues that we disagree about. That was the point of season five to explain why we talk about issues that we disagree about. And the reason season five gave was that the business model of media and the business model of politics profits from focusing us on our disagreements. It profits from treating us like people who need to be trained to hate. And that's what we are. We're trained to hate the other side. Because the more we hate the other side, the more we villainize the other side. The more we come to view them not just as the other, but as the enemy, the more engaged we're going to be in the media. They feed us. It's the fast food epidemic brought to the brain. And therefore our politics responds. The politicians respond. They increasingly feed us the stuff that will anger us, outrage us, make us fear, so that we stay engaged. And if we're engaged, maybe we'll send them five or ten dollars, maybe we'll show up to vote, but certainly the only way to get us to send them five or ten dollars to show up and vote is to keep us focused on the fight. And the fight is the fight about things we disagree about. Yet there are things we agree about. Those things are less sexy for the business model of politics and the business model of media. Less sexy. So it's less spoken of. But that's the thing we're going to speak of in this season of the podcast, another way, because this podcast doesn't have a business model focused on anything other than bringing about fundamental Democratic reform in some way. In another way, and in a way that's not focused on hate or hating or vilifying or criticizing, but by explaining and helping people to understand just what's at stake here. This season is the story of Maine and about an initiative in Maine that will change when it passes and when it is upheld by the Supreme Court. Everything about how money matters in American politics. And most importantly, this is a season devoted to the cause of getting you to understand that initiative and I hope, support it whether you're from Maine or not, but especially if you're in Maine, to get you to support it and to support it by sending to the Maine Ballot Question Committee committee called Citizens to end super pacs.org as much as you can to help them spread the word and to volunteer with them to help them build the campaign necessary to make sure that this initiative passes in Maine and gets us along the way to upholding it and thereby restoring the restrictions that existed before. A case you probably have never heard about, SpeechNow versus the FEC removed those restrictions. This initiative, question one on the 2024 ballot, will end super PACs in America. I am convinced. Foreign. Okay, so let me preview a bit about why as I'm going to explain in much greater detail. It's supposed to be a season, not a single episode. Much greater detail. Super PACs in America were not created by the Supreme Court, even if the Supreme Court inspired the court that did create them. It's one of the most frustrating things that I feel as a reformer, a reformer who's been in this fight now for almost 18 years. It's one of the most frustrating things that I feel that people constantly make the mistake that argues that it's the United States Supreme Court that has authorized super PACs. It has not. Never has the United States Supreme Court addressed the question whether the Constitution requires unlimited contributions to independent political action committees. Never has it addressed that question. As we'll hear it, addressed a separate question, whether committees like rich people, like corporations, could spend unlimited amounts of money. And the answer the court has given there is yes, but spending money is different from contributing to a committee to spend money. And so that question has never been addressed by the Supreme Court. And what the main initiative does is trigger the opportunity to get that question addressed. The main initiative limits contributions to committees that spend money independently of candidates to just $5,000. And in that limit, just to committees that are spending on candidates, not to party committees, not to ballot question committees, just the committees spending on candidates. The main initiative stands against lower court rulings from across the country, but not any lower court ruling in Maine or in the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the federal circuit that governs Maine. So when this initiative is passed and when it is challenged, it will be challenged first, most likely in federal court. It will come to the first Circuit. The first Circuit will get a chance to answer the question whether super PACs are constitutionally mandated. It has never answered that question either. When it gets the right answer, it will force the United States Supreme Court to take up the same question. And when the United States Supreme Court does that, it's my prediction. Me, the most pessimistic guy in this fight. It's my prediction, and they're going to get it right. Okay, so in this season, I'm going to tell you the story of how we got here and why they're going to get it right. I'm going to tell you a lot about what's going on on the ground in Maine. I'm going to tell you what happened to get us to Maine. What brought this fight to Maine after so many other fights elsewhere. I'm going to give you reason to hope. I know that's hard to believe. You know, maybe my brand bans me from trying to, from trying to give you reason to hope, but I'm a big Harvey Milk believer. You got to give him hope. And I want to give you hope here because it's not just puffery. I really do believe we are going to find a way in this fight to restore the power of states like Maine and the federal government to limit the contributions that are made to independent political action committees. So stay tuned and follow and share. Okay, so every episode is going to end something like this. And they're not all going to be hour long episodes. I'm not going to do interviews in this season. I'm just going to tell you a story. But every episode is going to end something like this. This season is devoted to supporting the main ballot question committee, citizenstoend super pacs.org and I'm going to ask you to support them. We're not asking money for equal citizens, although, you know, of course, we've never turned down any money. We would, you know, from the wrong person, no doubt, but we've never had the wrong person want to give us any money substantially, I guess. But we're going to ask you to support them in this fight, especially if in your main, if you're in Maine. And more importantly, we're going to ask you every single episode to help us spread this podcast. You know, 20 years ago at the birth of the Internet, in modern thinking of American life, at least there was such a thing as user generated attention that dominated the virality of content. It was what users did that made things spread. And clicks could be earned simply by having something cool or important or valuable. There were no careful algorithms designed to suppress the boring and elevate the salacious. That's not our world today. That's not how media operates today. If you want to get something to somebody and you want to tweet it, you could have hundreds of thousands of people following you. But it will only get to those people if the algorithm thinks this is the sort of thing that people will spread or share or really, really want to see because of whatever pathology might drive them to want to see what they want to see. The algorithms decide what gets shared. And in a certain important sense, politics in America today depends upon us fighting the algorithm, fighting to get beyond the algorithm, the algorithm that just promotes hate and division. So this type of podcast, a podcast that's not designed to get you to hate anybody, a podcast that's designed to get you to see there's a reason to hope, a podcast that hopes that you will thereby get motivated to engage and do something about this. Cause this is the sort of podcast, this is the sort of content that just will never be loved by the algorithm. Okay, Now, I got lots of love in my life. I got an extraordinary family, an extraordinary wife, so many great friends. So I'm not seeking love for myself, but I am seeking love for a kind of content that just doesn't pay Silicon Valley as much. I'm seeking love for a kind of content that could get us to a place that we could actually do something about the corrupted democracy that we now live within. I'm seeking a love for the hope that this podcast, this episode of this podcast will spread. And you need to help me find that love. You need to help me find that. This way to get around this algorithm, you need to help me fight the algorithm by spreading this with your friends. Email is the. Well, there's spam filters, but those aren't algorithm driven in the sense of not liking the content. It's just the way you write it that might get you spammed. But the point is you can share it with your friends and you can ask them to share it with their friends, and that's the clearest way around the algorithm. But we need to find ways around the algorithm if we're going to find ways to make a kind kind of political speech possible. Again. Okay, I don't think I'm going to rant like that at every episode ending. I'll say something like that, but not exactly that. I just wanted to tee it up in this first short episode, introducing this season of Another Way, Season six, A season We're Titling. Boy. What are we titling it? I don't know. We ought to title it something like what's Happening in Maine or How Maine Will Save America. Yeah, I like that one. Of course, we should ask the algorithm which is better. The algorithm. Stay tuned for episode two. Sam.