S8E1: Introduction

This is Larry Lessig. This is season 8 of the podcast Another Way. It's the first season we're doing in video. That's because Claude told me I was really handsome and that I should do this by video, and it's a smart model, obviously. So this is what we're going to do. This season is focused around the litigation that we are in the middle of to defend Maine's Question 1, the initiative passed in 2024 by 74.9% of Maine voters to eliminate super PACs in the state of Maine. That initiative was immediately challenged, and the district court last April or May heard arguments on this case and then last summer declared that the initiative was unconstitutional. And we have recruited the extraordinary lawyer Neil Katyal to join the Attorney General in Maine to defend the initiative, which will now be heard in arguments in the First Circuit Court of Appeals on July 29th, 2026. And when we win in the First Circuit Court of Appeals, We will then be in the Supreme Court, giving the Supreme Court a chance to decide whether super PACs are mandated by our Constitution. Now, when I say something like that, most people will say, "There's not a chance in hell that the United States Supreme Court will ever say no to more money in politics." It's a very cynical, simplistic view of the court's jurisprudence. And I get that. I understand that. And I understand why people are cynical and skeptical. Indeed, Neil was skeptical until I got him to think through the argument carefully, and when he did, he saw what I didn't see originally either, but he saw why in fact, under the existing rules of the United States Supreme Court, indeed under the reasoning of Citizens United, super PACs are not mandated by our Constitution. Now, in this season, we're gonna take the parts of this argument and lay them out in separate episodes. In the first episode, we're gonna talk to Rick Bennett, who was a Republican state senator and now is an independent candidate for governor in Maine. Rick was critical in getting this initiative into the Maine political process and critical in helping us get it passed in Maine. And he's gonna explain why this rule is so important to the opportunity for politicians to be able to serve their voters as opposed to serve the interests of those who fund these super PAC campaigns. And then in the second episode, we're gonna talk to an extraordinary lawyer from Free Speech for People, Law Project, which is an organization that has been fighting this issue since Citizens United was decided. And they are the ones who first pushed what I think is the critical argument that will make this case win in the United States Supreme Court. It's an argument applying the logic of Citizens United to demonstrate why super PACs are not constitutionally compelled. Then in the third episode, we're gonna talk to Jonathan Ginepp, who is an extraordinary historian from Stanford, and a group, he's part of a group of historians who are helping us understand what the original meaning of the Bill of Rights is. And when you understand the original meaning of the First Amendment, you would conclude, as Senator Josh Hawley has concluded, that the original meaning of the First Amendment would never give the Supreme Court the power to strike down laws like campaign finance laws. Indeed, it is so absolutely clear that's true under the original meaning that we think that if the court takes that seriously at all, we clearly win. Now, you might say, why do you care about the original meaning? Indeed, many people are against the idea of thinking about the original meaning. Many people are outraged at the whole idea of originalism. But the critical thing to recognize is that the United States Supreme Court has 6 justices who have declared themselves to be originalists, who say that their objective is to interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning. And so we have a court that is dominated by originalists, It's only appropriate, indeed, strategically extremely wise to present arguments in a way that are directly responsive to their own views, and that's what we have done in this case, and that's precisely why Neal Katyal is in the case to press the originalist argument. Then in the fourth episode, we explore with Chris Robertson an incredible research that he has done to unpack in an empirically robust way the concept of the appearance of corruption. The Supreme Court has said you can legislate to eliminate the risk of quid pro quo corruption and also the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, but that concept of appearance is vague. It's hard to know what the scope of that is, and so what Chris did was a really clever set of research experiments, psychological experiments, to tease out what most people see as the levels of contributions that would trigger a concern about the risk of the quid pro quo corruption or creating an appearance of quid pro quo corruption. And finally, if we get a chance and I can twist his arm, I'm still persuading Lawyer to join me, and he hasn't yet said yes. We're gonna have an episode that tries to unpack the relationship between the Supreme Court's latest campaign finance case, the National Republican Senatorial Committee versus the FEC, and our case. Because in that case, the Supreme Court struck down limits on coordination between party committees and and independent political action committees. And so the question— or campaigns. And so the question is whether that case means we win or we lose. And of course, people who think that the Supreme Court is never gonna say no to money thinks that's just another reason why we're gonna lose, but I think they're moving too quickly. So I hope you like this season. Not sure how many seasons we're gonna do in video form, um, but it's been fun to record these. Um, we're gonna roll them out as quickly as we can produce them. And so, um, you should expect that they will come out every couple days between the time this one comes out and the argument on the 29th of July. So stay tuned at our website at equalcitizens.us to learn more about the case and get updates about the decision of the court. Thanks so much for listening, and please share these podcast videos with anybody you think might be interested in the one way we have right now to end super PACs in America before we get a constitutional amendment, which I certainly think we need. Before we get a constitutional amendment, applying the principles the Supreme Court has given us we can find a way to stop this extraordinary distortion of our political process. Thanks so much for listening.