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<\/a><\/i>With the McCutcheon <\/i>decision fresh in everyone\u2019s minds, the panelists on our Campaign Finance panel had a lot to talk about. The discussion opened with Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics giving an overview of the effect of dark money<\/i>. He explained that the amount of dark money<\/i> that has been spent so far during this midterm election is four times higher than the amount that was spent up to this point during the 2012 cycle. To that put that in perspective: at the end of the 2012 cycle, a staggering $311 million had been spent in dark money. (If you are interested in Mr. Maguire\u2019s entire presentation, you can view it here<\/a>.) Lee Aitken, a former Shorenstein Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, also expressed concerns about the lack of transparency in today\u2019s system of campaign financing. In particular, she drew attention to \u201cshell companies\u201d that enable campaign consultants to engage in \u201cprofiteering\u201d and \u201cself-dealing.\u201d In essence, argued Ms. Aitken, anyone can set up an LLC in Delaware without having to disclose an owner\/beneficiary and then use that company to funnel money.<\/p>\nRaymond O\u2019Mara, Legislative Assistant to Congressman Sarbanes, turned the discussion to the implications of the McCutcheon<\/i> decision and \u201cthe pernicious effect of money.\u201d He noted that the Chief Justice\u2019s notions of \u201cgratitude\u201d and \u201caccess\u201d in the opinion did not properly capture the \u201cdependence of Congress\u201d on money. He explained that any \u201cgood staffer\u201d ends up looking at both the (1) merits and (2) money associated with any proposal. Moreover, legislators are forced to spend hours fundraising on K Street and in party \u201ccall centers.\u201d Mr. O\u2019Mara also gave some insight into the Hill\u2019s reaction to the McCutcheon<\/i> decision \u2013 as soon as the decision came down, a task force within the House Democratic Caucus was conveyed. Those Members breathed a \u201csigh of collective disbelief\u201d at the Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Commissioner Weintraub was equally critical of the decision. She noted, \u201c[The Roberts Court] is less concerned with impediments to voting than with impediments to spending [at the top levels].\u201d Moreover, she explained, \u201cthe average family could save up every single penny that they made for two years and give it to politicians, [and] all of that would still not bust the biennial limit\u201d that was struck down in McCutcheon<\/i>. In fact, according to Mr. Maguire, the decision only affects 646 Americans. No one else in the country has that kind of money to spend. Commissioner Weintraub also identified what she termed \u201csleights of hand\u201d in the Chief Justice\u2019s opinion. For example, she noted that his references to Edmund Burke were misplaced because the case concerned donors<\/i> not constituents. And, she continued, \u201cMany of these donors don\u2019t live in the district.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also echoed Mr. O\u2019Mara\u2019s sentiment that the Chief Justice\u2019s conception of \u201ccorruption\u201d as being limited to quid-pro-quo<\/i> corruption is too narrow. She noted that people who understand the impact of money on the system know that \u201cbribery laws on their own don\u2019t take care of all the corruption up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Commissioner Weintraub ended the panel on a positive note, encouraging everyone to get involved. She implored, \u201cPay attention to what your government officials are doing and make your voice heard!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Mr. Robert Maguire did not express any opinions about what the future of campaign finance should be; he just presented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/89\/2014\/04\/DSC_0259.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-6d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}