In 2010, two landmark decisions transformed American campaign finance law. The first was Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The second was SpeechNow.org v. FEC.
Together, these cases cleared the way for corporations and so-called Super PACs to raise and spend unlimited sums of money in elections.
What followed was a new era in American politics where individuals, corporations, and industries increasingly spent more and more money to influence campaigns and public opinion.
To debate the constitutional, political, and historical questions surrounding money in politics, we are joined by Larry Lessig and Paul Sherman. Lessig is a Harvard Law professor and the founder of Equal Citizens, one of the country’s leading advocates for campaign finance reform. Sherman is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice who served as co-counsel in SpeechNow.org.
Read Larry’s paper “If Roe, then Buckley” here.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:43 How Larry and Paul became interested in political speech and campaign finance
05:33 Citizens United, political speech, and quid pro quo corruption
18:34 What was the SpeechNow case?
32:31 Elon Musk and billionaire influence in the 2024 election
49:06 History of campaign finance regulation
51:26 First Amendment originalism, Federalist 52, and Federalist 57
01:07:07 Does money actually influence election outcomes?
01:14:20 Outro
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