In collaboration with American Public medias marketplace, frontline investigates money and politics with the groundbreaking big money 2012 initiative. The Supreme Court put elections in the hands of corporations and big money. It doesnt corrupt the process; its necessary for the process. What does that say about democracy, tugh . It says that this is completely irrelevant information that only some leftwing nut jobs care about. Marketplaces kai ryssdal uncovers startling new evidence of outside Interest Groups influence on campaigns. I found these buckets of documents. We have boxes and folders full of candidate signatures being faxed to western Tradition Partnership. Im literally not going to comment on them. I would say we had grounds to proceed with an investigation and put people under oath. How secret big money is changing american Politics State by state. Tonight frontline, big sky, big money. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major funding is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Additional funding is provided byhe pk fountion, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. And by the frontline journalism fund, with a grant from the orfalea foundation. Its time to send a message to washington stop spending money we dont have. How can we afford this tax . Big corporations and the richest two percent. Whats at stake is the future of america. It costs us, and taxes us, too much. American future fund is responsible for the content of this advertising. Ryssdal i knew right away this wasnt going to be the usual story on Campaign Finance. One of the first surprises was finding myself driving the dark streets of denver with attorney alan schwartz, who shared kind of a strange experience. It was early january of 2011, and my wife, who had just been reelected to the Colorado State senate, goan email from someone who claimed to have some information about a group that had sent out some attack ads against my wife. Ryssdal the guy said he had some documents, and a week later. I heard from this individual again. Still not identifying himself, but telling me that if i wanted to see the documents, then i needed to get them that day. Ryssdal had to be that day. Had to be that day. Ryssdal schwartz agreed to meet the guy who said the documents were stashed in a safe house that he would take him to. I didt know where were going. For the halfhour that we drove from denver to littleton, he told me his story. Mark it. Ryssdal mark seibel. Seibel, right . Seibel, yes. Basically. Ryssdal the man with the documents was mark seibel, a convicted felon whod spent most of his life living on the streets. One night while staying at a known drug house near denver. I found these buckets of documents. Ryssdal documents, he says, a friend found in a stolen car. I found pages and pages of li a particular politicians name, like, you know, would be written, you know, like 20 times on a piece of paper and there was, like, then thered be one that was cut out and an arrow pointing to it and it would say use this one. You know, a lot of cut and paste things going on. I took pictures of all the mailers laid out. I took pictures, kind of grouped things into categories. Somebody had transported them from montana to here and it was p. O. Box to p. O. Box. There was just something wasnt right about it. It was a very weird story that mark was telling me. Everything about it was odd and peculiar. Ryssdal so this is the house . This is the house. The gentleman who was living here who was keeping the documents opened the door. He was blind. He reaches out, though, and grabs me by the arm and he pulls me into the house. And i immediately see that there are several boxes, four or five very large containers on the floor. I could tell that Law Enforcement would find them very important and interesting and i was determined to get them in the right place as quickly as i could. Ryssdal the boxes did turn out to be both interesting and important. And they eventually ended up in the right place. Here, with the commissioner of political practices, in helena, montana. But thats a story of secrets and money and politics that well come back to. First, i need to tell you whats been going on in montanas elections. I got to butte on the fourth of july. On the surface, there was the usual hoopla and fanfare. Marching bands, flag twirlers, shriners, mermaids and, of course, politicians of every stripe. Buttes candidate right here. Reelect pat noonan. Hes my son. Ryssdal but theres Something Different about this years campaign. There are new Hidden Forces at work. Nowhere is this more evident than in a barnburner of a race that may well decide which Party Controls the u. S. Senate. With the stakes so high, this race is attracting big money from lots of outside groups. The incumbent fighting to hold onto his seat is democrat jon tester. And he says hes not happy about all this outside money. Were going to see a ton of money spent in montana. Were seeing money earlier, more of it, and with more regularity. And i think were in the process right now of building a Campaign Infrastructure thats going to be very difficult to pull down as time goes on. Its getting to be big, big, big money. Ryssdal big money is at the heart of this story. Two years ago, the Supreme Court changed the landscape of Campaign Finance with a controversial decision in a case called Citizens United. It let corporations and unions spend unlimited amounts of money in campaigns. But to avoid corruption, the court said the money cant go directly to candidates. It has to go to independent outside groups. The key word here being independent. One supporter of citizens uni is testers opponent. See yall later. Ryssdal sixterm republican congressman denny rehberg. You dropped it. Train come through, youre dead. If you believe in the First Amendment, which is free speech, then you Better Believe in political free speech. Whats more important to this country than political free speech . Because its what guides us. Its what. It allows us the opportunity to govern ourselves. Over a thousand left limbs in iraq and afghanistan. But congssmarehbg voted against additional critical funding for prosthetic. Jon tester votes to raise taxes. Ryssdal its not hard to find political free speech in montana today. You see it all the time in what seems to be an endless run of political attack ads. And voted to raise the debt limit six times. Ryssdal the amount of money being spent is amazing. It could be 20 million on broadcast television. How do you like them apples . In the state of montana. Ryssdal so long as i know where the apples are coming from, im all right. Thats the question. I dont know where the apples are coming from. Right. We dont know where the apples are coming from and thats the problem here. Ryssdal david parker is a professor at Montana State university. Hes been tracking the tv ad spending in this senate race. It is incredibly difficult to actually figure out where this money is coming into this state and then let alone to figure actually who is actually giving the money. Ryssdal parkers Research Shows that a lot of new groups had gotten into the Montana Senate race this summer. So youve been out at every television station in this state, right . Nearly, yes. Ryssdal almost. Asked for their records. You looked it up. You added up all the money. What do we know about where that money is coming from . Well, yeah. 6. 8 million was spent on broadcast television in the senate race through june. About 68 of the money comes from outside groups, 68 . Thats amazing, you know. Thats not the political parties. Thats not tester and thats not rehberg, but thats outside groups. He was the deciding vote to pass the health care law. Ryssdal heres why parker thinks that matters. Overwhelmingly its not the candidates themselves who are actually running for this office who are basically telling their stories. Its not even their parties. Here within the state. Its these outside groups. Theyre calling the shots in terms of whats being talked about in this race, more so than the candidates. Thats the problem. Tell congressman rehberg, government fences and drones are wrong for montana. Ryssdal so who are all these outside groups calling the shots . What we affectionately call the war room. Ryssdal to find out i had to go all the way to washington, d. C. , where i was taken inside one of the democrats key super pacs, american bridge 21st century. This looks for all the world like a bunch of kids sitting around surfing the web. For the most part, yeah, but they are very smart kids and they know what theyre looking for. Ryssdal rodell mollineau, the president of american bridge, showed me around. Tell me what these guys are doing. It was a rare look at the world of outside groups. American bridge was the only super pac, in fact, that let us in to see what they do. Some of these people are video specialists. Some of them are researchers. Ryssdal it had the look and the feel of a candidates campaign. But they actually cant work with candidates. They have to be independent. We dont coordinate with candidates. We cant coordinate with candidates. That is against the law. Ryssdal what makes this super c stand out is that it specializes in opposition research. These are the people who come up with the research that youre going to find in the direct mail piece, in the 30 second ad, in the online ad. That happens here. Ryssdal what also happens is this. You see that video footage there . It comes from this guy. Hes a tracker. He works for american bridge. Hes one of 19 trackers they have out in the field following republican candidates. Were looking for inconsistencies. Everyone thats working on a specific candidate knows this candidate inside and out. If the person slips up, if the personays x steaof yif there is a flipflop, we know about it. Then from there its a decision of what we decide to do with that video. Ryssdal in their meetings, in the mornings, the staff reviews their top campaign priorities. Hey, people. So what have we got . Ryssdal like the senate race in montana. So john mccain is heading to montana. Ryssdal and they carefully plot strategy to help shape the message for voters. Also we can sort of highlight mccains hypocrisy for campaigning with rehberg, because mccain is such a fiscal hawk and dennys such a big spender obviously being a member of the approps committee. Yeah. Its not nearly as sexy as i think some people would want it to be. Okay, thanks, folks. No, this is mostly public information. You just need to know where to look at it. And what you do is you put together the political history of a candidate every vote that theyve ever taken, every political statement that they had made, any contradictions that you might find. Business dealings that they might have that they might have had before being in congress. Or even business dealings they had while they were in congress. Ill never support nor take a pay rae. Ryssdal heres where their research pays off. They share it with other outside groups, who then make ads that show up in montana ads like this one, made by a Group Called Citizens for strength and Security Fund. Dennis rehberg billed taxpayers over 100,000 to lease an suv. Ryssdal this ad is like so many others that have been running this year. Its hardhitting and negative. His own pay, giving himself thousands more per year at our expense. Ryssdal it also represents a growing trend in Campaign Finance secretive outside grps tt artrying to influence elections. We need a balanced approach, not pay raises and perks. Ryssdal at wesleyan university, i found professor Erika Franklin fowler. Shes made a specialty of studying these kinds of ads. So i asked her how citizens unithas changed things. The Citizens United case and a couple of recent decisions just prior to that have led to a more relaxed atmosphere in which outside groups can do just about anything that they want to do in terms of political advertising spending. Whats jobkiller John Hickenloopers plan for colorado . Yssd onof t most visible consequences of this new atmosphere has been the explosive growth of ads made by taxexempt nonprofits known as 501c4s. Theyre different from the super pacs that weve all heard so much about. Super pacs have to tell us where they get their money. But the 501c4s . The 501c4s are not required to disclose their donors and there are ways in which they can get around having to do so. So there are certain advantages, and strategic actors are maybe more likely to want to funnel their funds through a 501c4 than they might be other types of outside organizations. Ryssdal strategic actors. Strategic actors. Ryssdal help me understand. Yeah. So, if i want to contribute money that is intended to benefit a particular candidate or a particular political party, but i dont want that money trail to come back to me, im going to choose a different way to give money than i might otherwise. Ryssdal so that would be a 501c4, right, which doesnt have to disclose its donors. Exactly. Its time to send a message to washington stop. Ryssdal turns out 501c4s can keep their money trail hidden by talking about issues. By saying that issues are their primary purpose not the election or defeat of a particular candidate. Ryssdal how am i supposed to know, though, as a reasonably intelligent voter, whats an issue ad and whats a direct Campaign Vote for this guy ad, cause you look at them and they look the same. They look almost exactly the same. Ryssdal right, so how do i know . So, the key difference, or at least what outside groups have been falling back on as the key difference, are the use of the magic words. Ryssdal i love that. Magic words . Magic words. Ryssdal thats not your invention, though. Where did it come from . No, so that comes from a footnote in a Supreme Court decision in the l970s, in which the court speculated about the types of words that might most set apart election ads from pure issue ads. Ryssdal that footnote its right here, number 52. Use these magic words vote for, vote against, elect, defeat and youve clearly got a campaign ad. Avoid the magic words and, some outside groups argue, you have an issue ad. Yeah, sometimes that distinction is hard to see. Ryssdal all right, so help me out. Show me. Because i watch a lot of political ads and you cant really tell. All right. I asked fowler to walk me through a 501c4 ad, like the one thats playing in montana from citizens for strength and Security Fund. Hes one of the wealthiest members of congress, a multimillionaire. Dennis rehberg billed taxpayers over 100,000 to lease an suv. Ryssdal all right, what is. Yes, antirehberg, but what does this have to do with the issue . Whats the. So they actually havent gotten to it yet. Ryssdal okay. Were a third of a way through, were halfway through a 30second ad. Hed never support or take a pay raise, then voted five times. Ryssdal all right, wait a minute. They dont like the suvs and they dont like the pay raise. And they dont like the suvs again. Im still waiting for that issue. Five times to raise his own pay, giving himself thousands more per year at our expense. To cut the deficit. Ryssdal doh congressman rehberg, cut the wae firs we need a balanced approach. Ryssdal deficit, right . Thats cut the deficit. Cut the deficit. Ryssdal so they didnt say vote for, they didnt say rehberg for. Or tester for congress, but they did say the word deficit. They did say the word deficit. Ryssdal bang thats an issue ad. Thats an issue ad. Ryssdal okay, really . By the magic word test, that would be an Issue Advocacy ad. Now you and i both know that this ad is aired during an election cycle and is intended to help jon tester. Ryssdal i wanted to know more about the group that made this a because you cant tell much from its name citizens for strength and Security Fund. So i went to their website and heres what i learned. Theyre a 501c4, social welfare group. Theyre an issues Advocacy Group they tell me that a couple of times. But thats it. Theres no people listed, theres no address listed, theres no phone number listed. They make it really hard to find out who they are. The only way we know who they are and where they are is one piece of paper. Its a thing from a media purchase, and it lists some of the corporate officers, and then it gives the street address of citizens for strength and Security Fund. Its 1718 m street nw, washington, d. C. This is m street. 1708 on the left. 1718, which i dont understand. All right, im going to go figure out whats going on. Sir, could you just wait here one sec . Oh, you know what it is . I know exactly what it is. Heres what it is. Its a box. Right . Has to be. 115. 115. So citizens for strength and Security Fund lives right here at this address. Since there was nobody home, i went back to american bridge, the super pac that does research for these 501c4 ads. We actually tried to get a hold of them. Went to their website, cant find anything. We did track down an address, whic as tur out, is here in washington, d. C. Its not far from here actually. Its over on m street, 1718 m street. Which is, as it turns out, is a ups store. And you go in and theyve rented a mail box there. So im just trying to find the connection between the information you guys find and provide to groups like citizens for strength and Security Fund, which does not have to disclose its donors and who, when i try to go find them, i pull up in front of a ups store. Doesnt that kind of make you go it, at . No, actually it doesnt, and the reason why is so, listen, if it was up to me, i wouldnt be doing this. There are a lot of other things id rather be doing. But i do believe in my Democratic Candidates and i believe in democratic causes, and i could play by one set of rules. I could play by the set of rules that says, were going to do it like this because this is the way that we want it, want to do it. And watch us lose even more seats in 2012. Or i can fight and try to help elect as Many Democrats as possible. And in doi so,m gng to play with the rules that were given to me. If the rules were different, id play with those rules. Ryssdal so for you for now in this election cycle, secrecy and nondisclosure and obscure sources of money are okay. Im going to play with the rules that are given to me, yes. Ryssdal if some see playing by the rules as a necessary evil, the man arguably most responsible for those rules is convinced they are indispensible to democracy. His name is jim bopp. Hes best known as the father of Citizens United. Hes been a leading force in the restructuring of Campaign Finance law. I caught up with him at his office in terrhaute, indiana, and he told me why he believes secrecy is actually good for the political process. For people to participate in our democracy, citizens, they have to be able to talk about issues. And its very important that that be protected, and the First Amendment tended thathate protected. If they cant talk about issues because theyre afraid that the federal Election Commission is going to investigate them or theyre going to be complained about, or theyre going to have to file a report, or theyre going to have to do this and do that, then they are driven out of our democracy. Ryssdal bopp says disclosure laws keep people from participating in politics. Anonymity for citizens is a very important concept because people are very reticent to contribute to overtly political entities. Associating yourself with politicacaus is ch me controversial than giving to the local hospital. Ryssdal conservative political causes have been in his blood for a long time. Bopp got his start with the righttolife movement in the 1970s. And he says he quickly learned an important lesson Campaign Finance laws were keeping conservative groups from getting their message out. So, to defend them and to make sure that they can be effective means opposing those laws. Ryssdal over the past 30 years, jim bopp has challenged more than 150 Campaign Finance laws. Hes won some of the biggest casein the country. Campaign finance laws dont do anything for citizens, other than stifle and limit them. The average voter could care less whos, quote, funding a politician or. Ryssdal really . Or a. Of course. Ryssdal do you think people should care about where this moneys coming from . Generally no, because its the message. You know, you either buy the argument or dont buy the argument. Generally no, it doesnt matter. Truth doesnt change because of whos funding it. John gregg is either prolife or not. What difference does it make whos funding that . Ryssdal should citizens in this country be able to find that information . Should they be able to learn whos funding . Not generally. They dont care. Ryssdal thats not the question. Just because they dont care doesnt mean they shouldnt be able to know, right . No. Well, im sorry. Well, then, are you just patronizing them . Ryssdal no. You know, that they. Sorry, you ignorant hoosiers, you should know, you should want to know this. Ryssdal mr. Bopp. Well, actually they could care less because its not relevant to them. Ryssdal what does that say about democracy, though . It says that this is completely irrelevant information that only some leftwing nut jobs care about. Thats the bottom line. congregation singing hymn ryssdal i wanted to find out what the folks in montana thought of it. You dont need to spend a lot of time here to find people who are independent minded and people who are concerned. We dont need secrecy and we dont need all this additional money coming in and coming in secretly. No. I feel like somebody is buying the state out. The people of the state dont have control of whats going on, and i think thats absolutely wrong. Well, its our state. We dont have to be told by people from all over the country what to do. We can handle it. Ryssdal this aversion to outside money and influence has deep roots in this state. It goes back to the late 1800s. The gilded age, when the mines of montana were turning copper into gold for the great industrialists of that era. All right, so this is the William Clark mansion, which kind of gets you to the question of, who was William Clark . Local political reporter Chuck Johnson told me about William Clark. He was one of the wealthiest men in america. He got most of his money from copper mining. He bought a railroad. He had other businesses. He also boht himself a seat in the u. S. Senate. Ryssdal how . He bribed state legislators. In those days legislators picked the u. S. Senators, not the voters. Ryssdal are we talking bags of cash bribes to the legislators . Yeah. Ryssdal that was all undisclosed cash, right . Or did people know where it was coming from . They knew where it was coming from. The envelopes had his initials on it. Ryssdal no. Yeah. Ryssdal thats just gutsy. Thats right. Ryssdal what happens though back here in montana after all that . Well, among other things the people adopt an initiative called the corrupt practices act in 1912. And this is in direct reaction to the, to the corruption in the political system. It banned corporations from giving money to campaigns and it also required disclosure of who gave to campaigns. William clark, you might say, is the first super pac. ryssdal laughs ryssdal the state of montana kept its ban on Corporate Campaign spending for a hundred years. And in the process it built up some of the toughest Campaign Finance laws in e country. But of course there were people who didnt agree with the laws and wanted to get around them. One such effort came to light four years ago. To find out what happened, i went to meet a man on pothole drive. Were the biggest in the area. Ryssdal john ward owns lil johns Septic Service on the outskirts of helena. Hes a navy veteran. Hed been elected to the Montana Legislature in 2004. This district actually encompasses this side of the valley, north of. Ryssdal he showed me around. And he told me about the surprise he ran into during his 2008 campaign. I knew that i was going to have opposition, but i had no concept whatsoever of the power and viciousness. Ryssdal in the republican primary that year, ward faced a conservative challenger with little political experience, a guy named mike miller. He wasnt a good campaigner. He was afraid of people. And he wouldnt appear at places. Ryssdal and then just days before the primary, wards district was blitzed with mailers from a bunch of outside groups attacking him. Here it is. Ryssdal wow. John ward voted with criminal coddling liberal activists. Are High Energy Prices killing you . John ward had a choice. Instead you raised their taxes. Mothers against child predators. Certified to be true and accurate. Well, yeah, you can say anything you want. Ryssdal so these went out a week before the election. Less than that, within the last four days. You have no time to respond that way. Ryssdal ward lost that primary to mike miller by just 24 votes. One of the biggest shockers of the primary election that year, because he was thought to be in safe shape politically, a conservative republican, but got picked off by these groups. The impact of receiving these graphic things right before you went to the polls. It was very, very effective. Ryssdal john ward wasnt alone. These kinds of flyers started to show up in mailboxes all across montana in 2008. It was something new. The tone and tactics rubbed some people the wrong way and a complaint was filed that soon led to an investigation. What nobody could foresee, thought, was that these mailers were about to start a fight that, in time, would go all the way to the u. S. Supreme court and actually challenge Citizens United. They caught our attention because of the unusual art. Ryssdal Dennis Unsworth was the commissioner of political practices, the Agency Responsible for enforcing montanas Campaign Finance laws. These groups are names that we hadnt heard. Ryssdal his job was to figure out who was behind the mailers and whether somebody was violating montanas strict anticorruption laws. Its not clear where they come from. We have two organizations named here. This one included a bozeman address. I believe on one there was a colorado address and it just wasnt clear where this information was coming from, and so just as initial step i sent them a letter. Ryssdal to this group, western Tradition Partnership . Yes. Ryssdal western Tradition Partnership or wtp, as its known is a 501c4 issue group that popped up in montana four years ago. It bills itself as hardhitting and progrowth. If radical environmentalists have their way ill be taking cold showers in the dark. Thats why i joined western tradition. Ryssdal its stated goal is advancing reasonable resource development. Its stated target is radical environmentalists. Im cayden, and i approve this message. Ryssdal so what unsworth wanted to know was whether wtp had crossed the line from issues advocacy into clearcut campaign activities. I wrote to western Tradition Partnership at an address in colorado. Got a response back that said, one, we didnt have anything to do with this, even though our name was on it, but, two, essentially this is none of your business. And so this does not come under your jurisdiction. The primary purpose of wtp is not to engage in political campaigning. Ryssdal jim brown is wtps outside counsel. Theyre an Issue Advocacy group and theyre allowed to engage in lobbying and, as such, they dont need to register their activities with the state of montana. Ryssdal but as unsworth dug deeper, he began to suspect that the different groups on the mailers werent really that different at all. The common denominator appeared to be a chap named Christian Lefer. Christian lefer had signed some of the paper work. His name appeared on some of the paperwork. My name is Christian Lefer, and im the creator of getnonprofitstatus. Com and the nonprofit launch kit. Ryssdal lefer had come to montana back in the mid2000s to work on conservative causes. He turned out eventually to be the director of strategy for wtp. But when unsworth tried to learn more about lefer and wtps activities, he had trouble getting answers. Until, he got a big break. We came across what id call a friendly witness, someone who was directly involved, appeared to have been directly involved in the activity, who became dissatisfied and had some materials, some documents. This is karolin loendorf. Ryssdal karolin loendorf was hired by Christian Lefer to work for wtp in early 2010. Shed been a county commissioner. She was active in local republican politics. Still rolling. Ryssdal all right, here we go. Well, in the beginning, i was kind of confused because i wasnt sure where they were heading. I had some red flags that would come up and i just kind of was playing it out, trying to feel out where wtp really was. Things were kind of secretive in ways and that bothered me. Ryssdal i met loendorf at a cafe in helena, where we went over some of the documents that she had given to unsworth. How long did it take to realize that something was different . It took a good month. But when i find out theres p. O. Boxes in helena, theres p. O. Boxes in livingston, theres p. O. Boxes in bozeman, theres p. O. Boxes in denver, theres p. O. Boxes in longmont. Thats not normal. Ryssdal and then, loendorf says, she discovered what wtp was really all about. It wasnt until i went to the winter. The republican winter kickoff in 2010 when i found out a couple of my favorite legislators were on their hit list. Ryssdal on their hit list . And that bothered me. Ryssdal so this is an issues group, a 501c4, with a candidate hit list. Correct. And when i found out what wtp was really all about and if you dont vote the way that they wanted you to vote in the legislature, or the county or the city, they would be there to replace you. Ryssdal i want to make sure i understand this. This is a 501c4 social welfare group. Correct. Ryssdal with specific candidates that it wanted to target and recruiting specific candidates to promote its agenda. Correct. Ryssdal she showed me how they did it. I want to flip to the last page. Wtp had a plan a plan to raise and spend more than half a Million Dollars on Montana State races. To make that happen, they had a secret fundraising script for loendorf and others to use on prospective donors. That script went like this. Were a 501c4 organization. Ryssdal and. Corporate contributions are completely legal under this program. Ryssdal and. There is no limit to how much you can give. Ryssdal and, most important. Its confidential. Were not required to report the name or the amount of any contribution that we receive. Ryssdal so if you decide to support the program. No politician, nor bureaucrat or nor radical environmentalist will ever know you helpedake this program possible. You can just sit back on Election Night and see what a difference youve made. Ryssdal nobodys going to know. Please give us money. Correct. Ryssdal those documents were all that Dennis Unsworth needed see. They were offering to help people get involved in campaigns without limits, not disclosing who they are, operating from the shadows, spending as much money as they wanted to spend to influence campaigns, unregulated. Thats what it told me as commissioner of political practices. Is that they were selling illegal practice, essentially. Ryssdal no bureaucrat and noadic environmealiswill ever know that you helped make this program possible. You can just sit back on Election Night and see what a difference youve made. Does that sound Like Campaign activity to you . Uh, however you want to characterize it. The statements true because this is part of a larger debate thats going on on the national level. Ryssdal that debate hes talking about is the old eight magic words defense. By avoiding phrases like vote for and elect, groups like wtp say theyre not campaigning at all. Theyre just talking about issues. And it is permissible, both under federal law and, most importantly, under constitutional principles, First Amendment principles, that if you engage in discussing issues, you do not have to disclose who your donors are and you do not have to register your activities with any commissioner of political practices or the fec. Ryssdal that argument didnt wash with Dennis Unsworth. A number of courts have rejected that narrow eight magic words test and some states, including montana, take a broader view of what defines campaigning. These are campaign materials. There is no question about their involvement in campaign activity. Absolutely no question. The commissioner handed down a ruling, accusing wtp of engaging in all sorts of wrongdoing, in my opinion, that was designed to basically punish the organization for engaging in First Amendment speech. And so wtp didnt stand back and just take it. Basically they said, all right, ifoure going to try to regulate us under unconstitutional laws, the were going to cllenge those laws. Ryssdal and they did. Wtp sued to strike down montanas 100yearold corrupt practices act. This was a case that you argued personally. Steve bullock is the state attorney general. What does this case mean though for montana specifically . It was over 100 years ago. It was l906, in a local newspaper that said the greatest living issue confronting us today is whether the corporations shall control the people or the people shall control the corporations. We did have a historof really corporate dominance in all of our electoral processes, and montanans took it back. It was average people that came together and said, no, we want to make sure that individuals are deciding who represents us and not large interests. This is western Traditions Partnership vs. Attorney general of the state of montana. Ryssdal what the case turned into, though, was montana openly challenging the u. S. Supreme court over Citizens United. Remember, citizens allowed outside groups to spend unlimited amounts of money independent of candidates. The court said outside spending does not corrupt. Bullock disagreed. Independent expenditures would corrupt, and we certainly have a history. I mean the whole reason why the corrupt practices act was passed by Citizens Initiative in 1912 was because of corporate corruption. Ryssdal some of the montana justices were skeptical. On what legal basis can we simply ignore Citizens United on the premise that montana got it right and the Supreme Court got it wrong . Thank you. Well take this matter under advisement. This is the ten oclock news on q2. Ryssdal what happened next was kind of a surprise. The montana Supreme Court is upholding a 1912 law stating corporations cannot spend money to influence elections. Ryssdal bullock had beaten back wtp. He won the case. Which wasnt supposed to happen. States arent supposed to contradict the u. S. Supreme court. The montana case was a direct challenge to the Supreme Courts ruling in Citizens United. It was unusual because it was a state Supreme Court saying, you need to think about this again. We think youve made a mistake. At least as it affects our laws in montana. Ryssdal there was, of course, one man who didnt think the court had made a mistake with Citizens United. Hes got a different view of money and politics. Ryssdal is money in politics inherently corrupting . Definitely not. It doesnt corrupt the process. Its necessary for the process. To communicate, you have to spend money. So you have to have money to communicate. The problem we have is we dont have enough Information Available to voters to allow them to make informed choices, so we need more spending. Ryssdal do you think theres not enough information out there in american politics . Look, the majority of the people do now know who their congressman is or who their senators are. So, you think thats enough information . No, thats not enough information. They need a lot more information. Ryssdal bopp took the montana caseight to thu. S. Supreme court. There was a lot on the line for both sides. This to me was really about the last hundred years and what kind of system we ended up developing, but also the next hundred years. Ryssdal it would take six months for the u. S. Supreme court to weigh in. We want to bring you an update on another developing story, the high court doubling down Citizens United. The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Citizens United. Ryssdal they did so in a single paragraph, without a hearing, refusing to reconsider tizens united. Bopp had won again. The Supreme Court majority is not ready, i think, to look at whether they were wrong about the potential for corruption by independent spending. Thats the immediate takeaway from montana. Ryssdal legal theories are one thing. Political realities are another. Which makes this the point where the story of wtp gets really interesting. Where we get back to the boxes from colorado. Member the boxes, right . The ones that were found in that crazy drug house in denver and sent up to montana . Well, this is where they came. The commissioner of political practices. This is julie steab. Good morning, mr. Ryssdal, how are you . Ryssdal how are you . Good to see you. Nice to meet you. Ryssdal it turns out that those boxes had some suspicious wtp files in them. But they came five months after the state had finished its investigation into wtp. They were mailed to me unsolicited and they all relate to western Tradition Partnership. Ryssdal what investigator julie steab discovered inside the boxes made her wonr whether wtp as an outside group was working directly with candidates in other words, coordinating. One file that caught my attention is one thats labeled wife letters in this folder. When i first saw it i had no idea what it meant. For example, this first letter on top is from pam butcher, and her husband ed was a candidate in 2008. Ryssdal these wife letters were sent to voters just before election day. Ryssdal okay, wait, hold on. Joanne miller and pam butcher in their signatures have the sa handwriting. Mmhmm. Ryssdal wow. But as you read into these things, i mean look at this, right, ed and i first met on a blind date. This is pam butcher. First met on a blind date neither of us wanted that was arranged by one of his friends. Blah, blah, blah. It was the fall of 1962. How does whoever wrote this, assuming its not pam butcher, know all that stuff . The answer seemed to be in another folder. Its called a wife questionnaire and its filled out by pam butcher. How did you and your husband meet . And it says, we met on a blind date. Ryssdal ed and i met on a blind date. Arranged by his buddy that neither of us wanted. Ryssdal . That neither of us wanted. I was a freshman at eastern montana college. Ryssdal . And it was his second year. In the fall of 1962. Ryssdal weve got stacks of these. Stacks. Some are pink, some are purple, some are white, some are blue. Ryssdal if there are wife questionnaires, are there candidate questionnaires . Yes, i did find those. Ryssdal there was one questionnaire that was full of detailed information about a candidate that wtp was backing. This one has what is a subject candidate questionnaire. A lot more detailed than the wife questionnaire. Ryssdal and look at this. It a queionnre apparently filled out by republican mike miller. Mike millers the challenger who narrowly beat john ward in the 2008 primary. You remember ward, right . He was the candidate on pothole drive who was targeted by the attack mailers just days before the primary. Ryssdal how much time will you be able to spend campaigning . So this is wanting to know, if we invest in you. How much time can you give us . Right. He has no previous appointed political positions. Political involvement, basically none. Political fundraising experience, none. Ryssdal so what does this tell you, all this, you know, one, none, none . What does that mean . Oh, this information is important to me specifically because this is an inexperienced candidate who beat john ward with no experience going into the campaign. Ryssdal hi, im looking for mike miller, please. I tried to talk to mike miller about the help he may have gotten from wtp. Itd be real important to the story to have your side of it. But he wouldnt talk to us on camera. All right, sir. Thank you. Byebye, now. But we did find another candidate whose name also apared in the les. Its the guy who met his wife on a blind date, ed butcher. Ryssdal weve gotten some boxes of documents full of wtp papers, in which you and your wife have some files. Have some what . Ryssdal have some files. Okay . Okay. Ryssdal let me show you what im talking about. So, theres a questionnaire here filled out by pam butcher. Who is your wife. Yeah. Ryssdal asking things like, how did you and your husband meet . How many kids do you have . What are their names and ages . What church do you attend . So this is wtporking with your campaign. Uh, not to my knowledge it was wtp. It might have. Ryssdal working with your wife for sure. It could have been christian. Ryssdal christian as in Christian Lefer from wtp. Its very possible in that primary that when she was trying to write this letter, that she could have very easily have run it by him. He may have asked, do you need any help . And she said, yeah, i need to get this family letter out. So its very possible, there could have been a little bit of that, but as far as him being involved in the campaign to any degree, you know, basically i was running the campaign. Ryssdal well, buhelping your wife, and helping do communications with potential voters is not, in your mind, helping a campaign . Well, it would be. Yeah, yeah. It would be. I mean, there could be some of that going on. In here we have what i call the candidate signatures. So here we have mike miller. Ryssdal from the john ward race and its clearly a photocopy. Right. This is one from Wesley Prouse and it actually was cut from this page, which was faxed to Christian Lefer, same fax, same number. Ryssdal same number, yeah. So this fits, i believe, and as i went through this, it became clear that these signatures are being pasted onto the candidate letters. For example, mike millers wasnt signed, and this signature matches exactly on the signed letter that was mailed out to voters. Ryssdal connect the dots for me then. How does this work . My guess, as best as i can figure, is wtp determines which candidates they want to support in the election and who is going to promote their interests. They then have someone internally writing the wife letters. They have someone internally generating the candidate letters. They get the signatures to put on the letters. And they do mass, mass mailings. Ryssdal and the conclusion you draw is. My opinion, for what its worth, is that wtp was running a lot of these campaigns. Ryssdal i wanted to get another opinion. So i took the documents to trevor potter, the former chairman of the federal Election Commission. So the question is, what does this lead you to believe . It would suggest if they are sending this questionnaire around to candidates and then producing these letters that they have a directole in these candidate communications. This is the sort of information that is, in fact, campaign strategy, campaign plans that candidates cannot share with an outside Group Without making it coordinated. Ryssdal and just to be clear, thats a big nono. Right, you need to know more, but certainly if i were back in my fec days as a commissioner, i would say we had grounds to proceed with an investigation and put people under oath and show them these documents and ask where they came from and where they were. Ryssdal makes you want to know more. Yes. Ryssdal okay. We contacted several individuals who are involved with wtp, including Christian Lefer. Hi, im looking for Christian Lefer, please. Its kai ryssdal from frontline. Is this mr. Lefer . None of them would give frontline an oncamera interview. Hello . Hello . Hello . So i showed the documents to thr ouide unse we have boxes and folders full of candidate signatures, being faxed to wtp. And the question, once youve had a chance to think about this for a second. Is why would these documents, which appear to Show Campaign activity, be included in boxes full of wtp materials . The answer is, is that ive never seen this material before. I dont know if this was found intp materia. Im not going to comment because i havent reviewed any of that material and, i mean, im not going to, you know, have materials sent, you know, given to me on surprise and then asked to comment. I dont know what they show or what they dont show. Im literally not going to comment on that. You can rely on your other sources for those. Ryssdal until wtp answers the questions that these documents raise, its impossible to know exactly what the group has been up to. But whats amazing is that this was the group that convinced the u. S. Supreme court it didnt need to take a second look at Citizens United. Ryssdal there is a little bit of irony, right, in these documents being about wtp and wtp being the group at the center of this case, the Supreme Court case. Right, because what the majority of the justices said is, we dont have any evidence that there is anything corrupting about independent spending. We have no reason to change our mind based on the montana case. Well. Ryssdal turns out maybe. Here youre looking at something that may in fact not be independent at all, and this is exactly the sort of thing that people have been trying to argue to the Supreme Court that this socalled iependent spending is not really independent. Ryssdal all right, something to tell you about western Tradition Partnership. They have Gone National and theyve changed their name. Its called american Tradition Partnership now, atp, and they have an office right here in washington, d. C. It is on pennsylvania avenue. chuckles all right, youve got to have a look at this. Its just a p. O. Box. Atp says theyre working in more than half a dozen states now. And the way things are going, theyre going to have a lot of company. Whats the logical extension of these Issue Advocacy groups, the 501c4s, not being regulated . Is there a finite, natural conclusion . Yes, there will be more of them; theyll be more active; they will be able to speak more; theyll have more money to speak. Ryssdal does democracy get better, does our government, does this country work better when that happens . Definitely. Ryssdal the Supreme Court has sided with jim bopp. But its not so clearcut back here in montana, where the real world of politics comes home to pothole drive and john ward. Do you think the Supreme Court understands politics and the actual mechanics of it . Well, to a certain extent, but not in the nittygritty, no, i dont think they do. I dont think they understand the realities of it. I wouldnt say theyre clueless, but they certainly dont live in the same world as the rest of us. Ryssdal its a world where campaigns look a lot like this. The Montana Senate race has become the most expensive in state history more advertising than any senate race in the country. Much of the money is coming from outside groups, and much of that undisclosed. The game thats being played here is how to spend money to affect elections without having to disclose where the money is coming from. Ryssdal its estimated that 9 billion will be spent on elections across the country this year. The vast majority of those elections are going to be state and local. And that is where citizens unitmay well have its greatest impact. Voters have far less information at these local elections. Theres a lot less money to be spent on these elections already, so if you have a big gorilla come into town and drop a lot of cash, lets say 100,000, 200,000, in that race, i think the effect there could be much more tremendous than at the federal level. Ryssdal but how big an effect is hard to know, because as we found out out in big sky country, big money has a way of staying out of sight. Next timfrontline. He wanted you to think that he had died a natural death. Inside a complicated string of criminal investigations. It was not about the right to die; it was about the rule of law. She took her life, and they helped her do it. Inside the hidden world of assisted suicide. I want to make sure my death is going to be my way. The suicide plan. Watch frontline. Visifrontlines website for our special report, big money 2012, including a webexclusive film. Targeting the right voters. Exploring the president ial campaigns digital efforts. An interactive that allows you to find out how campaigns are targeting you. A series of investigative reports with our partners at marketplace and propublica. Then tell us what you think at pbs. Org frontline. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major funding is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Additional funding is prided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. And by the frontline journalism fund, with a grant from the orfalea foundation. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs. Org frontline. Frontlines big sky, big money is available on dvd. To order, visit shoppbs. Org or call 1800playpbs. Frontline is also available for download on itunes. 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