Today on political advocacy. First, we will hear on the influence of money in politics. And later, michael steele. All right, folks, lets get started. Welcome back. Are beingminder, we filmed. When you ask a question, come up to the question mike, state your name and your school and keep your questions nice and concise. It is my great pleasure this introduced [indiscernible] he was the founder and ceo of , andmerican news project others. In 2015, he coauthored nation on the take, which received praise. He serves on nonprofit boards and advisory boards. Lets welcome Nick Penniman this morning. [applause] nick thank you for having me here on this snowy morning. That some ofanne you, this is the first time you have seen snow. Is that correct . That is fascinating for me. A talk, but i would rather have a conversation with you. Issue one was founded three years ago. We are a bipartisan political reform group. We saw this tremendous opportunity to make the point that american democracy, the perfection and improvement of the republic is not a is not a conservative cause, but everyones cause. We have three bills cooking on capitol hill. When we do our work around political reform, we pursue it in this bipartisan ration and it is essential for all kinds of reasons. Let me rewind the tapes a little bit. When i was your age, this book came out called the end of history. Philosopheren by a and historian. You might have heard of it. It was written by francis fukuyama. The end of history was near. What he meant by that was not the end of the world. But rather we had reached a point in the history of humankind in which we no longer had to sort out the political and economic order of the world. He firmly believed and he was a conservative thinker at the time, and he still is, although he has taken somewhat liberal viewpoint, he firmly believed that capitalism and democracy had won. It was over. It was game over. Communism, socialism, authoritarianism, autocratic regimes, they were gone. Fascism gone. Democracy and capitalism had won. They were the twin sisters that would march forward and a fine humankind probably until the earth froze over. About the same time i turned 18 and voted for george h. W. Bush bush, in his and inaugural speech, had this famous line about how a new wind was blowing. And the iron curtain was folly in the soviet union and thierry any and tyranny was over and how freedom would rush over the land. For me, coming out of college, that all felt right. It did feel like the end of history. I think back to my dad, who grew up in baltimore. Because it is on the coast, he did all the duck and cover drills during world war ii. A couple of times a month, they would scramble under their desks and cover their heads in these fetal positions and prepare for the possibility of the germans coming over to bomb baltimore. Obviously, there was the tremendous upheavals in the 1960s, the very useful up evils in the 1960s around civil rights. The Antiwar Movement in vietnam. Then reagan came on board in things settled down. And as you know, the berlin wall fell and the soviet union was cracking up and america was absolutely the victor of the world. Completely the victor of the world. So the notion that democracy and capitalism were a feat accomplished was something a fait accompli was in my bones. America,was next for as opposed to his democracy working or is this experiment freshening . It was clear that it was functioning very well. Today, it would be hard for anyone of you to submit the same thing, that that tremendous rush, that tremendous confidence that i had when i was your age in the american way no longer exists. Poll after poll after poll proves this. The most striking recently was a tracking poll since the end of world war ii. Yearked the same question after year after year. The question is roughly the you believe that the American Government works for the benefit of all the people or does it only work for a few big interests working on behalf of themselves . Coming out of world war ii, 75 of the public believe that the government work for the benefit of all the people. Oft year, election year, 8 the American People believe that the government worked for all the people. 92 said the government basically worked for a few big interests on behalf of themselves. Very tellingly, i have never seen this before in a poll. 99 of trump voters said the American Government only works on behalf of a few big interests. So here we are in a situation faith in thethe american way, in this very unique thing, this experiment in american democracy, almost seems like nobody believes in it anymore but might be a for grabs. Is up forely, it grabs at the same time that authoritarian regimes around the world are rising fast. I believe what we are entering into is a multidecade struggle between authoritarianism and democracy. And you guys are the new Ground Troops that are coming into that emerging fight. Magazine does the democracy index to measure the functioning the level of democracy in every country based on five card tear. Those include the electoral process, functioning government, local participation, Democratic Political culture, and civil liberties. The last years report, they reported we are experiencing a global democratic recession. Here are the stats behind that. Experienced a decline in their total score 2015. Ed with almost twice as many as the countries which recorded an improvement, which was 38. 57 countries stagnated with their scores remitting unchanged with 2015 remaining unchanged with 2015. Half of the worlds population lives in a democracy of some sort. Only 4. 5 of those reside in a full democracy. Down from 8. 9 in the re in their previous year. The reason why is a stunning revelation. America was downgraded in 2016, pretrump, not a reaction to trump, downgraded in 2016 from being a full democracy to being a struggling democracy. That is pretty stunning. This is america. To have america be downgraded by the economist from being a full to being a struggling democracy is pretty amazing. Lessonbout the fact that less than the worlds population live in democracies. When we wake up as americans everyday and we have our cell phones and so much media to consume and we literally can walk on the sidewalk and resize the president of the United States or any religious leader or anyone in the world that we sociald then do so on media, however we want, whatever we want, you guys are here, you are political junkies, that is something that according to other economist only 5 experiences living in a full democracy. If you walked out on the street in venezuela and pop off about the government, you probably wont be doing that very long. We in america like to feel like democracy is a thing. It is spreading, it will be the world. Actually, half live in democracies. Of rest live in some form tyranny or authoritarianism. So it very much is a struggle. The way i think wind up talking about this in america often is we talk about the broken political system, which makes us a little more real as opposed to authoritarianism versus democracy. I think about the hardware and the software. The hardware for the political of ouris the functioning elections, the functioning of our government, whether or not we have gerrymandered districts or whether or not we dont, voting, civil liberties, the basic that is the hardware. The softwares policies on environmentally on environmentalism, immigration, joyce. My proposition to you today is the struggle for your generation and mine, too, which is now coming into power, is to fix the hardware. Its not that the software is not important. Its not that we dont have pressing issues around immigration that we need to figure out a way of expanding jobs. The wealth in this country is extreme. But unless we fix the hardware, software doesnt run very well. Im going to focus in on one piece of it. I want to focus on money and politics. Does the government represent all the people or only a few interests . Cycle inelection aggregate was a 3 billion election cycle. Cycle was 7nton billion. We more than doubled between 2000 and 2016. Was electednnedy president , there were roughly 250 registered lobbyists in washington. There are now 12,000. In 2016, those lobbyists disclosed 2. 6 million in lobbying expenses. That is what they are required to disclose by law. There are other billions of dollars are spent every day in various ways to influence congress. About the 2. 6 million, it is 600 millions more than it costs to operate congress itself. Turning the lights on, keeping people fed, that is to billion dollars to run congress. The lobbyists just disclosed 2. 6 billion just to lobby congress. In 1974, 3 of former members of Congress Left capitol hill to become lobbyists. In 2016, 50 did. Increasingly, Public Service and washington is seen really as a means, almost as a stepping stone to go to k street, which is the big lobbyist corridor in washington, and cash out. Typically, these members of congress and their staff will go work for the exact same interests that they were supposed to be regulating on our behalf when they were in congress. Time spent fundraising. Typically, when you talk to they say, congress, in the 1980s and 1990s, they spent maybe 10 to 15 fundraising. It wasnt a big part of the job. They would go to a breakfast here and there, a lunch here and there and make some phone calls and assembled what they needed to run for office. Now members of congress been roughly 50 of their time fundraising. 50 of the time fundraising. What that looks like, because they cant fundraising their offices on the hill thats against the rules to do it from the actual Capital Building they go over to the dnc or rnc headquarters. They sit in little cubicles with headsets on and sometimes closets, where they can close the door. They are given stacks of call sheets to call the richest people in america and the dial for dollars and will say dollars endlessly. It is quite sad. When you listen to them talk about it, sometimes they do a situation where, when they get done with a phone call and the have another phone right here that the staff will hand them. They see they are calling john and he has so many kids and here are his kids names and his wifes name and he retired last year so you say, john, it is Nick Penniman, i am running for reelection. Hows your retirement going . How is your son . He is at oberlin right now. Thats great. Can i ask for 2700 for my reelection . They do this for hours on end. I was talking with a current female member in congress who said the sad thing about the call she makes, because she is a woman, a lot of people think they can confide in her on various things. Tell me your worst story. She said its awful. I called up this hollywood hisutive one day and i got left on the phone and said i would like to talk to your husband or you about renewing your commitment to my campaign. Im so glad someone called. I ordered these curtains a while and theyi living room were supposed to be a lemon color but they are a mustard color and its just awful. Has this ever happened to you . Heres a member of congress having to talk this woman through her crisis on the color of her curtains so she can get to the point where she can ask her for 2700, which is the max out contributions or she can get reelected. Steve israel was the head of fundraising. Last year. T congress he was the head of fundraising for the dccc. He estimated, by the time he Left Congress he served for 15 years he had spent 4200 hours personally just doing call time. Ere is an interesting stat when Ronald Reagan was reelected president in 1984, he attended two fundraisers. When barack obama was reelected president , he attended more than 200 fundraisers. Just in terms of the functioning, the ability for these Public Servants to do their jobs, we are completely inhibiting their ability to do their jobs just because of the fundraising alone. There is a thing called the cast committee in congress. The cast committee is the finance committee. The cast committee is the finance committee. When you serve on the finance committee, your ability to ingest money from wall street lobbyists and executives is ever present. Members of the committee, the House Finance committee, received more than 30 million from the finance insurance and real estate industries. These are the industries they are supposed to be regulating. Talk to your mom and dad about the corporations are the organizations that they work in. In most organizations in the world, that kind of fundraising, that kind of interaction would be such a profound conflict of interest that the corporation or the organization would ban it. If you serve on the finance committee and you are supposed to be representing the public good and i am a bank lobbyist, you should not be able to take my money. Yet you and your fellow colleagues on the committee took 30 million of my money in 2014. The last thing i will mention is the rise of big spenders in the system. It used to be that wealthy people participated in funding politics. Thats no secret. But ever since Citizens United, we have really seen the rise of the Billionaire Fund or billionaires are now looking at politics as being the next great challenge for them, the next big sandbox that they want to play in. Committed 150 million to the in 2014 cycle. Tom stier, a liberal donor, committed 100 million to the 2016 cycle. Whereu have a situation most of the republican candidates throughout the las vegas to Sheldon Adelsons casino and perform for him. So now you have people running for the president of the United States who find a necessary part of the job to get the job is to perform appropriately for the billionaires who are writing the 100 million checks. Know, what i am submitting here is that the hardware is completely broken. The results of this are that the ability for anything involved in the Public Interest to get over the wall of influence, the wall of cash, is very difficult in washington. You saw the struggle with obamacare when they were doing how they had to i dont know if you remember this, but one of the first things they had to do when they were doing obamacare is they had to completely exempt the pharmaceutical industry because they knew there was no way to take on the pharmaceutical industry and to mess with the Insurance Company at the same time because the pharmaceutical industry is so powerful and has such a grip on both parties washington. They basically said the pharma, the pharmaceutical trade association washington, you get a total pass on this stuff. And for that pass, you will support whatever we do. And thats exec we were farm i did with 150 million in ad buys. They supported the passage of obamacare because they knew it would not touch them. Is at a time when Prescription Drug prices in this country are at an alltime high, one of the major drivers of Health Care Costs in america. Even if you take a moment like that, where the first africanamerican president elected, democrats are running the house, democrats are running the senate, they have this big dream of Getting Health Care done, something that harry truman talked about and couldnt and happen, bill Clinton Hillary clinton talked about and make happen, finally bakr Obama Barack Obama tries to do it and the first thing they do is exempt one big industry because they cannot tackle both at the same time. Argue that they did not really tackle the Insurance Industry either because Insurance Company stocks have nearly doubled since obamacare became law. When you talk about the , theonment, Bill Mckibben guy who started 350. Org, he said there is no way that we will ever be able to tackle Climate Change from a legislative perspective unless we first deal with money in politics and reduce the power of the influence industry. When the democrats have the house on the white house, they attempted to pass a cap and trade bill, which started as a conservative idea piloted by the heritage foundation, picked up by republicans over the years, and they couldnt get that done because the power of the call theislanders asked the coal and oil industry was just too strong. 15 blocks away, they spent 500 million trying to reduce obesity in america, on programs trying to reduce obesity in this country. At the same time, reuters came reporth an investigative about attempts at the state, local and federal level to reduce obesity through legislation. The conclusion of the report was that the sugar and fast Food Industry and corn industry have battle. Y major whether it is a Public Health concern, an environmental concern, health care, serious reform on any one of the issues you care about, all of that your ability to get anything done on the Public Interest is radically diminished right now because the hardware is busted. The other big effects and to talk about are twofold. And then i want to have a conversation. Part of what you are seeing with day is aopulism of the profound concern about cronyism, that cronyism is taking over the economy. David stockman, reagans director of Office Management and budget, recently wrote a book called the great defamation, about how the market was rigged and anything but free. He argued crony capitalism is about the progressive and active use of political resources to gain something from the governmental process that wouldnt otherwise be achievable by the market. The freea betrayal of market system. Money dominates politics. As a result, we have neither capitalism nor democracy in america. This is Ronald Reagan, guys. This is not one of Bernie Sanders staffers. Oligarchy, mark mckinnon, george w. Bush is medications director, george w. Beral, bushs medications director, no itical liberal, wrote that creates an