[applause] roemer is a louisiana native, a former member of congress and served as governor of louisiana from 19881990 two. He was a president ial candidate in 2012 with a platform centered unrigging the system. Washington is bought and sold. Special interest control washington, d. C. He has not been invited to a single televised debate. Wake up, america, they stole your government. [applause] buddy welcome to louisiana. [applause] stay be wonderful. Was a governor 30 years ago after eight years of congressmen. I have been around the world a couple of times. And i can tell you that louisiana is one of the special places in the world. Flora, fauna, rivers, french heritage, some call occasion call it cajun. I speak slowly as i get old diabetic am a type one and have diabetic neuropathy. And mycts both my speech walking and gets worse and worse , so i apologize. Thisise the work of convocation. I ran for the United States congress five times. Them, successfully. Ran for governor and won it upset. After 20 years out of politics, iran for president i ran for president unsuccessfully. I never took pac money for either of those races. [applause] and i did not take contributions of more than 100. [applause] money spent against me in the millions while in office. Usually, i beat it. Works against honesty, reality and, america. To the special interest, trade associations, and large corporations. To keep your job, you dont follow your values you follow the money. Cussed andten discussed these days. On a main theme, he is right on one main theme, he is right drain the swamp. , the tradedia associations, and the bureaucracy think they control america. They dont. We do. Work hard and have fun. I am 100 with you. Thank you. [applause] [applause] now for someone who needs little introduction. I am delighted to welcome my fellow board member and Academy Awardwinning actress Jennifer Lawrence. [applause] jennifer hi. In 2011, Stephen Colbert stunned america by starting his own super pac and he showed just how thin the line is between bribery and legal political contribution. Seven years later, we want to check in on how all of that is going. Please welcome his personal pac,r for the super current president of the Campaign Legal center, trevor potter. [applause] much. thank you so welcome, trevor. I will jump right in. I am hollywood elite, so, as a hollywood elite, i want all of the influence i can buy but i am sure there are limits. If i wanted to give as much money as i wanted, it would be 1000 would be the limit . Trevor the legal limit you can ise directly to a candidate 2700. Before you get nervous that that is not enough, you can give as much as you want to help the candidate. You just give it to a super pac, a single candidate super pac that can then go and spend it on behalf of the candidate. In thereme Court Citizens United case struck down existing limits and said corporations, individuals could spend as much as they wanted to help candidates because that sort of independent spending could never be corrupted. [laughter] jennifer that money is not going to a candidate, right . They do not have any say on how that money is being used . That would be a slush fund, monday money laundering. Trevor Justice Kennedy assumed this spending would be completely independent of candidates and parties, that these groups would operate as outsiders. But that is not how it has turned out. Candidates nowadays create their own independent super pacs before they become candidates and they raise money with these super pacs. Once they become candidates, they can spend it to elect the candidate. Jennifer pretty clever. Once they become candidates, they cannot touch any of it. [applause] trevor it takes them a surprisingly long time to become candidates. You might recall jeb bush in 2016 who spent six or nine months going around the country traveling at the expense of the super pac, raising tens of millions of dollars saying he was thinking of exploring the possibility of considering whether to become a candidate. He did all that and then jumped into the race. Jennifer but once they sign all the paperwork, then they have to stay away from super pacs, right . Trevor there are lots of ways they can and do stay in contact. For example, the federal Elections Commission says it is all right for candidates to appear at super pac fundraisers, either to raise small amounts or to be a featured or honored guest. That may not sound like a lot of contact to you, but the fec has said you can have one of these fundraisers with as few as two guests. Kind of a private fundraiser. The candidate can thank people for giving and ask them to help support the work of the pac. The fec has come up with the two cats rule. You can be the principal fundraiser for a candidate and the fundraiser for the super pac. Jennifer there is a wall between candidates and super pacs and if i throw big money at a super pac, my personal politician does not get to decide how it is spent, right . Trevor well, that is technically correct except that the people who do decide how to spend it are usually, in this scenario, the former Campaign Manager of the candidate or a close friend of the candidate and one of my favorite examples, the parents of the candidate who are running the super pac. They also can share common vendors so they can use the same consultants. Basically, it is the other pocket on the candidates coat. Jennifer if the candidate tells the super pac what to do with the money, that is legal . Trevor that would be illegal. However, first they have to get caught and then the ftc has to have a majority vote on whether and the fecte it, is deadlocked on all of this. Jennifer if they break the rules, what is the punishment . A really big fine . Trevor the fec has never actually punished a candidate for coordinating with a super pac. They have never seen an example of that. Jennifer they must be blind, bless their hearts. Lets say my candidate is testing the waters and they got caught telling a super pac what to do and the fec stormed down on them with power and fury. Trevor the first thing to remember is the candidate is almost never fined. The committee or the super pac or the treasurer might be, but not the candidate. , theey levy a fine candidate or the super pac has to pay voluntarily, and if they do not agree, the ftc has to take them to court. If they do all of that, the problem is would the fec actually collected . There are fines that have been levied that the fec never got around to collect. Jennifer i can give as much as pac and thereper are no repercussions for the candidate. What about me . Trevor if you did not have a good lawyer and you gave directly, yes, you would be listed as the donor of the super pac. Lawyer, they good would say to you, you can give through an llc. You can create one. Anythingould be named you want. You could name it after your cat. Do you have a cat . Jennifer gof. No. But i do have a dog. Pippy lawrence stockings. Be to your option would take a Million Dollars and give it to one of these taxexempt nonprofit groups, a dark money expose they do not disclose their donors. They can go ahead and spend it themselves or give it to the super pac and your name will never be out there. The Supreme Court said, dont worry about all of this new spending because it will be fully disclosed. That is not turned out to be the way they expected it to be. Jennifer ok. Lets say we have weathered the storm, my candidate is elected by want to buy more politicians. Lets say you are a politician. Could i just get you a bunch of bribes to get you to do stuff . Trevor depending on who the politician was, yes. [laughter] mcdonnell ofor virginia just had his conviction 11 bribery charges overturned by the Supreme Court. I bet that surprises you. Jennifer i am very surprised. I could just get you a rolex or pay for your daughters wedding . Trevor literally, all of those things were taken by governor mcdonnell. His lawyers argued that was not a bride because what he did in return did not count as an official act. You only introduced the businessman to state officials themsked them to meet with and held events in the governors mansion. The Supreme Court bought that argument. They said that was not a bride but constituent services. To chief justice referred outofstate contributors to. Andidates as constituents i guess that means that every wealthy favor seeker in the country with a checkbook and a pocket full of rolexes can go right ahead. Jennifer this is all really disturbing. Bribery is legal. In america. Corruption is legal. Are we at a Tipping Point . What will it take to get to a point where we were at postwatergate where congress felt obliged to take bold measures . Trevor i think we are at a Tipping Point. The good news is it is not too late. [applause] out there, at polls about half the people say we should completely get rid of the current campaignfinance system and put in a new one. 30 say we should just make major changes in the system. Everybody is on board with doing something. Congress could pass bills that are sitting there, like the honest ads act, the disclose act. There are states and cities around the country doing interesting things. Seattle has a citizen voucher program. The fec could update its Disclosure Rules enforced existing laws and crackdown on this nonclinical coronation noncoordination coordination racket. We have to Work Together to make it happen. [applause] jennifer thank you for coming on the show. Our next speaker is an attorney and the National Campaigns director for honor the earth. She was an advisor on native american issues for the Bernie Sanders campaign. She has been a powerful voice for justice on a stunning array of issues. [applause] how are you guys doing . I would like to acknowledge whose land whereon right now. No other people have had relationship with the u. S. Government quite like the Indigenous People. We have had promises that have werebroken when treaties made. We talk about treaties like they are archaic. A u. S. Led government systematically disempowered native people and take our children from us. In 2016, i thought i had a pretty good idea of what political corruption was. I worked in d. C. And on capitol sandersrked for bernie [applause] but it was not until i went to north dakota that i truly understood what that meant. The Dakota Access pipeline, i saw corruption and corporate greed firsthand. I watched Indigenous People think pushed off their lands. And interviewed women and children who had been bitten by attack dogs. When i was arrested, i was put into a dog kennel and stripsearched for a misdemeanor charge. That is a pretty interesting concept. I saw hundreds of people suffering from hypothermia and i saw bullets that left holes in peoples legs from fighting this pipeline unarmed. I saw women who have really lost their vision in one eye. When you look at that and you remember that all of this happened because of the pipeline, all this happened to unarmed people who pay the salaries of the Law Enforcement doing this. All of these Human Rights Violations happened on u. S. Soil. There were veterans who said it was like a war zone, that they could not believe this was happening in the u. S. We fight still, they did not break us. We continue to fight still. [applause] time, we are fighting a line through the Mississippi River to the shores of lake said. Lake superior. All. Ght for us we are fighting for your water and your childrens futures. When i sit in spaces like this and we hear conversations about corporate greed and influence of politics, influence of money into politics, it is difficult after you have seen Something Like that. Something like that fundamentally changes the way you look at justice. We recognize that something is wrong. We recognize that we need change. We recognize, usually, special interest influence our Government Systems and people do not hold the same rights that corporations do. We need more than just words. We need action, engagement beyond social media shares. Incremental change is not going extreme climate. It is not going to stop police brutality. It is not going to stop our friends and neighbors being deported. It will not stop the destruction of protected lands. Today is friday. There is a land rush on a sacred site and other National Parks right now in 2018. That narrative of seeing it is madness that is happening. We also recognize that some of the most oppressed, consistently forgotten people in this country led one of the most significant environmental movements in decades. We reached millions of people around the world. [applause] we inspired resistance that continues. The targeting the banks that fund these projects, we have cost the industry billions of dollars. Billions of dollars from committed people. The language of money is a powerful campaigning tool but in the end, the one truth is that we cannot drink money. Climate change and a lack of clean Drinking Water becomes a reality. The first u. S. Climate change refugees are here in louisiana. Indigenous people whose homelands are underwater. It is time to learn from our past mistakes. It is justice for all. Remember that we have to be inclusive and collaborate together. We have to find Real Solutions in these urgent times and please, please, heed the message from the original people water is life. [applause] thank you, tara. Our next speaker has been a democracy reform activist and leader for more than three decades, including over 25 years with common cause. Kare karen thank you. It is great to be here today. To hear from these powerful speakers. I am so encouraged by the crowd we have here today and that are joining us for three days to talk about how we can Work Together and collaborate to tackle the very difficult challenges we face. John gardner founded common cause 50 years ago because he banks, pharma, oil and gas, they had representatives lobbying on capitol hill and they were giving Huge Campaign contributions and they often got what they wanted. He formed common cause to take on the special interest and to be working on ways that the peoples voice can be heard in our democracy. Common cause worked at the state and local level and at the federal level to move transparency reform, freedom of information reform, ethics, Campaign Finance reform as well as election reform. Not because they are an end to themselves but because they allow people to take on power so their voices are heard in elections, district lines are not drawn to stifle peoples voice. Politicians choose voters insert of the other way around. That work continues and many groups have joined this movement, which i think is so important because we will never win if we do not have more people joining us. I wanted to talk about the challenges our movement faces and what we need to do to take advantage of this opportunity where millions of people understand that our system is broken and needs to be fixed. First, i think we can learn some. Essons from the right one of the challenges we faced over the last few decades is that the far right has invested millions of dollars in tackling and taking down the reforms we pass. Millionaires like the Koch Brothers provide funding for groups sos, legal they can sue every Campaign ReformCampaign Finance reform bill that has been passed and help to bring us Citizens United decision. Funded rightwing media sources, groups like the American Legislative Exchange council to work with state legislatures to move an antigovernment, antiregulation, and antidemocracy platform and move that at the state level. Organizations that work with thousands of Ground Troops who are working on get out the vote and encouraging and voting for candidates and in between elections, they spend their time recruiting for more people to get involved. We do not have this kind of infrastructure yet. That is what we have to work on. We have to look at this as a longterm effort to be moving reform that breakdown barriers to participation and we need donors and funders to support that work. Over the long haul. We also need to recognize there is no silver bullet. There are a lot of single issue organizations out there. Important andre there is no one single issue that trumps all others. We also need to simultaneously be tackling institutional and structural racism. One way to do that is to be looking the reforms [applause] the reforms we need to move with an equity lands to see if there to see if there are unintended consequences. We do not have a reflective democracy. 51 of our population are women but they only hold 29 of the seats of the local all the way up to the federal level. Women of color represent hold 4 of the seats. This is in blue states, red states, and states. The states. Purple states. We need to make it easier for people to run for office. In a place like connecticut, where i helped lead an effort to move small donor Public Financing, candidates who were not wealthy could afford to run for office by collecting small contributions and getting a grant. They could bring their issue to the table. They could listen to their constituents. What do they want . Juvenile Justice Reform, ending the death penalty, environmental reforms. That is why this matters. We also need to break out of our echo chamber. The truth is, when common cause is working on issues like voting reform, small donor Public Financing, we work with applicants an independents. It is not just progressiv