Companies and the banks. I work for you. Helping businesses compete, allowing families to refinance Student Loans and veterans get health care close to home. Getting the job done for new hampshire. Im jeanne shaheen. I approved this message. I did not just moved here. I live here. I would be honored to have your vote. On the next washington gonzales of the rothenberg political report. Then we will get analysis from Jessica Taylor of the hill newspaper, aron blake of the washington post, Josh Kraushaar of the national journal. You can join the conversation with Carlton Cummins on facebook and twitter. Today, a discussion on the technologies and research at work to create hiv vaccine and other treatments. An event is hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. Live coverage at 2 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. Throughout campaign 2014, cspan has brought you more than 130 candidate debates from across the country in races that will determine control of the next congress. Tonight, watch cspans live Election Night coverage to see who wins, who loses, and which party will control the house and senate. Our coverage begins at 8 00 p. M. Eastern with results and analysis. Candidatelso see victory and concession speeches in some of that most closely watched senate races in the country. Throughout the night and into the morning, we want to hear with the we want to hear from you. Campaign 2014 Election Night coverage on cspan. The 2015 cspan student cam video competition is underway, open to all middle and High School Students to create a five minute documentary on the theme the three branches and you. Are 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totaling 100,000. How toist of rules and get started, go to cspan. Org. Now a discussion on Campaign Financing and issues. Is one hour. Ok, welcome, everyone, to this panel on Campaign Finance. Is titled, money talks, free speech, Political Action committees, and we will do with all those issues in the next 60 minutes. Please note that english is on channel seven, french on channel nine, indonesia on channel 10, and spanish on channel 11. You doneed a headset and not have one yet, please indicate that to our colleagues providing them. Ohman. Gnus next week i will celebrate having been here for 10 years. Pleasure ofhe working in many parts around the world. More importantly, we have two prominent speakers with us today. My fark on my far left is Trevor Potter, the former commissioner and chairman of the federal Election Commission. He is republican and he was counsel for john mccains 2008 president ial campaign. He is also a member of the washington, d. C. , law firm of kaplan and drysdale. Specializingington in issues in money and politics. On my direct left is ellen weintraub, nominated to the federal Election Commission in 2002 and who has since twice, as chairman of that commission, and in the true interest of bipartisanship, she is a democrat. Aas previously counsel member of a political longer where she counseled clients on federal and state Campaign Finance and election laws, nonprofit law, recounts, and regulations. Before that, she was counsel to the house of representatives ethics committee. She also served as editor in chief of the house ethics manual and a political contributor to the state Senate Ethics manual, two documents that i am sure are needed. Members ons investigations and has responsibility for the committees Public Education and compliance initiatives. We have discussed this session in advance, and Trevor Potter will start by giving an overview of the case law in this area. Ellen weintraub will then discuss the resulting spending disclosured the consequences in this particular election cycle. Following these presentations, we will open the floor for your questions and interventions. Factors thaty follow these processes, and many are covered in the election program. But one factor that is always important is the role of money in the electoral process. I have yet to visit any country where people tell me that money is not important in our elections. Whether it is huge spending on orertising or vote buying use of state resources are currently in the candidate nomination in the candidate this the importance of factor is recognized around the world, and in the recent study , they could not find a single one that did not have at least some legislation in this field. It includes some latecomers, including my own native sweden, which passed its first law in this field in april of this year. There is also a growing understanding that creating laws is only the first step. Politicalajority of party and Campaign Finance laws around the world are not implemented. Reform is angal important part of our work with political funds, but it is only the first step. The vast majority of our work focuses on supporting the implementation of such regulations. As part of this, we cooperate with many Public Institutions such as election management bodies that have a mandate to enforce legislative provisions. I want to mention the recently published political finance oversight handbook, which is in your packet, and there are more Copies Available outside. This is, in turn, part of our training in the enforcement curriculum. One of the people who helped us to field test this curriculum is commissioner weintraub. We also spend a lot of time assisting Civil Society groups that monitor Campaign Finance, including the elections last week. Their report, which should be out in a month or so, would be the first Campaign Finance monitoring report ever in tunisia if not in north africa. Ifesg the last 15 years, has supported Political Initiative in over 40 countries, and there is no sign that the need for this work is declining. One example is the united states. Camethough the first rules in this country over a century ago and several decades have passed since the legal reform in the 1970s, there is still a lot of work to be done. Many are arguing that the transparency and oversight are roleole of money or the of money in u. S. Politics has gradually gotten worse in the last few years. We will hear more about these two issues from our two speakers. Trevorhand it over to potter. Thank you, magnus, and it is a pleasure to be with you today here at ifes. I have had time to spend groups i have spent time with groups like yours. It gives me a step to it gives me a chance to step back and think through what you are about to see, but i have to say that i think what you are about to see, explained by commissioner weintraub and myself, is probably more confusing today than at any time that i have known in my professional career, so i do not necessarily envy you trying to figure it all out. We are trying to figure it out ourselves. But i am glad you are here. Magnus, thank you for your opening remarks, sort of setting things in context, because i think americans tend to forget there are other democracies in the world struggling with the same issues we are. They are not unique, and i think from your perspective you will have the opportunity to see how the issues that magnus has beend on how money has spent, how money is disclosed, faced by any country having an election. Has is a constitutional system, so we have a constitution that is set up that created two houses of congress and an executive branch and an independent judicial branch. Congress passes laws, which means they have to pass both chambers, the house and senate, and then they have to be signed by the president. Law, but they are interpreted by the Supreme Court under two circumstances either if a case arises where a party says we think the law says x and another party, or the y, and then its goes to the court to interpret what congress met. The other situation is someone whose activity is governed by it is contraryat to the constitution, that a regulatory system is not permitted by the constitution. That actually is something that the court has said frequently in recent years. History, theur court had nothing at all to say about congressional regulation of money and politics come on who could spend on disclosure. In the middle of the 20th century, we had a scandal you may have heard of called the watergate scandal, which involves a great deal of money being spent by the Reelection Campaign of president nexen, some of it contrary of president nixon, some of it contrary to some of it not disclosed, some of it appearing as a bribe. Congress enacted a new set of laws reacting to that that limited money, disclosed money. And there, our Supreme Court stepped in, and what they said ,s that our constitution specifically the First Amendment of the constitution, limited the power of government to regulate the raising and spending and disclosure of money in politics. In myrst amendment is, experience, reasonably unique amongst countries in that it is an absolute prohibition on government doing certain things. Is Congress Shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. Toeof this went back to the of the regulation to the regulation in the 1700s and was a reaction to the things the British Government had done in the american colonies. But if you listen carefully, you did not hear anything about the government regulating or not regulating the spending of money in elections. What has happened over time and it has been incremental is that the u. S. Supreme court has interpreted the piece of that that says, Congress Shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech to encompass spending money in elections or giving money to candidates or parties as a version of speaking. The theory being that clearly speech is standing on a Street Corner and speaking. It might be standing on a Street Corner and speaking with a microphone, although you would have to pay money for the microphone you have to buy it somewhere and certainly if you are speaking by taking out Television Advertisements in a system where we do not have government television, it is all commercial and you have to pay for advertising or mailings or phone calls or staff, all of that costs money. Saide Supreme Court has there are circumstances in which government may regulate the spending of money. There are others in which it may not. , we are going to decide when those cases come to us. It makes figuring out what to do and what the government may do in this area very complicated, particularly because the population, the members of the Supreme Court, change over time. So, as an example, congress in 2002,e 2002 the mccainfeingold Campaign Reform act, which was designed to deal with problems that congress thought had arisen since the watergate lost 30 years before. Challenged ine the court. They were almost entirely upheld by the Supreme Court. Then there was a change of one justice who retired. A replacement felt differently, and the court since then has gone back and struck down important pieces of the law they had just upheld. So if youre congress so if you are congress writing a law, you do best, but youre not sure what the court is going to do, and the court itself may not depending who is on it at that point. The final piece of the structure that complicates life is that we have, as i am sure all of you do, administrative agencies whose job is to interpret, to explain and to enforce the laws passed by congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. In our case, the Principal Agency in this area is the federal Election Commission, which i was a commissioner of some time ago. Commissioner weintraub is now. Essentiallyis evenly balanced between the , not more than their six commissioners, not more than meant three has republicans, three democrats of both major parties. Four votes of the six to adopt regulation or enforce the law. The good news is that no one party has control and can use it against the other party. That was the design. But it requires the commissioners have to be conceded have to be sincere about wanting to do the work because you have to be compromised and agree. What has happened in the last five years ago or so with the current federal Election Commission, which again depends who is on it, is that the 33, 3ion has split republicans and three democrats, on most major votes. An important piece of our system, which is the agency that is supposed to say you have to disclose your funding, you cannot do that, you violated the has not been able to function. There is no policeman on the beat, and the result is that things get wilder and wilder because nobody is there to stop them. That is our structure, in terms of how we get laws, who job,prets them, the fecs and what it does and what it does not. Let me summarize the system that we currently have as part of that structure. Said that there is a limit to how much individuals may contribute to political candidates and political parties. Those limits have been upheld by the Supreme Court, and they are not particularly high. 2600 for an individual giving to a candidate, more if that individual wants to give to a party committee, but not a great deal more. The practical limit of what you can give to the Party Committees , the three Party Committees directly, is going to be about 100,000. A lot of money in any country, but not enormous given what is being spent in our elections. Congress said, and the Supreme Court has agreed so far, that corporations and unions may not give directly to candidates or individuals, only u. S. Citizens and permanent residents, so not foreign governments, foreign countries, foreign individuals. That money is required to be fully disclosed so that every citizen will know who is giving to the candidates and the parties over a very low threshold, 200. Above that, their contributions are going to be disclosed. Though, thethat, u. S. Supreme court said it is permissible to limit how much individuals give directly to candidates and Party Committees, but it is not permissible under our First Amendment right of free speech to limit how much individuals can go out and spend theheir own to advocate election and defeat of a candidate. So you have two different systems here. You have the give money to candidates and parties that can ownimited, spend it on your , go out and take your money by Television Advertisements and save vote for obama, vote for romney, defeat so and so they are terrible, reelect soandso, they have done a great job for our state. That cannot be limited in terms of what individuals spend, and after a case called Citizens United, which you will hear referred to, it cannot be limited as to what corporations and unions can spend very congress had said about 100 years ago corporations and unions cannot spend money in elections. That had been the case in this inntry until Citizens United 2010. So there has been a significant change in our system with the Supreme Court saying that corporations and unions, again, u. S. Corporations and unions, have the same rights as u. S. Individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money. What the Supreme Court said, though, is that that money should be disclosed and is required to be disclosed under the law reads so if i give to a candidate or a party committee, the candidates and Party Committees disclose it. If i as an individual spend the money on my own so i take out an ad that says vote for smith it could say paid for by Trevor Potter, and i would be required to file with the government something that says i took out this ad to reelect smith, and it cost me 2 million. Legal, but i would have to disclose it. Neww development would a development has occurred which sounds confusing, so bear with me instead of my taking out an ad in my own name, paid for by Trevor Potter, or a corporation or a union which, according to the Supreme Court, can now do the same thing doing that and saying paid for by general election by General Electric committees pacs,rmed called super which are political committees that disclose their donors, and they can take all of this corporate and individual money and run the ads in their name prince of the individuals and corporations who have an can putd right to speak their money into a super pac. Ad, and it will say paid for by americans for a better tomorrow. Now, when you watch the ad, you may not know who americans for a better tomorrow is, but it is public information. The press can go to the fec and find out who the donors were, and it can say most of the donors