For a long time, that he needed time where the white house and the Congress Gets along. Before elections can be one, they have to be run and these days, to run an election means one thing, to finance an amusedn tonight i was when after the New Hampshire cnn was a panelist at asked if he thought john kasich reallyng to be able to give jeb bush a hard time for the establishment vote and he said oh no, john kasich cannot out fund or out raise jeb bush, and of story. That is what we deal with these days because money has become so pervasive in our political system. A great many individuals and organizations are now taking a look at this whole situation. Our group we are joining with, partnership with the archives and former members, is issue one and they have partners tonight in this tremendous important conversation. I thank you for coming because this is really important to the future of our democratic system. Let me quote from the website, issue one is a Nonprofit Organization committed to putting everyday citizens back in control of our democracy by reducing the influence of money over american politics and policy making. One of issue once most important initiatives is the reformers caucus, a Bipartisan Group of 120 former members in government working together to bring attention to this issue. I thank you because i love seeing people that are interested in something that could really hurt our system. I have a proud member of the reform i am a proud member of the reform. The panel is part of establishing issue one and being a part of it. Inare very knowledgeable very knowledgeable and capable hands. Help, we recruit an outstanding panel ones health, we recruit outstanding panel. Democratic senator from louisiana. [applause] senator bill from tennessee, republican. [applause] democrat from indiana who after his service in the house was our countrys ambassador to india. Policy director at the campaign areas ofter in the Campaign Finance, boating rights, political communication and government ethics. [applause] keeping these fine folks together will be the job of our moderator, american historian, comic shook off there, writer for bill clinton comic book ,uthor, writer for bill clinton and i want to again, thank you because to have a place like the archives and a program like this with the caliber of these panelists to be able to come and talk to you and discuss the fact that money has taken over our elections and we cannot continue this way, i thank you for coming tonight. [applause] thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for coming out on a very cold night. I want to thank the National Archive for hosting this and issue one and the u. S. Association of former members of congress. We are very lucky to have such a distinguished panel of former ,embers of congress with those a group whose careers have spanned the preand postbuckley and Citizens United areas arroz eras. As we try to navigate the complex and changing landscape of Campaign Finance law. I will have questions for each to be abut we want this conversation, so if you want to jump been at any time, i know members of Congress Really need that sort of prompting. We will be taking questions from the audience, later and said the spirit of the subject, the microphones will go to the highest bidder. [laughter] lets begin with meredith. We are marking as we know, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the buckley decision in the Supreme Court. I wonder if you can walk us through buckley. What it decided and why it is an important decision. I also want to talk about how we got here because it is important to see how this issue has developed. I could start back at the founding of the country and talk about special interest and factions, but i wont go back that far. Through to look at this the scope of the last century where you had from 1907, the that was van ban passed in the roosevelt era. Past and the aftermath of world war ii and the steelworkers thatthen after that, was passed in the aftermath of watergate, then a series of cases and the one that everybody pays most attention to is the buckley decision and what was very critical about that decision was the differential region differentiation in expenditures versus contributions. Wayeally bifurcated the those were treated under constitutional law. Expenditures, you could not put limits on expenditures for candidates. Good have independent expenditures declared somewhat ridiculously that they were not corrupting. In other words, you could have a small contribution, 2000 or anything over that was corrupting and if you spent 1 million, that was not corrupting. I think that begs reality. The buckley decision also reached many other issues in terms of this notion of what is coordination versus what is independent spending. It also look at some of the areas about how you can get around those spending limits. Congregate aggregate contribution limits, how much you can give to a party. That decision recognized that if you have the ability to give money to a party and that money would get given to candidates and there were potentially corrupting influences in the exchange. The other kind of notable question here in terms of was the notion that you could not exactly equate money with speech, but the ability to spend this money had freespeech implications, so it was this notable linking of First Amendment rights with the expenditure of money. Thanally not been more 200 years of how this country luxe at the linkage between and money. I will move quickly. You have the case of austin versus Michigan Chamber of commerce. The reason that is important is because they listed the contribution ban and the ban on corporate contributions was upheld in the philosophy on that was and had the ability to distort the process if you allowed corporations to chapter treasury funds. Then you move from austin and you go to the bipartisan knowign reform act which i some folks appeared and i actually lobbied on that bill and that was challenged in the mcconnell case. Very notable that the court upheld that and that court has Sandra Day Oconnor on it. What waswide spread of considered constitutional corruption. Then we had Citizens United, a bill most people dont spit Pay Attention to which allowed super pacs to raise and spend Unlimited Money. The last court case in which the Campaign Contribution was thrown out by the courts. The most important things are not only the different differentiation between expenditure and contribution, but also the court saying that the only constitutional ground to go in and discuss these kinds of campaign limits are grounds of corruption and the appearance of corruption. That is important because when you got this last court case in the court basically in the majority opinion said unless you have almost a quid pro quo agreement, then you really dont have corruption and just a reminder, in the kennedy decision in the in Citizens United, mr. Kennedy wrote that the buying and selling of influence will not create problems of undermining Public Confidence in government. Whether you believe that or not is up to each of you, individually. One of my questions we will get you for all of you is whether you believe that and what defines corruption, but before we get to that, senator brock, you like senator johnson were elected right around the youat Congress Passed were in office for the watergate and then for the buckley decision and im wondering if you can speak to the changes that you witnessed during your tenure. How did it affect you as someone who is running for office on either side of some of those , someone who was trying to get something done in the senate, did you feel that money was playing a greater role during that period . My first race for the senate was in 1970. I dont think we thought much about it to be honest with you. You could take cash, checks. The idea that money was sufficient to cause a serious i dont think most of us thought much about that until watergate, and then we began to read the story of people going to jail for the 71. G, i guess we said whoa, ok, something is going on. Limitshat, when the 74 are imposed, again, it did not have any effect on me. Ian number very well remember very well, one specific case we had in east tennessee, a businessman up in the hills of east tennessee, he was used to tapping all of his suppliers and said if you want to do business with me, i want a piece of the business. Then he would turn around and i went to see politicale he was a when i was there, he said hes got this envelope for you and i said jack, i know what is in their and i cannot take it. I know what is in there and i cannot take it. He said you know you can trust me, take it. I have these guys with me and we went up and we had driven about a mile and i said about open this thing i have to open this thing and it was a huge stack of bills, not newspaper clippings and i told one of my that we will. And you will go and take this back, because im not going to jail for whatever this was. Heartbroken because he was doing all his life and all the sudden, we began to see that the change of rules did change some things that worked before then. Buckley was a different world, but we were reacting with buckley to this kind of thing if thereo see was corruption, that we could stop it and we could stop it by at least dealing with the contribution site if not the expenditure side. That was the hope and it sounded logical at the time. Senator johnston, i wonder if you could speak to the same question. You were there for the same transition and did you see a change . Did it become a greater concern to you wonder constituents . Iran in 1972, which was the first year of the federal Election Campaign reform act which was the one declared unconstitutional in buckley and it was a very good act that restricted contributions for elections. A restricted the amount you could spend by the size of your state. It really worked well. People dont remember that, but it worked very well. Rich people could only spend 40,000 of their own money. In 1976, it was declared unconstitutional. From then on, we ran under unlimited expenditures. About it, concerned because you can see every year, it got worse. It started off, they did not know how to spend the money, but now theyve got these huge combines that know exactly how research, ion spending up to 100 million. It is absurd. Senate has wethe knew it. I was concerned about it and i was a Committee Chairman who had very bright staff and we said what can we do about this . Down on howd up and we could solve the problem, given buckley, that was before Citizens United, and we came to the conclusion that there was not much you could do. Was and, which i thought act which i thought was sort of a nothing burger and that was declared unconstitutional. I am absolutely convinced that the only one way to deal with extended bird expenditures, contributions and what has corrupted the whole system is to have either a constitutional amendment or a fifth vote on the Supreme Court. Five fournited was and there are some other things that maybe you can do to marginally help. You need a constitutional amendment, we ought to put it in now. Every candidate for president has endorsed it. I was reading yesterday, bush said he would eliminate the since united. Donald trump, every speech, he says he doesnt want your money, he wants your vote and that is most of his appeal and you know hillary and Bernie Sanders and all of them are for it. We have a constitutional amendment, as every candidate, are you or it or against it . Do you want to limit contribution, deal with this issue and do the same thing with members of congress and i think if we did not pass it quickly, i think we could start a movement and a revolution and believe me, Bernie Sanders talks about a revolution, we need one in this issue, now. We will do some canvassing of the former members on a panel about how occasional amendments and some other ideas. You indicated there are some other ideas that might be pursued and i like to get to those before we get to questions from the audience. Your the longest serving member of congress in this group and you no doubt saw and were affected by the changing dynamic in congress that is often both sides of the aisle, the sharp spike in partisanship, this is function the product of what used to be by all accounts a very collegial group of folks. I wonder how big a role you think money has played in that. There are a lot of things that i would think feed into this, but lets focus on the question in hand, and that is the role of campaign money. There is no question that over the time that i was there, the leadership has been encouraging individual members to spend a lot of time dialing for dollars and that helps to determine to some significant degree or Committee Assignments or whether you advance to chairman and that sort of thing. In the older days, seniority was king, so you did not have to dial can you imagine some of these chairmen dialing for dollars . It has led to some of the dysfunction within the congress because so many decisions are being funneled through the leadership rather than allowing different members of authorities f and ias changed a lot point is leaving aside the court decisions, in my opinion, the federal Election Committee is supposed to be administering some laws and it has been very dysfunctional. It is deadlocked and there is this business of independent expenditures in an area where they could be aggressive and you could cut back a lot of that or make it truly independent and they are not really doing it. The as talking talking about the Supreme Court justices and the constitution, they are not going to necessarily get it right the next time, it seems to be we should at least be trying to administer the laws we have on the books effectively and that is not being done because there is political gridlock and they are not filling their positions and candidates come in thinking that they can file a complaint it is reallyand the law of a jungle out there as far as elections are concerned. Looking back at your time in mentioned dialing for dollars and im sure you are familiar with this phenomenon. Issue one tells us that members are now spending 50 of the day doing this and not doing the peoples business. That constantbout pressure to be raising money at how does that affect the rest of your day . That is a great question to start on. Here we have a republican from the midwest, from tennessee, a democrat from the state of louisiana. A midwesterner, all of us uniting and gathering together to encourage the people of our country to take back our demand thend government that we deserve as people. Lets talk about how this money is impacting the electoral process, the governing process and the recruitment of good candidates to run for congress in the first place. We are doing it in the appropriate place because here in the archives, we have these sacred documents that have found in our country on the basis of the quality for people and opportunity for people. Yet this system that has dominated, the big money and the billionaires and the 100 to eight families that have provided half of the money for the campaigns that we are going through right now are determining not only who is going to win, but who will even run or get in the race for senate and house and the presidency. I think this is one of the most fundamental questions that we face in this president ial year. Al qaeda is important. Our Foreign Policy and security is vital. Inequality in america an opportunity for more people with jobs in the 21st century. Democracy andour who runs and how they represent our country is fundamental to solving all of these other issues. Climate change and education and security. In 1989, it ran, knew to take on an incumbent who had been in office for 10 years. Million ort about 1 fishd 1 million through fries and hotdog suppers and individual contributions. , we both knew roughly what we had to raise, and then comes buckley and other decisions. The doors started to open up. ,ndependent expenditures outside groups, things that could add into the contribution level, and you eventually saw numbers spending more and more of their time dialing for theyre raising money, not attending the Committee Assignments, they are not talking to a republican across the aisle to try to figure out how to balance the budget or deal with climate change, they are on their phone at the democratic headquarters or the republican headquarters, raising money. Day. Hours a who willonly impacts eventually want to run in the democracy, it impacts when you get to washington, how you do with,ob and who you do it and how you govern and sit in your committees and do the work impactsess, and that it the kind of people that we will see running for president and where they spend their time and who they talk to. I think this is just a critically important issue right im delighted to see that there are people in the audience that care about it and we can talk about the the night, some of the solutions. You talk a little bit about the definition of corruption as it has evolved over the course of these Supreme Court decisions and i bookmarked that to come back to it. Just to throw it open to the group, is the system corrupt . How do you define corruption . Is the Supreme Court defining corruption too narrowly with the quid pro quo . Is that the only kind of corruption that concerns you or should not only the rest of us judgesr justices and our there is a difference between individual corrupt individual corruption, people taking money into their own pocket for their own purposes and the corruption of the system where people are buying public policy. There is less individual corruption in the congress than there ever has been, and i think people are personally by and large, very on honest. Scans fort had any years, people are very concerned about this, but people raise money for busine