There were people able to preregister when they were 17 so they could vote at 18. If you ask the vast majority, did they like the early vote period, did they like the right to exercise their constitutional privilege, the answer would be resoundingly yes. And professor raskin, youve heard someone characterize the udall amendment were considering today as an effort to repeal the First Amendment. Now, i dont believe thats accurate, but i hear it in paid ads and others and i guess if some of the billionaires are going to profit by this pay for that enough time advertisements were americans may believe it. Youre a constitutional school lore. If this proposed constitutional amendment were to be ratified would it repeal the First Amendment . Of course not. The first thing we have to remark is that the Citizens United case did not endow a single individual with any right to speak that he or did did not have. All of the employees of the corporation, all of the members of the board, all of the executives could spend whatever they wanted of their money. All that Citizens United did was to say that the ceo could take the corporate checkbook and start writing checks to put in politics. What weve done is weve converted every Corporate Treasury in the country into a political slush fund. In a deeper sense, mr. Abrams raises the question about the rights not of corporations but say of billionaires in order to spend. You know, theres a very Important Supreme Court decision called ward versus rock against racism in 1985 where theres a terrific group called rock against racism that would put on concerts in central park but they wanted to crank it up to that the preschool couldnt meet and other people doing muse wall exercises couldnt do it. And the central park authorities told them they have to turn it down. And the Supreme Court said you dont have the right around the First Amendment to drown out everybody elses speech. If you understand that, then you can understand why the billionaires should not be able to take over the entire state of montana. I urge you to read the bullet case in montana because what the state described was a history of Massive Corporation corruption from outside of the state to take over their democracy and a band there was an attempt for the people of montana to govern themselves. This is about Self Government so that democracy is for the people. I have further questions which ill submit for the record because i want to keep within the time limits and my time is up. I yield to senator grassley. Thank you. I want to correct something that often shows up in the press and one of my colleagues has said the same thing today. Citizens united said or i mean the comments was made that Citizens United opened the door to millions of dollars in contributions. What Citizens United dealt with and only with expenditures and has no effect on Campaign Contributions. Mr. Abrams, last friday, front page article, the Washington Post wrote, quote, political nonprofit groups have become Major Players in elections since the Supreme Court 2010 Citizens United decision paved the way for unlimited political spending by corporations and unions, end of quote. I know that political nonprofit groups have been active in campaigns for at least ten years, long before Citizens United was decided. My question, am i right in thinking this point made in the Washington Post article as well as other outlets is incorrect . Well i would say that i dont think its correct to say that these are playing an enormously greater roll than they used to. As you point oubt, theyve been around for a while. Theres also nothing wrong with them playing a greater role. The thigh sis of critics like this, youve heard it a lot, outside money is bad money, money that shouldnt be around, shouldnt be allowed. And i reject that and the Supreme Court has rejected that. On the specific issue of nonprofits. Nonprofits dont have to publicly report their spending. Except in certain areas. So its hard to know exactly how much more involvement that theyve had. But only a small percentage, this we do know, of the 7 billion spent in the 2012 election came from nonprofit groups or other unreported sources. There are organizations again, mr. Abrams, there are organizations in washington that say they want to limit the role or influence of money in politics. Is that goal consistent with the First Amendment . Well i think what theyre really saying is they want to limit the speech that money allows. I mean when people complain that theres going to be more of this and more of that or that the speech will contain falsehoods or that politicians or others will be accused in ways that they find uncongenial, you know what theyre really saying is that the money is doing bad things. And that is, at its core, inconsistent with the First Amendment. The First Amendment favors speech. It favors more rather than less speech. It favors speech from diverse sources. It rejects the notion that speech can be con trained or limited because one person has more than another person. I mean all of that comes with the First Amendment. And so a general denuns yags of money in politics is really a denuns yags of a public debate. My next question deals with a point you made in your opening remarks and i ask it in only a way to give you an opportunity to emphasize what i think is a very important point. Supporters think that its needed to prevent wealthy donors from drowning out ordinary citizens. Can you elaborate how this is fundamentally at odds with the constitution protection of freedom of speech . Yes. When sbhb says my speech will drown out someone elses speech and therefore i should say less, it is a functional equivalent of telling a newspaper, you really ought to have fewer editorials. You really shouldnt spend your space denouncing one candidate for office. Its just not fair. You have too much power. I grew up at a time when democrats,ed a da lay stephens was one running against the press. Everyone was republican in those days. No one would have thought that the answer to the socalled oneparty press was saying the press cant print something or theyre printing too much or theyre drowning out the opposition. That comes on the menu of the First Amendment and that menu includes as much speech as one wants. Id like to address my first comment and question to professor raskin. We recently invited retired jus sis John Paul Stephens to testify before the Senate Rule Committee which was an exceptional opportunity for us to hear his thinking. And he raised some interesting questions about this issue. He said, while money is used to finance speech, money is not speech. Speech is only one of the activities that are financed by Campaign Contributions and expenditures. Those financial activities should not receive the same constitutional protection as speech itself. After all, Campaign Funds were used to finance the water gate burglaries, actions that clearly were not protected by the First Amendment. Then this closing in his remarks, he proffered a sample constitutional amendment on the subject of reversing buckly versus valet ho. He made an observation. He basically suggested that we should include the word reasonable when were talking about limitations on Campaign Spending. Heres what e h said. I think its wise to include the word reasonable so that legislatures do not prescribe limits that are so low that interfere with the freedom of the press. Do you believe that the word reasonable would be a positive edition to this Senate Joint Resolution . I do. It appears in the Fourth Amendment and i think it would make sense to appear in the 28th amendment as well. Reasonableness applies to all of the constitutional amendments. I found some of the rhetoric a little overheated that this is an attempt to impose unreasonable limits. I would take care of the problem by inserting the word. Your other point about money not equally speech is a critical point for people to understand. There are lots of forms of purchases and exchange, for example, buying sex. We dont say if someone wants to purchase the services of a prostitute, thats not an expression of their speech. And i think even mr. Abrams and the people on the other side on this issue take the position that laws against bribery are okay and its not clear on their position why. After all, if i just feel very strongly about an issue and i want to give you 1,000 dollars or 1 million to go my way, why shouldnt you be able to accept it . We believe within the governmental process there are right reasons for those who hold Public Office to make decisions and there are wrong reasons. And a wrong reason is the money youre going to put in your pocket or huge amounts of money youre going to put in your campaign or lots of spending to take place. Why cant we take into account the entire social context of money. Jus tins stephens has written in decision, money is not speech, its a property, a medium of exchange. Its simply what the philosophers call as a category error to mix them up. The Fair Elections now bill that ive introduced, youve suggested that incumbents are trying to protect themselves by arguing against visits united. I commend that bill to you because we offer to those who want to become voluntarily part of that process, a greater opportunity for challenges that experience suggests that they currently have under the law. Senator mckissick, one of the things thats been raised consistent will is that we ought to let a thousand flowers bloom here. Weve been chided by saying were not being good liberals by not expanding this. When it comes to the issue of North Carolina and this gentleman mr. Pope whom i have not met, it appears that he was responsible for 72 of all outside spending in your state in the year 2010, the 2010 election. Instead of really being an open process in North Carolina, it turned out to be a very elite situation, elite situation where his wealth gave him more power than the average person living in North Carolina to express his political will. Could you comment on what has happened to the North Carolina political process because of this favoritism toward the elite . I think as a result of our capacity to give millions and millions of dollars, he tainted the whole election process in many respect because he had influence substantially disproportional to the number of people who shared his believes. When it comes to the political process as weve seen it today, there are many people who feel as if theyve been disenfranchised in terms of Voting Rights and womens rights. Theyve gone in a and as a result of legislation thats been adopted, there will be no standards applied to abortion clinics. As a result in North Carolina, there are 16 abortion clinics, all of them will close except for one. Theyve purged people from boards and commissions that have been previously appointed by prior governors and prior members of the general assembly. All of their terms were shortened so that they could go in and appoint people that shared their philosophies. When it comes to Public Education, there was legislation that was passed that virtually eliminated teacher tenure in your state which was challenged and found to be unconstitutional. But many measures affecting Public Education that the vast majority of people are opposed to. No limitation of number of kids in the classroom. Were 46 in teacher pay in this country. Things that are putting North Carolina behind. And many of these positions, many of these issues, many things dealing with unemployment compensation, weve now, rather than giving people 26 weeks, we only go 12 to 20 weeks. Were the only state in america that disqualified our residents from receiving long term benefits thar were eligible for it, as well as with the failure to expand medicaid. A lot of things have happened in our state that the vast majority of people would not agree with but theyve been implemented because of the capacity of pope to give and influence the outcome. Senator hatch. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Abrams, im not the only one who believes that youre the leading First Amendment lawyer in the country. You have and youre not a member of my party either. Thats true. Not yet. I like the thought. Were very privilege lenld to h here here and were grateful to have the others as well. This one, however, goes beyond what weve seen in the past. As far as i can tell, for example, senator joint resolution 19 is the first one for the purpose of achieving what it calls political equality. Under this amendment the government could constitutionally redefine political equality and decide whose speech must be suppressed or should be so pressed or allowed in order to achieve it. Isnt this at odds with americas entire history of guarding control of speech in. It is. It gives enormous pow tore the legislators, the congress and to the states to enforce the law. And i would assume that the courts would be very differential to anything that those legislators did. That being said, while there might be an equal protection or other arguments made, i really believe that an amendment of this breadth would change substantially and in an irrevocable way, except another constitutional amendment, the whole nature of American Society as a speech protecting society. Another difference is that this amendment would give the government the authority to control not only money but also what it calls inkind equivalents, like the notion of political equality. This is something completely new. Now it appears to me that the government will be able if this amendment passes, will be able to define this category however it wants and therefore control they would be able to control whatever government wants. Now how far do you think this new dimension of regulation extends and do you expect there would have to be litigation to figure out how it applies . Theres no doubt of that. There would have to be enormous litigation. Look, the reality is how shall i say this to members of congress here. If you provide the congress or state legislators with power, theyre likely to use it. Right. And theyre likely to use it in this area, in a speech destructive way. This is what this whole thing is about. I understand the argument of equality, that more people few people have great wealth, that wealth gives more power as have been said. But the effect of this amendment would be to embody into our law by changing substantively, changing and limiting the First Amendment in way in which at the least were going to have years and years of litigation. But i fear i dont mind that personally. But what we are going to have beyond that is a significantly diminished ability to have the sort of ongoing confrontations at length that we have in our electoral process. 2012 election, in my view, was a good example of the system working. There was lots of money out there, there was lots of speech, people heard, sometimes more than they wanted to. But they heard the views of the parties and had a chance to vote. Thats the way the system ought to work and thats threatened by this legislation this amendment. In his prepared statement professor raskin says the Supreme Court decision eliminated the statutory pro vision, quote, that kept trillions of dollars and corporate wealth from flowing into federal campaigns, enquote. I think thats a misleading description of the case. The Citizens United case involved a nonProfit Corporation, not a wealthy for Profit Corporation and it did not involve Campaign Contributions at all. Am i right . Yes, it did not involve contributions at all and it left standing the contribution section. Weve seen a flood of corporate wealth flowing into fed Call Campaign since the citizens decision . We have seen a lot of individuals giving money. Thats where the big money has come from. We have seen an increase in the amount of money from what i would call main street rather than wall street. What weve not seen is precisely what was predicted. We have not surprised at the level of rhetoric that weve heard from senator mcconnell and senator cruz. In fact, i think they want to replace logic with high per berly. Well, ill tell you what most people, most americans think is shoekingly bad, that our system has become distorted by a few who have a lot of money drowning out the voices of the other. When john stewart mill says the restrictions to speech is more speech, he didnt mean just from one side. The worl didnt exist that way then. But it exists now. Then senator cruz said, americans would gasp if they heard what democrats are trying to do. Ill tell you what makes the American People gasp. Its that a small handful of people can have huge effect on our political system, and not just defending incumbents. Most of the money that has come f