>> hello everyone, this is al jazeera america live from new york city. this is a look at the day's top stories. we're going to go to wheeling, virginiwest virginia. a gunman fired shots at a courthouse before being shot. the u.s. marshal service said the man with an assault-type rifle fired 15 to 20 shots at the federal courthouse. there was another report from one of the local televisions there, wkkx, that television station is reporting that the shooter is now debt. the chief deputy in northern

west virginia said one officer was hurt by shattered glass inside the courthouse during wednesday's shootings but no other injury was reported. the gunman was in a parking lot across the courthouse downtown and they have yet to determine the motive. you see the aerial shot live from wheeling, west virginia. this is the block where that activity took place. and again there are a number of different reports saying that at the very least the shooter is down and critically injured. more news on al jazeera. >> it is a hobby, something that i wanted to do part time. that's partly why i enjoy it so much. >> shawn mccutcheon's part

time hockey is changing the rules o rules. that's tonight on inside story. >> hello, the supreme court is back in session this week, and the first case it heard involved cash and campaigns. shawn mccutcheons was to contribute more money to candidates. three years ago the supreme court opened the floodgates for corporate and union money to super pacs, but current law sets the amount that any individual american can give. mccutcheon sued. >> this is a very important first amendment free speech to

limit how much money you want to spend o on any campaign you wan. >> reporter: this case is seen as a sequel to the citizens united ruling three years ago. in that case the court ruled 5-4 that unions and corporations have a first amendment right to freedom of speech, allowing them to contribute an unlimited amount of money to advertisements during an election cycle. in this new case, mccutcheon challenges the two-year campaign cycle total contribution. currently an individual can only donate $2,600 to any one candidate in a two-year cycle, and cannot give more than a total of $48,000 to all candidates. mccutcheon is not valleying the individual limit on

candidate donations but rather the overall cap. mccutcheon is also challenging the donation to political action committees which is just under $75,000 per cycle. what mccutcheon wants to do is exercise his first amendment right to free speech. he argues the contribution limits are an unconstitutional burden. when president obama met reporters yesterday to discuss the government shutdown he did bring up campaign finance. >> i continue to believe that citizens united contributed to some of the problems we're having in washington right now. you have some ideological extremist who is have a big bankroll and they can entirely skew our politics. >> shaun mccutcheon is an ar an ardent republican. i sat down with shaun mccutcheon. he shared what it was like to be in the presence of the highest

court in the land. >> it was very exciting. i enjoyed it. >> what was the most interesting thing for you? >> just hearing the judges put all the ideas out there on the table and go back and forth. it was like a big understanding. >> what question did the justices ask that were of particular interest to you? >> i thought all of it to be particularly interesting, but it was along the lines that i had been hearing for weeks and the moot courts and panels. >> what is politics, an investment? a hobby. >> yes, it's a hobby. it's turned into a big hobby and its taking a lot of time nowish but it is a hobby and something that i wanted to do part time. that's part of the reason why i enjoy it so much. >> it also is an expensive hobby. >> it's become that way, yes. >> what would you like to spend your money and where would you like to spend your money if the court find your favor. >> i've been spending money on

candidates, committees, pacs, super pacs. but i would like to spend more money on more candidates. again, in is a very important first amendment free speech case about your right to spend your money on as many candidates and as many committees as you want. >> i could ask you why as someone who lives in alabama you want to be engaged in the race of a congressman in california? >> well, again, i like challengers. a lot of candidates i supported lost, and it's about getting your message out and supporting candidates that you think have good ideas that you think could help move everything forward. >> reporter: i spoke to two congressmen, a democrat and republican, they both served in congress a long time. they said to me that there is too much money in politics. campaigns that cost $19,000 when they began is now costing $6 million and more. how does money improve politics? >> again, this is about free speech, advertising and getting

your message out there. it's an important first amendment issue. we want to improve things and change the world, i don't think that's going to come with less money. >> do you think more money improves politics? >> more money allows to you advertise and get your ideas out there. that's important to the process. that's putting ideas into a free market of ideas, and everybody hears the ideas and free speech is for all americans. >> what are your core values? what values are most important to you? >> again, i'm a conservative activist from alabama that means better ideas to move us forward. congress is not exactly all that popular right now. >> that's sort of an understatement. are you on the tea party end of the party. >> i'm not a member of the tea party. i go to their meetings, and i agree with what they're saying, but i'm a republican. >> one concern in the shutdown is there is a concern about the

you money and big donors that may have engineered the shutdown. do you share those concerns? >> this is about free speech. there was a lot of discussion about super pacs. this case is about transparent donations directly to candidates and committees and everybody knows where the money came from and who made the decision. this is about direct donations to candidates and committees. if anything this would reduce the money to super pacs. >> you argue giving individuals money, that there is more transparency and where individual candidates get their money from? >> absolutely. the reporting is much more detailed in terms of donating directly to campaigns and committees than it is, say, to a super pac. >> and have you ever give money to a super pac or to a large group? >> absolutely. i believe super pacs have a purpose. they're independent messaging much like newspaper and media outlets, but the pac versus

managers. they do their own thing and they have their own objectives. a lot of times it's better for the donor to direct direc contry to the campaign. >> in your opinion why is it better or more advantageous to give money to a candidate directly? >> well, the candidate generates the message instead of a third party that may generate that message or generate a different message. >> how do you know a candidate will stick to the same message? >> well, you don't, but they're running for office, and they'll be more committed to their message than a super pac. >> what do you think the impact would be if the court ruled in your favor? >> i think it would be positive because then we can donate to more committees, and challengers who have difficulty raising money. i think we could get new ideas and new people in the process, which is positive. but it is going to cost more

money to do that. but i don't see anything wrong with hiring more staff and doing more ads and more commerce and business. >> did you ever think that your political activism would lead you to the supreme court. >> i did not think this would happen. this is unexpected. very surprising, but it has exceeded expectations. >> the supreme court won'tish its ruling in the mccutcheon case until the spring. but if he wins it will definitely impact the 2016 2014 election cycle. when we come back we'll discuss the ramifications of this case in detail. this is "inside story."

>> welcome back to inside story. we're continuing our discuss of the mccutcheon in . with us a professor from loyola law school, and a senior attorney at the institute of justice. dan, if i could ask you first how much money are we talking about here? >> well, we had different estimates yesterday, but the

department of justice is concerned that up to three and a half million could be give to parties at around $800,000 could be given to individual candidates. if these aggregate limits are removed, and if donors take every available opportunity to make donations. >> that's three and a half million for an individual. >> from one individual to a party or $800,000 to another individual. >> paul, i know you're also in court. i know justice kagan in response to that basically said, well $3.5 million that would certainly buy a special seat at the table. why is this a good idea for the political system? >> the most basic reason is the central issue in this case concerns when can the government ban or limit peaceful political activity. political contributions are a venerable of political association and this is exactly the type of activity the that the first amendment was designed

to protect. >> the first amendment is one thing. is there an argument if you make the money you should be able to spend the money including supporting your political candidates? >> oh, absolutely. i think that's the counter argument. this is my money and the supreme court has said to varying degrees that money equals speech. therefore, if money is political speech then that should be the thing that the government should say hands off, you don't get to limit that. i'm making the counter argument here and one that i don't believe, but i think there are two sides to the first amendment equation. there is one side which are the groups that can give and spend a lot of money. then on the other side we have a group of people who can't give and spend as much. i think the diversity, the breath and depth of the political debate is much more sported and really flowers when we do have certain limitations

not on what you can say but how much you spend and give. we're talking about very large sums, and in oral arguments yesterday it was quick to point out there were two sides to this first amendment coin. >> the question is should your wallet equal the loudness of your voice? if you're a rich individual should you have more say on the political playing field than the poor or middle class? is there not a risk here that those voices would be overwhelmed by a tide of cash? >> in a free society it's up to individuals to decide how much they want to spend making their voices heard. it's not up to the government to decide when someone has spoken too much. i think it's important that we look at the comparison across the states. the overwhelming majority of states do not have aggregate contribution limits like the federal limit, but it's nothing

that shows that they're more corrupt in those states that do. >> in terms of the transparency, we'll know exactly who gave what to which candidate x, y, az, is this an argument made by this? >> it was an argument made by several justices on the bench yesterday, and this is a way of empowering parties and re-energing powers was something that the justices said yesterday. you can see that point. there is also an argument made that there is so much money sloshing around the system that it's hard to see how $3.5 million could act as a corruption. in the first amendment point if money becomes the determining factor of how much influence someone has, doesn't that infringe the first amendment

rights on people who don't have money? >> let me go to you on that. >> is absolutely does not. the voters determine what the outcome of any election could be, and we draw a lesson from the 2012 election where republicans and super pacs vastly outspend their democratic counterparts but democrats held on to the white house, the senate, and bigged up seats in the house. >> jessica, that's the argument in the past where we've seen huge amounts of money in the political system, the outcome has not been altered in favor of the party that spent the most money. is there an argument that american politics are to a certain extent immune to money? >> no, i don't think so. i think is affects every aspect of this political process of who can run in the first place to what issues are debated. even if money doesn't determine the ultimate victor it

determines who could be a viable candidate in the first place, and what are the issues discussed on the campaign trail? if we want to use the example given, the 2012 election, then the super pac asks help to dictate a lot of what was discussed in debates, on the campaign trail. i would like to see a much greater breadth and depth discussed not only who can spend enormous amounts of money, but everyone who can speak to their constituents. i think money effects every level. i hope it goes without saying that what we want is a situation where the public feels and believes and it is the case that every's representative represents all of their interests regardless of their ability to give and spend money. and i think the supreme court injures prudence on this point has created a system where money

allows not only certain people to have the big bullhorn but what the result of that bullhorn is we don't hear from everybody else in the proverbial town square when that occurs. >> if the system was more transparent and similar to systems that exist for example, in the u.k. would in a not be a better thing? where you could see who was giving money and how much money to support what causes in, say, super pacs. >> i think the transparency of have pacs is somewhat overblown, but in we want to increase transparency, one way to do that is to donors to give their money to candidates, which have disclosure laws. >> the amount of money that sloshes around in the american political system dwarfs anything

ever spent on a campaign. >> yes, politicians are not allowed to take out tv advertising in the u.k. so they have less to spend it on. that's one thing to weigh in mind. but to the outside world this is baffling. we did a study looking at political appointies such as u.s. ambassadors. and 20 of obama's picks are bunglers raising $2 million each to get their ambassadorships in different countries and the world. this is a large fickle of how you can buy office in america. the rest of the world looks on it as slightly bizarrely. >> we'll take a short break and continue our discussion in a moment. this is inside story.

>> welcome back to "inside story." we're continuing our discussion of campaign finance laws and the supreme court. with us are dan roberts of the guardian newspaper. jessica levenosn and paul sherman. paul earlier this week we had two former congressmen, one a democrat, one a republican. both had served many terms multiple terms in the house. and one of them said to us when he began in the 1980s the cost of his campaign every two years was about half a million dollars. and when he finally left i in 2009, i think he said, it had raise on it $6 million every two years. that's a lot of money sloshing around in the system. why is so much money necessary? >> well, it's certainly true that the cost of campaigning has gone up and a lot of that has been driven by the increase in

television advertising. but if we want to do something about the amount of money in politics we have to look at how much money is demanded in politics. a big part that have is that government has a lot of favors to hand out. the source of the problem is government power, that's what we have to address if we want to cut down on the amount of money spent in government campaigns. >> what do you mean by government power. >> people are concerned what the government is going to do to them. now we should be concerned about corruption, but there are constitutional ways to dress that. one of the ways that we address that is that by limiting government to its constitutional objectives. >> so this is the argument that more money improves politics that one of the arguments that shawn mccutcheon makes. you spent more money and you get more political system. is that correct? is that true? >> well, i guess i have a lot of respect for paul.

i'll respond to his comment by saying that i'm not sure what he's proposing by limiting the scope of government. it strikes me, and i would love to hear more from him, but that's somewhat distinct of what we limit what i view the pernicious amount of money in politics. with respect to mr. mccutcheon he's very openly saying and paul is very openin openly saying yoe money because you want something in return. that's right. you give something you want something back. not only that, but i give you something, and i have a really big voice. i have a seat at the table. as justin kagan said, i have a very special seat at the table. that's not what i want in my democracy. regardless of the amount of money you have you feel that your government officials are serving you, period. now this is not always going to be--we shouldn't try to level the playing field so some absurd

extent. it will be a reality that people with more money will have more power. but i don't know why we want that status quo to exacerbate itself when it comes to government. >> one question arising from that why not level the playing field. why not putting in restrictions. >> one of the arguments that we heard in the supreme court is exactly about that. the system is just completely overcomplex. no one really understands how it works. and this is a great example of that. the more you try to legislate the amount of money coming in, the harder it gets. you have to tackle it at the other end and do we really need in an era where people are able to communicate necessarily without having to go through a tv studio, do we need politici politicians spending millions and billions on air time. that's the fundamental root in

politics. and that over time they may not be so depend on tv ads, but until you tackle that, all the finance campaign rules are missing the bigger problem. >> isn't there also an argument here, paul, because members of the house of representatives and members of the senate have to spend so much of their time fundraising they're not spending much of their time legislating and governing. a big chunk of their lives goes into that piece of it. >> if that's an problem it's a self imposed problem. the reason why they have to spend so much time raising money is because they said you have to raise it in limited amounts. if they want to spend more time legislating they can repeal the contribution limits that they labor now. >> and it's happened in various scandals in the history of this country people laying down checks in this country and

buying votes. >> that leads to the situation that occurs in the state of utah, in the state o virginia. if would lead to the situation we have in the country of australia which does not limit contributions. but there is no evidence that it has made those states or those countries even more corrupt or less well governed. >> jessica, i'm going to give you the last word on this. quickly if i could ask you, do you accept that? that there are existing examples that show politics rises above the money? >> oh well, certainly i don't think all these examples are apples to apples. running for state office in utah somewhat distinct from running for president, senator, congress, and i think we should have well-tailored laws that take into account how much does it cost to raise and spend money where you're running for office.

this time protection rationale is a very important one and actually the only one that justice kennedy who is now hostile to campaign implements said this is the only reason for limiting the amount we give and spend. the way to protect people's time is not just to say no contributions. on the flip side we could say contributions and expenditure limits. when you're done spending money you're done and you can represent the people who sent you to the city hall, state capitol or our nation's capitol. i know i'm out of time, i'm sure. >> thank you, jessica. thank you, dan, thank you paul. that's it from the team in washington, d.c. thank you for watching. good night.