being heard. and i think that's represented by these moral monday demonstrations which occurred in our state. they started with 500 people coming out every monday when we convened our sessions pro testing many of these regressive policies that have been implemented. they grew to masses of 7500 people. they were close to a thousand people arrested because they were absolutely opposed to the policies and initiatives and legislations that were coming out of raleigh. these were actions impacting voting rights for individuals. if you had polled people and asked them whether they liked the early vote period, well we've eliminated one week of that early vote period. in 2008 we had over 700,000 people vote that first week. by the time 2012 came, it was over 9,000 people voting. people had the right to do same day voting.

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, you've heard someone characterize the udall amendment we're considering today as an effort to repeal the first amendment. now, i don't believe that's 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. you're 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 we've done is we've 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, there's a very important supreme court decision called ward versus rock against racism in 1985 where there's 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 couldn't meet and other people doing muse wall exercises couldn't do it. and the central park authorities told them they have to turn it down. and the supreme court said you don't have the right around the first amendment to drown out everybody else's 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 i'll 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 citizen's 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 don't think it's correct to say that these are playing an enormously greater roll than they used to. as you point oubt, they've been around for a while. there's also nothing wrong with them playing a greater role. the thigh sis of critics like this, you've heard it a lot, outside money is bad money, money that shouldn't be around, shouldn't be allowed. and i reject that and the supreme court has rejected that.

on the specific issue of nonprofits. nonprofits don't have to publicly report their spending. except in certain areas. so it's hard to know exactly how much more involvement that they've 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 they're really saying is they want to limit the speech that money allows. i mean when people complain that there's 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 they're 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 it's 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 else's 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 shouldn't spend your space denouncing one candidate for office. it's 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 so-called one-party press was saying the press can't print something or they're printing too much or they're drowning out the opposition. that comes on the menu of the first amendment and that menu includes as much speech as one wants. >> i'd 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 we're talking about limitations on campaign spending. here's what e h said. i think it's 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 don't say if someone wants to purchase the services of a prostitute, that's 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 it's 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 shouldn't 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 you're going to put in your pocket or huge amounts of money you're going to put in your campaign or lots of spending to take place. why can't we take into account the entire social context of money. jus tins stephens has written in decision, money is not speech, it's a property, a medium of exchange. it's simply what the philosophers call as a category error to mix them up. >> the fair elections now bill that i've introduced, you've 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 that's been raised consistent will is that we ought to let a thousand flowers bloom here. we've been chided by saying we're 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 we've seen it today, there are many people who feel as if they've been disenfranchised in terms of voting rights and women's rights. they've gone in a and as a result of legislation that's 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. they've 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. we're 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, we've now, rather than giving people 26 weeks, we only go 12 to 20 weeks. we're 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 they've been implemented because of the capacity of pope to give and influence the outcome. >> senator hatch. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. abrams, i'm not the only one who believes that you're the leading first amendment lawyer in the country. you have -- and you're not a member of my party either. >> that's true. not yet. >> i like the thought. we're very privilege lenld to h here here and we're grateful to have the others as well. this one, however, goes beyond what we've 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. isn't this at odds with america's 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 in-kind 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? >> there's 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, they're likely to use it. >> right. >> and they're 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 we're going to have years and years of litigation. but i fear -- i don't 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. that's the way the system ought to work and that's 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 that's 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. >> we've seen a flood of corporate wealth flowing into fed call campaign since the citizen's decision? >> we have seen a lot of individuals giving money. that's 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 we've not seen is precisely what was predicted. we have not

surprised at the level of rhetoric that we've heard from senator mcconnell and senator cruz. in fact, i think they want to replace logic with high per berly. well, i'll 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 didn't mean just from one side. the worl didn't exist that way then. but it exists now. then senator cruz said, americans would gasp if they heard what democrats are trying to do. i'll tell you what makes the american people gasp. it's 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 from the super pacs and from many of these groups are knocking out income bebts, whether they be republican or democrat. senator cruz says we should be embarrassed about this amendment? i'll tell you, i'm embarrassed about how our system is distorted by literally now billions of dollars coming into this system undisclosed, unregulated and unanswered.

and senator cruz, maybe he fancies himself to be a constitutional expert. he knows that no amendment is absolute. his over the top rhetoric makes it seems that if you support this amendment you're against the first amendment. i want to ask you, are you against anti-child pornography laws? he's not here. but would he be against anti-child pornography laws? is he against the first amendment? is he against the idea -- does he think everyone should be allowed to falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. if anyone is opposed to that, are they opposed to the whole first amendment and free speech? liable laws? if you're for liable laws does that mean you're against free speech and you're against the first amendment? absolutely not. we have always had balancing tests for every amendment. some of my colleagues on the

other side believe there shouldn't be one for the second amendment but i believe there should. i believe there's a right to bare arms. we have always had balances tests for every amendment. they are not absolute. and to say that you cannot have some regulation when billions of dollars cascade into the system, and that's unconstitutional is false. it is absolutely false. it is against 100 years of the tradition in this country. and we know what's going on here. i guarantee you that senator mcconnell wouldn't have flipped his position, particularly on disclosure if the vast majority of the money unregulated money coming into the system were from democrats, not republicans. we know that. because i remember him being here, the strongest advocate of

disclosure, we can't get a republican to be on a single disclosure bill. i'm sure even mr. abrams would agree that disclosure, the supreme court agrees, is not against the first amendment. >> yes, that's correct. >> and i'm sure we might agree that disclosure would be salutary even if he were not limiting the amount of money sent spent. >> i think some more disclosure would be al ysalutary, yes. >> there should be a balancing test for other amendments? it's largely false, demonstratively false. and all of the overheated rhetoric, t rhetoric that we heard from senator cruz defies logic, defies tradition and it's not going to make us back down.

i don't believe the koch brothers are being denied their first amendment rights or would be under any legislation this congress would pass. i don't believe it is the same exact part of the constitution, same endearness that we hold in free speech to get up on a soap box and make a speech or to publish a broadside or a newspaper as it is to put the 11,427 ad on the air in fact to make sure that you buy all of the available ad space on the air so that your opponent can't get a word in. i don't believe that's in the spirit of free speech, not just today but when james madison, thomas jefferson and our great, great founders, the most brilliant group of men ever assembled, in my opinion, people, although they were just men, we wish there were some women there, i don't think there this is -- i think if thomas

jefferson were looking down, the author of the bill of rights on what's being proposed here, he would agree with it. he would agree that the first amendment cannot be absolute. he would agree that to keep a democracy going you cannot have a handful of a few who are so wealthy that they can influence the process and drown out the voices of the others. any of us who has run for office and faced one of the super pacs knows can you can get on your soap box and distribute a leaf let and distribute it but in the way our political system works, you don't have a choice. i would like to get back to a fact based, history based debate on this. and not the overheated rhetoric that if you're for this constitutional amendment, you're against the first amendment. the first amendment has always always always had a balancing test. it did then. it does now. and if there ever is a balance that is needed, it is to restore

some semblance of one person, one vote, some of the equality that the founding fathers sought in our political system. i've gone over my time because i was a little bit excited. >> okay. they're asking us to take a brief recess or i will miss the vote which will be monumental. so we will return very soon when senator durbin returns. thank you very much. we're in recess. for what we are>> my apologies

facing here, but we are trying to get two my apologies for what we're facing here. but we're trying to get two votes in and keep the committee active. and so senator white house as voted on the first amendment. i'm going to recognize him. if you see the musical chairs, it and an effort to keep two things going at once. senator white house. >> we can indeed walk and chew gum. nice to have you all here. i appreciate this and i appreciate the lively debate that has taken place. i think the debate about the first amendment and the lurid descriptions of how this is the

first time in history congress has tried to amend the first amendment does overlook a rather significant fact in the room. indeed the elephant in the room, which is that five conservative activists sitting on the united states supreme court for the first time decided that unlimited spending in elections was a-ok. and in doing so, they departed dramatically from the american people. recent polling shows the court in unprecedented bad odor with the american people as a result of that. the most damning polling information was from a recent poll that shows by 9-to-1 americans believe that this supreme court will favor corporations over individuals. and i would suggest that there is plenty of evidence in this supreme court's recent record, particularly the record of

5-to-4 decisions driven by the right wink activists to justify that concern. i don't think you can get 9-to-1 americans to agree that the sunrises in the east. so when they are concerned that this court will favor corporations over individuals in that kind of number, i think that's a real warning shot across the bow of this court that they need to start being activists and start trying to rebuild this and find consensus. so if you omit the fact that five activists conservatives for the first time kicked down hundreds of years of controls over election spending and unleashed corporations which aren't even mentioned in the constitution or the bill of rights to spend unlimitedly in elections, you're omitting a relatively salient fact from the

discussion. and i think that fact is really at the heart of this discussion. i see what we're trying to do, repair an erroneous decision by the supreme court, a decision that is likely to end up in the category of lockner as really embarrassing moments in the history of a court. let me make one additional point and then i'll ask anybody who wish to comment. point one being, we're trying to fix a court that kind of went ba zerk by a narrow five conservative judge margin and did so to massive benefit to the corporate interests that in many cases backed the judges getting on the court. the second point is that the decision overlooked some very important factors. first of all, they got the whole business of the transparency totally wrong and they haven't admitted that they got it totally wrong. but it's undeniable that they

got it totally wrong because it's totally untransparent. but another important thing that they overlooked is that there is -- i think i'm correct in this, mr. abrams. there's a first amendment limit in this area that allows us to protect the electoral process against fraud and against corruption. that's well established first amendment doctrine, is it not? yes. and so in order to get around that little problem on the way to unlimited corporate spending, they had to pretend that unlimited corporate spending couldn't, not just might not or probably wouldn't, couldn't create any risk of corruption in campaigns. because if it did, which it obviously does, then congress would have the right and ability under the first amendment, under the first amendment to legislate in this area. and the thing that as a

prosecutor i've noitsed aband it's not just me. senator mccain and i wrote a brief together to the supreme court that made precisely this point. it's bipartisan point. if a corporation is allowed to spend unlimited money, particularly if it's allowed to do it anonymously, guess what? it's allowed by then to threaten and to promise to spend unlimited money. and all of the safeguards that the supreme court said were going to be there about seeing the adds up on the tv and knowing who was behind them and having it add to the public debate falls to ashes when you're talking about a corporate lobbyist going into a member of congress saying here's the ad we're going the play, we're going to put $5 million behind it in your district unless you vote right. and so the power to spend that kind of money is also the power to threaten. and that power to threaten is the pow tore corrupt. and that's the nexus that i

think we have to remember. i'll yield back my time. >> professor raskin, do you care to comment? >> please. thank you very much, senator white house. several points i would like to make. one is that the citizens united decision overthrew two centuries of understanding what a corporation is. 1819, chief justice chief marshal said that a corporation is an artificial entity, existing nonl contemplation of law and possessing only the rights that the state legislature comphers upon it through the charter. because of that, for more than half a century, we have forbidden corporations -- >> which also was the understanding of the founding fathers, correct? >> they were on a short leash and you can find lots of quotations from thomas jefferson who said we've got to keep them

on a short leash. justice white said the state has created the corporation and the state need not permit its own creation to consume it. but of course they've made that the law in citizens united. but in the austin versus michigan chamber of commerce case, in the mcconnell decision, the supreme court said of course the government can keep corporate money from flowing into political campaigns on an independent expenditure basis because this is money that's in there for economic purposes. the reason why mcdonald's has billions of dollars is because you eat their hamburgers with not because you agree with their politics. so justice marshal noted that there was a distinct corrupting effect in taking that money assembled for economic purposes through lots of state conferred advantages, perpetual life, liberty limited liability of the shareholders. this goes back for two

centuries, this understanding of why the corporation has got to be confined to the economic realm. and the court did say -- i wish senator hatch was still here because he said they was somehow unfair in taking a case that was just about a not for profit's use and saying it apply to all of the private corporations in america. i agree it's unfair but it wasn't my decision. that was the decision of the supreme court. when the case came to the supreme court, there was a simple claim made by the citizens united group which i think they should have won on. wit as statutory claim. what we've got is a pay purview within, pay on demand movie that we're putting up there. it's not a 30-second attack ad. we don't think that comes with the prohibition. they could have won and should have won on that point. they also could have won because even if you view it as a avenue ad, 50,000 people would have had to see it. they would have been lucky to have 500 people watch their movie, right? there were lots of statutory

ways to solve this case. and chief justice roberts who said he was committed to judicial minimal lisism -- and you don't reach a constitutional issue if there's a better statutory kwa of coming out. they destroyed that for the purposes of citizens united in this case. they rushed over five different ways they could have found for the not for profit group in order to give the parties the command to go back and reargue the case based on all corporations everywhere at all times. so when the supreme court came back and said all corporations have a first amendment right to spend money in politics, that was way beyond what they were being asked to do originally and it depended on reargument and rebriefing on the case. let me say one other thing, which is a series of questions have been posed to the other side about do they have an

absolute perspective on the first amendment in terms of child pornography and liable and defamation and i would be curious of mr. abram's take on that. i think there are more direct questions that need to be asked. we see an effort to strike down all campaign finance law, a all of it including the tillman act going back to 1907. mr. abrams agreed that contribution limits should be given. i think he would take the position that since contribution limits should be lifted that corporations can also give money directly to candidate campaigns. so to apolish a century of practice of saying there's a wall of separation when corporate contribution money and federal political campaigns. what we're facing is the complete wipeout of campaign financing law. if senator cruz is right, which is money is just speech, then you've got to let it flow

entirely. i would be curious at what point they stop. >> i'm sorry. >> go ahead. >> these issues have been with us a long time. the court didn't make this stuff up in citizens united. harry truman ve towed the first bill that imposed limits on expenditures. he vetoed it and said that a reason for vetoing it was that it violated the first amendment, the very sort of issue that your constitutional amendment would be passing on. i mean the constitutional amendment that is before you can one which would not just reverse, as it were, citizens united but the buckly case as well. we're going back and we're not just talking about conservative juris jurists. we're talking about justice brennan, justice marshal, we're talking about justice stewart --

>> none of them signed off on citizens united. >> no. but all of them signed off on the proposition that independent expenditures could not be limited. that's what buckly was about. citizens united wasn't about contributions. citizens united moved from buckly, which dealt with independent expenditures to the independent expenditures of corporations and younions by th way who have yet to be mentioned here today. my point is there's been a philosophical disagreement about this for many years with many justices on the supreme court taking different positions so that this is -- i really do not think -- >> but through it all, through it all the laws of the united states have limited contributions in federal elections. >> and they still do. >> but in very important ways, they don't. the idea that citizens united didn't change anything runs

contrary to everybody's experience who's involved in politics. we see all around us how it's changed anything. you can't just say it's part of an ongoing debate. it's a huge inflection point in the way that democracy operates in this country. look at the super pacs out there. i see other senators here. i've used more than my time. >> if i could comment briefly on that issue. >> senator. >> and i'm an attorney but obviously i'm not an expert on first amendment free speech issues but i can say really as a practical reality, sizes united has pro foundly changed the landscape. i look at this latest primary involving robert hudson. the entities have gone in there with their dark money, spent over a million dollars to business proportionately impact the outcome of that race, to taint it that was unlike anything we've ever seen and all it's going to take is one race

after another race after another race. in north carolina the control of that supreme court is at stake right now. why is it a very significant issues? because these law that have been enacted in our state that supreme court judges are terming to be unconstitutional will ultimately end up there. if you can use the dark money funds to go in there and start changing the balance on the supreme court in our case, it can be done in any state. should there be reasonable limitations in my mind, it is absolutely imperative that we do so. otherwise the disportion nal impact can come from people who with millionaires and billionaire to control the way that the decisions are made. we're opening up a flood gate to change that is going to be a negative impact on our political process and the rights of individuals. >> i'm going to recognize senator cruz. i think senator hatch has already asked. i'll recognize senator cruz and ask senator franken if he will

come up here and preside. i would like to go and vote. >> thank you, mr. chairman. at the outset i would like to say i understand that in my absence senator schumer very kindly gave a lecture on civility and encouraged me not to go over the top, while he then, in the same breadth accused me of supporting child pornography. i appreciate that demonstration and senatorial restraint from the senior senator from new york. let me say to the members of this panel. welcome. thank you for joining us. let me in particular welcome floyd abrams. mr. abrams, you have been a lion of the first amendment. >> thank you. >> and i haved admired your career pretty much all of my life, the passion with which you have defended the first amendment against assaults from

members of your own party and pretty much anyone else. so i appreciate your being here. >> thank you. >> i do wish there were democratic senators willing to defend the first amendment. in our history democrats have been willing to do that and we are in a strange point in time when democrats abandon the first amendment. and indeed propose repealing it. i want to address three ka nards that are put forth in support of this constitutional agreement. number one, this is all about nefarious billionaires. it's interesting. if you look at the open secrets website, which i would noelt is a nonpartisan group, the top 16 donors to campaigns from 1989 to 2014, 100% of them support predominantly democrats or are

on the fence. the top three donors are act blue, which spentd over $102 million, the american federation spent over $61 million and the national education association which has spent over $58 million. those are the top three. koch industries who we've heard so much about, they're number 59. you know, there's a pattern in politics where when government is trying to take the liberty of the citizens away, they try to distract them with shiny objects. we've seen the majority leader repeatedly slandering two private sidss, the koch brothers. there's rule in the senate that when when impugns the character of another senator you can rise on a point of privilege. i would note there is no rule in the senator that allow as private citizen whose name is being dragged u through the mud by the majority leader of the senate for partisan political purposes to rise on that same

right of personal privilege. the second kinard that's put forth is money is not speech. i would note any first year law student who put that as his or her answer on their exam would receive an f. because it is obviously demon straably false and it has been false from the dawn of the republic. speech is not just standing on a soap box screaming on the sidewalk. from the beginning of the republic, the expenditure of money has been integral to speech. the supreme court said that pamp lets, the fed real papers took money to print and distribute, putting up yard signs, bumper stickers, billboards, launching a website. every one of those requires the expenditures of money. i guarantee you every person in this room, if you think about it, disagrees with the

proposition that expending money is not speech. publishing a book is speech blogging is speech. every form of effective speech in our modern society requires the expenditure of money from citizens. the third kinard is that corporations have no rights. that gets repeated an awful lot. again u you get an f in law school. "the new york times" is a corporation, the sierra club is a corporation, the nra is a corporation, the naacp is a corporation. none of the people who say corporations have no rights would possibly suggest that, well, congress can then prevent the naacp from speaking, can muzzle the "the new york times." that position is obviously false. nobody has disagreed with the litany of harms that could occur

if congress passed this bill will be the ability to muzzle citizens and labor unions from organizing, the ability to silence bloggers. now i have today . now i have today introduced two amendments to protect the free speech rights of americans. the first is the super pack elimination act of 2014. what this bill will do is, number one, eliminate campaign limits on individual contributions to federal candidates. right now the current system we have is stupid. you've got super pack spending on the side out of the control of campaigns and it's grown because congress attempted to regulate and silence speech. the bill i've introduced would eliminate the individual contribution limits and provide immediate disclosure of any contribution made to a federal candidate. what that would do is make it all transparent and make super packs irrelevant.

a number of states have systems like this and it works quite well. the second bill that i have introduced today is the free speech for all act. we've heard over and over again corporations are not people. what this bill says is very simple. any restrictions on the rights, the free speech rights of citizens shall apply with equal force to media stations like new york times abc and nbc. and to the extent any restriction is found unconstitutional as applied to that media corporation it shall also be deemed invalid as applied to an individual system. so if everyone is arguing corporations are not people, i hope and expect all the democrats to happily cosponsor this bill because it says an individual citizen is at a minimum entitled to the same first amendment protection that we give to these giant

corporations. it's free speech for all. we should be defending the bill of rights, not debating amending and revealing the free speech protections of the bill of rights. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. i'll recognize myself. or have you questioned yet? >> no. >> okay. senator, our senior senator and therefore he gets to ask questions before i do. >> thank you very much. thank you chairman and thank you so much to the witnesses for being here. i was actually in north carolina and was able to speak at the frey-hunt dinner and meet your first african american justice and also former government hunt and also hear about all the things that you have talked about today in terms of the effect of the big money in north carolina and some of the policies that we have seen and what was a particular concern was getting rid of the same day

registration. something that put minnesota at the top of voter turn out over and over again. whether we elected a republican or democrat or independent. the fact that we have people participate matters and the fact that it's been cut back on in north carolina matters a lot. and i was interested hearing mr. abrams talk about how this shouldn't be about bad policies and i would agree but i think what we're trying to get at here is that there is a line here between what's corruption and what's not corruption and what this leads to that i don't think was defined in the supreme court case and i think for me is really the basis for why we have to look at this constitutional amendment. i don't think anyone takes the idea of a proposed 20th amendment in the constitution lightly but we know there have been times in our history where congress has needed to react to restore our understanding of every day people and every day people are getting drowned out.

in the past, supreme court ruled that women didn't have the right to vote. we responded with the 19th amendment. after the dread scott, they passed the civil war amendment. after the recent decisions about money and politics we have been working on disclosure bills but i have come to the conclusion and feel very strongly those disclosure bills are important and i appreciate you don't see them as unconstitutional mr. abrams but they're not going to fix this. they're not going to fix the fact that what i have seen in my state where we used to have limits before these decisions and still some of them on our place that lewd someone like jesse ventura to run a campaign without having tons of money spent and brought in from out of state that came as a result of that citizens united decision. my first elections i ran and the maximum was $500 for a local office. it allowed someone like me that had a third of the money of my opponent to still win an election.

otherwise it would have been unlimited and i know i never would have won because as it was my opponent ran all her ads on network. i could only run on a very few local cable stations with a black and white ad because of money and i won't by two votes per precinct. so i know this story. i want to start out with a question of you. actually mr. raskin about the major shifts you've seen since the citizens united and how you see this trend is continuing in the future. >> thank you. well, others have spoken about the deluge of money which has overtaken our politics. the washington post did a good piece on this showing how in 2006 there was $25 million in outside expenditures and afterward $250 million and in 2012 it was over $1 billion and

we're on pace to exceed that. and the thing i want us to focus on here is that there is a free market ideology which is animating the justices on the court and i think this also infuses mr. abrams testimony that will threaten to wipe out all of the campaign finance laws we've got. i'd be curious to know, do they think we should have limits on contributions or is that an unacceptable violation of people's speech? should we continue to have the tillman act which bans corporate contributions to people running for federal office or is that an unacceptable violations of the freedom of speech. >> you said mr. abrams that you srted disclosure laws when i was here. do you support any other limbs on campaign contributions such as the ones that professor raskin just mentioned?

>> i have pretty well come to the conclusion that contribution limits as well ought to fall. i think they should be disclosed but it seems to me that we have -- we have reached a point in our politics where if we know what the money is and where the money is coming from, that i think we can trust the public to make a rational decision and where they do not make that decision, i think that we are constantly and necessarily going through a cost-benefit analysis in terms of there is cost with

speech. speech doesn't do only good things. it's a good thing that we protect speech, but speech does some harm sometimes and maybe the impact of having more speech paid for by fewer people will sometimes be harmful. but my view is that at the end of the day i think for myself that contribution limits as well probably should fall. >> mr. raskin. >> and i'm taking it since he thinks that corporations should have the same rights as the people that the corporations should also be able to give on an unlimited basis to every member of congress. this is where i think we're going. we have one philosophy which says that money should be treated like speech, corporations like people and let the free market reign. we have another which tries to adhere to what i think is the american political tradition which is that within the electoral realm, the political

realm, we try to maintain some rough approximation of political equality based on the core idea of one person, one vote. so i appreciate mr. abrams candor because that's where all the litigators on that side are going. that's where at least four justices are going. but let me just say there's one supreme court decision which gives me a little bit of hope. it came the year before citizens united. it's called caperton versus mass massey. case from west virginia. where the ceo of the massey coal mining corporation had litigation going and were losing all the way up and they decided to get involved in the election for the west virginia supreme court and he threw everything he had into a candidate that later became justice benjamin. he gave the $1,000 contribution he could give and then he gave $2.5 million to a con conveniently created and named not for profit he called for the

sake of disd. $2.5 million and then he spent another half million out of his own pocket on his own independent spending. when that happened, his favorite candidate, his money drowned out everybody else. it was more money than everybody else gave put together by a huge factor. he won the election. he gets in and he serves on the panel reviewing the case and what do you know, they reverse the verdict 3-2 against the corporation. against the massey company. well, that goes all the way to the u.s. supreme court and that was too much, not for the four justices. they thought that there was no problem with it. but justice kennedy flipped over and said that does compromise at least the appearance of due process. so we're going to send that one back and say that the judge should have not sat on the case. what's fascinating to me about it is the next year we have the coal mine collapsed from the massey company. 29 people died.

the governor issued a report and said that one of the factors in what happened was the failure of politicians to try to zealously enforce the laws and regulations against the massey corporation because they were afraid of the political spending and the willingness to engage in independent expenditures of the ceo. >> thank you. i'll have to look at that case. i've heard about it and it's just one example of that story of what's been going on and i think your argument about the corruption and what this is leading to is of great merit and i would also say that i'm glad that you have come out there and mr. abrams said this. basically under this scenario we would have no ruls. no limits on contributions. no limits on corporate contributions and i see more of the same and i do not think this is what our founding fathers wanted. >> senator sessions. >> thank you. thank you all. it's an interesting and important panel and discussion. when i came here, i felt a bit

agrieved. i had opponents who opposed me and spent millions of dollars. i didn't have any money but i was able to win. but i had some grieves grievances. but as i looked at this, i ask myself a very simple question. three months into my tenure and this constitutional amendment was first brought forth and the question was at a fundamental level do we want to pass an amendment to the constitution that allows the government of the united states to tell an american citizen or business they can't run an ad and say jeff sessions is a skunk and ought to be voted out of office. or are they not able to advance their view that coal is good or coal is bad? is america going to benefit if we constrict that right? isn't that contrary to the first amendment? i suggest it is because we have

an amendment to amend the first amendment. i don't think the supreme court took any extreme position. i think supreme court fundamentally interpreted the constitution as it's written. and with regard to that first constitutional proposal amendment in '97, it failed 38 to 61. only 38 voted for it and then when it came back in 2010 it failed 40-56. all well below any prospect of passage. and now it seems to me mr. abrams that this amendment would go further. those amendments set reasonable limits which would at least given the supreme court or five members there of some ability to constrict congressional power. do you interpret this as giving almost carte blanche to the

congress to limit spending? >> yes. i think it does just that. i think that the supreme court itself would read it that way. if a litigant got up in court and said but this is really unreasonable. you can't have a $500 limit. one case out of vermont, just a few hundred dollars which the court struck down. another case which this amendment would overrule, the court struck it down just saying that's just not enough money to run a campaign, i don't think that would be at all the same. i mean, under this amendment, the states and the state legislatures and the congress would have, i believe, all but absolute authority to make these decisions and would be essentially unreviewable and

certainly not reviewable on a reasonable basis. >> so you couldn't go to the supreme court and say we think this is an unreasonable limit because the supreme court would say you didn't put that in it. in fact, you explicitly passed this amendment after having rejected that word that was in a previous draft. i just think that's one of the things that we need to recognize. mr. abrams, one more thing, i don't know if you commented on this but the descent four votes said the public interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters, does that cause any uneasy? should we be concerned? some people expressed concern. do you share that? >> i have expressed concern in writing about that. that justice pryor's con saense.

my view is that the first amendment is about protecting the individual's right and it's not a collective right and it's not to be interpreted in terms of a legal -- in legal terms of everybody being able to workout social problems which is a good thing but not a first amendment concern. the first amendment concern is protecting the public from the government. >> well, i just left an environmental committee hearing in which one of the witnesses a professor said he was severely damaged as a result of his questioning of some of the global warming arguments that are made out there. i think we're in a period of time when speech is being threatened more than we would like to admit. political correctness is often run amuck and it's fundamental

that americans be able to express their views without intimidation. i think the great democratic party that was so classically liberal is now becoming the party of the progressives. and progressives tend to believe that little things like tradition, procedures, rules, even sometimes, i think, honesty can be subjected to the agenda that they believe is best for america. and i am telling you, i think this is serious. and i feel it repeatedly in our country and in the debate that we are engaged any just think tradition and constitutional order should be respected and in the long run, we'll be better off if we don't try to muzzle somebody that happens to have money to keep him or her or this business from being able to express views that they think

are important to the public and maybe even their own interest. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> i am going to recognize myself. >> you sure you recognize yourself? >> i do. i look in the mirror i recognize myself. and i recognize myself here. >> i knew you would handle that and you did. >> thank you. so did you. >> it's good to see you mr. abrams. you actually defended me on a first amendment case. >> so i did. >> and you won with a brilliant -- >> thank you. i remember what you said to me after i won. >> what did i say? >> even a chimp could have won that case. >> right. and i was right. but you're a brilliant lawyer. and i notice that in your testimony, in your written testimony, profession rasskkin,

want you to speak to this. it appears that citizens united has not caused a flood of new money in politics. he says, twice, actually, uses the word twice, it appears that way. now, from my experience i know that mr. abrams is an excellent lawyer. so i know he chooses his words carefully. when he says that it appears that way because there's really no way that we know. there's really no way that we know and mr. abrams himself has said that he is for getting rid of all limits entirely. we're talking about intimidation about speech. suppose a corporation comes up and there's no limits and says to a senator, if you vote this way on this bill, we will spend

$100 million to defeat you. it's fine. isn't that fine? i mean, it's according to this logic. >> that's just free speech. on the empirical question, let me say this -- >> no, then they either put the $100 million in or not. they don't even have to put it in to intimidate you. >> that's right. the numbers have seen have gone up dramatically and the ones we haven't seen, the c-6s, the trade associations, the dark money, you know, the estimates run into the billions. but i don't even know why mr. abrams would bother to deny it on his perspective, that's just more speech and that's something terrific. that's at odds with i think the people that are actually involved in politic what they think is going on out there. i think that the senator from north carolina has a much better

sense of what this money actually means, you know. on the ground when it gets spent. it seems to me that before we go any further, we've got to ask ourselves the question, do we warrant to completely deregulate money. that's where the court is going and the litigators are going and where all the political arg argument argumentation is. despite the fact that they didn't know about super packs, dark money or billion dollar bailouts. on their campaigns they spent nothing. they stood for office and they didn't go out and spend money. they didn't do it. so in the name of the founders, they're going to give us a completely unregulated political system. far more extreme than any other democratic nation on earth and then take away from the people the right to have any say over

it. >> now, senator cruz talked about, you know, media companies like the new york times or fox news or whatever. they, when there's an editorial in the new york times, it's in the new york times. it's disclosing. so i mean, we had a vote on disclosure. we had not one republican join us on disclosure. and mr. abrams, you said that you're for unlimited contributions but you'd prefer to see disclosure. but we're not going to see that if you have to get 60 votes to do that. so here is the key quote to me in citizens united opinion by the majority opinion by justice kennedy. we now conclude that independent expenditures including those made by corporations do not give rise to corruption or the

appearance of corruption. that is just to me horribly outside of -- that's out of touch with reality. the minnesota league of women voters -- the minnesota league of women voters. on a trust level with the visiting nurses society. they issued a report in which it concluded that, quote, the influence of money in politics represents a dangerous threat to the health of our democracy in minnesota nationally, end quote. i agree with that. i know the senator agree with that. what do you think of the court's analysis, justice kennedy's analysis on this point? >> i think it contradicts -- >> is it too narrow a view? >> it is far too narrow a view that contradicts what the court

has said before and what justice kennedy said in the massey decision. now, in buckley versus valeo the court said we could regulate not just in the interest of combatting quid pro quo corruption but also the reality of proper influence and undue influence and there's a whole sequence of events that follow in it's train to say the people understand and legitimately so that corruption can go far beyond quid pro quo. justice kennedy joined the moderate liberal justices in saying we're going to take that verdict away from the massey corporation because of an independent expenditure that was spent in that way and by the way, justice kennedy in his decision refused -- rather refers to independent expenditures as contributions. for him they're so closely connected that he calls them contributions in the first

photograph of t paragraph of the decision. it goes against what the court has said before. >> i'll hand both the microphone and gavel over. >> thank you. thank you to our panel and all that participated today. like many of my colleagues have been deeply disturbed by legal developme development over the past few years and particularly to regard to unrestricted campaign spending. buckley versus valeo established a frame work for how and to what extent spending might be fairly characterized as speech and entitled to to the constitution and when it might be restrained. they have lost all of the consequences of restoring that balance and in my view, the recent majority opinions are singularly focused on whether a

person or corporations intended giving constitutions qui quid pro quo corruption while fairing to see other forms that are corrosive of our order and legislative bodies of all levels. the cumulative impact of money, particularly secret money is very negative. we need to work in a bipartisan way to find a responsible solution to this challenge. if you look at the trajectory of recent decisions, we're one or two decisions away from the removal of all limitations whatsoever. if i could, first, senator, i would be interested in your comment of what the elimination of restrictions presented through citizens united, what has the impact of that been on your district? on politics in north carolina? on campaigns, using north carolina as an example.

now some years ago, this supreme court held congress's interest in insuring that expenditures that reflect actual public support for political ideas by corporations, they were concerned that corporations not be able to drown out the speech rights of real people. what has the ground been like in north carolina and what have the consequences been? >> the consequences have been grave to say the least. what you really have unleaked is the capacity for these independent organizations to come in and some of which are based in north carolina. many of which are based outside of north carolina that are having impact on our council state races, legislative races, judicial races. you name it. and what you really see is simply a barrage of negative ads run literally around the clock that disproportionally highlight

some specific issue that they think is narrowly based. the design of these commercials, all of these barrage of commercials is to elicit an emotional response upon persuadable voters an unfortunately at times it's doing so. it's having that impact. so you find that sometimes these deep pocket corporate donors, millionaires coming from outside of the state. perhaps even billionaires on occasion, they have a vested self-interest. many of them are highly conservative. many of them do not perhaps share the mainstream perspective as the vast majority of north carolina voters. i'm not going to tell you that north carolina is a progressive state or a conservative state. it's a century state but when you have a state with volters like that in perspective, you can see this massive amount of spending and into some

situations three, four, five times the amount of money that individual candidates can put toward an issue or their campaigns. you see distorted outcomes. distorted outcomes across the board. >> thank you, senator. thank you for that experienced-based testimony about the impact of this flood of money on elections in north carolina. professor raskin, i have a limited amount of time left. mr. abrams referenced that the first amendment is an individual right that is protected. a right to free speech that's imbedded in our first amendment. is it true that money equals speech in the context of the current majority of the supreme court in recent decisions? and what grounding do you think there is in the text of the constitution for extending that right to corporations equal with individuals and what's the consequences? >> i think everybody would agree or should agree that money is not speech. money can be a courier of speech.

it can amplify speech but because it's a first amendment right and not a collective right. that's why the supreme court had always said up until citizens united that corporations as artificial entities chattered by the state governments do not have the first amendment right of the people. corporations don't have conscious conscienc consciences, believes, or thoughts. one is so people can express themselves. two is for democratic self-government so the citizens can govern themselves. but we certainly don't allow foreign governments or foreign corporations and we didn't allow our corporations to take over that process. the third is the search for the truth. but corporations are not interested in the truth. corporations are interested in profit as they should be and it's been fantastically productive doing it that way. to bring the press into it just confuses the issue because we have a whole separate clause

that defends freedom of the press and they have never been regulated under our campaign finance laws and never would be. they certainly wouldn't be under the constitutional amendment today. >> thank you professor. >> i'm going to -- good afternoon. i'm going to take over the gavel. on the latest and very likely the last of the chairman that you'll have today and i'm going to ask the senator who was before me until the line of questioning to go ahead. >> thank you mr. chairman. the current supreme court is one of the most corporate friendly courts in history. rulings like citizens united and others expanding the rights of corporations significantly in a variety of areas that undermine our democracy. mr. chairman i'd like to enter into the record a 2013 new york times article that reports on this troubling trend entitled, quote, corporations find a friend in the supreme court. >> without objection.

>> i'd also like to enter into the record an april 2nd, 2014 editorial from the charlotte observer entitled, quote, another window to corruption: our view," talking about the supreme courts continuing on its path to dismantle the country's campaign financial laws. >> without objection. >> senator, you described for us the post citizens united situation in south carolina and we have heard testimony today that the next step, because the court is on the path of saying that constitutional rights are at stake in these decisions, the path of eliminating individual constitution limits. now would you describe for us what you think would happen if that instance because i think there is agreement that this is the next supreme court campaign

spending decision coming down the line. >> well, senator that certainly appears the way the supreme court is drifting. i think it would be, certainly, the wrong direction for this country to move. at this point in time, i mean, it's bad enough that you have unlimited corporate contributions coming in today that did not exist before. the worst possible thing could happen is if you also eliminated these limitations on individual giving what you would essentially do is distort the whole playing field. and when i say that, right now, those contributions are $5,000 or $4,000 in north carolina, if you eliminate that cap, those individuals that want to give 25, 50, $100,000 make certain that their policy, their view, their perspective is actually that particular perspective that wins the day before general assembly. that the laws are adopted that protect those particular

potential contributors interests. when you really think about it, it undermines the integrity of our whole system. >> well, these decisions, the citizens united and the mchutchen decision basically didn't touch the individual, the contributions of the individuals. >> that's right. >> now, so there's kind of a little barrier but when one can con industry beauty to individual candidates, that's you, that's all of us, professor raskin, do you think that that's is kind of undue influence that lead states and the federal government to pass campaign spending laws in the first place? >> i think you're absolutely right senator. first of all, in your first point about corporations, i did a report for people that the session after citizens united to situate it in the context you identify which is an aggressive

procorporate jurisprudence on the court and in that term of the supreme court, corporations won against shareholders, they won against government regulators. they won essentially every case they had going on in the supreme court. but the idea of undue influence, improper influence has been taken away from congress and the states as a legitimate rational from regulating contributions and the decision presses up hard against the limit. because the idea is you can't limit what people give overall. they should be able to give to everybody limiting the overall quantity of speech. >> yes. >> so does the regular contribution limit. it also reduces what the candidate can spend. i could give you $1 million instead of 5,000 you could spend to the heavens. >> i share the concerns that you express about giving to individuals and i think that does raise the undue influence. concern that the people of

america already have with regard to what goes on in the political arena. i have already little doubt that senator coons is correct that the lifts of those limits will be next. i think that's a huge concern which is why i believe we need to move ahead with the constitutional amendment bill. now i think there's also agreement that we could put that the reasonableness standard into this bill so that is it states and the federal government do not go hog wild. in addition, the supreme court -- i'm running out of time, but they set up a standard that is probably impossible which is that the only way that we can enact legislation in this area aside from disclosure would be that we have to prevent quid pro quo, basically bribery which was illegal.

>> i think that's right. >> by the way, the same people that brought us this line of decisions are now attacking disclosure. not just legislatively and we know that there's a partisan divide on that but also constitutionally they're saying this is unconstitutional compelled speech. it's like making the jehovah's witness kids salute the flag and they're insisting there's a right to free speech. look at the realm they want to give to the people. corporations are give on an unlimited basis directly to candidates and spend on an unlimited basis and they don't have to tell anybody and then they whine if anybody calls a corporation out for doing it saying that somehow their first amendment rights are violated. that's a special first amendment they have got. >> i'm out of time. >> i'll be grief. i want to begin by saying to mr. abrams, i hope that when senator

said a chimp could win that case that you doubled your fee to him. you and i have been on different sides of cases and i would never have referred to you as a chimp in your argument. far from it. you have been a for formittable and forceful advocate as you have been today and thank you all for being here. and i want to take a slightly different line because i think a lot of the ground has been covered. but from an institutional standpoint and i want to pose this question to mr. abrams first but any of you are free to comment. in it's decisions and most recently mchutchen, the supreme court makes factual conclusions. for example, it says that the government scenarios are implausible factually to occur.

to combat some of the evils that are raised. i worked for a justice as a clerk. i argued before the court. i have come to know some of the justices and one fact about them has impressed me, they are enormously able, smart, and caring people but they generally are not well informed as to the mechanics and the practical impacts because they by and large never run for office. never been involved in campaigns and many not even contributed to them. does it concern you? and i know they have to issue rulings on a great many areas from patents to communication

cases where internet, they may not be familiar with the details and so forth and that's their job but in this area that vitally effects the fabric of our democracy and their being where they are, because they are in those positions because of this system that they are now ruling on are you concerned with the institutional weaknesses of this process that may lead them to reach conclusions that have huge unintended consequences way beyond what they thought would happen? >> for members of the court secluded as they are and certainly out of the political mainstream that it's difficult.

very difficult. difficult the patent example is a very good one. just as some other very difficult area of law where they have to reach to try to make decisions about impact of something on the future, which is very hard to do. yes. that's a problem. i think it goes with the territory. that is to say i don't think they can avoid it. my own view and my second point is i believe that instead of characterizing member of this panel have the court has -- i would say simply conservative or simply pro-business et cetera -- i believe that the conservative members of this court have concluded that the first

amendment impact of their perspective and mine that the first amendment side is really breached or at least threatened very badly by some of that legislation that's appeared before them. because of that, having reached that conclusion, i think they deliberately strive to impose tests that will not allow the first amendment too easily to be overcome and that's where i think the notion, for example, that only quid pro quo corruption is, quote, corruption for purposes of these cases. it's not that they don't understand that there could be

some impact on the process or that money can be intimidating and necessary for candidates. it's that i think that having concluded that the potential first amendment harm is so great. there's the legal test they then apply that's necessary to overcome it. i don't think they're being unrealistic. they may be wrong as your question suggested because they don't have the background. that's something else. but what i'm say as good that they are doing it in the service as they view it of the first amendment. >> i don't know whether anyone else had any observations on that question. >> that's so incontestable. >> what i will say if i could be

recognized briefly. i recognize the direction the court is moving. i recognize that when an appropriate case comes they might eliminate individual contribution limitations. but i think what the court has failed to do is to understand the potential impact upon first amendment rights and other constitutional rights, when you unleak the opportunity to buy elections and to change outcomes. and there has to be a balancing of competing interests. i think that the proposed amendment if it were to go forward and was passed by our state. it would allow for that by having these limitations and like wise in the states. there has to be a level of that

fundamental playing field because if it's not, what will simply be unleashed is the ability of the wealthiest in our society to dominate, control, and unduly influence outcomes in our political profess, our judicial process, but more importantly, the rights of those that may be disinfranchised along the way such as occurred in north carolina through our laws we passed. >> can you imagine any circumstances or scenarios where you would favor some kind of limits on contributions? >> yeah, i mean, i don't have a firm view on contributions. i was asked that question and my answer was i was coming to the point where i thought contributions too probably ought to be over the line.

but that's not the most considered, certainly not final opinion on my part. i can see a distinction between contribution and expenditures and i think that the buckley case offered a perfectly rational and defensible compromise in treating expenditures frequently than contributio contributions. i do think in this session or some later session of this body that you proceed with an amendment that you ought to seriously consider why buckley is even on the table. if you're concern is what you think -- i don't think but you may think citizens united did --

if that were your view, you ought not to reverse it and this constitutional amendment reverses a slew of constitutionally rooted cases which require very serious deliberation. thank you. >> a couple of things. buckley has been taken to an extreme. this is the problem. we have a run away faction on the court which now has used the ideas of buckley to strike down, for example, the public finance regime in arizona which got more candidates involved, increased speech. encouraged competition as the justice pointed out and they struck that down and by the way, the position is pro-public finance.

now, i yield to no one in my respect to mr. abrams in his career but there's a big division within the aclu and within civil libertarians on this. there was a report taking the opposite position because free speech and democracy go together and they stand best when they go together and what's happened in the name of free speech is now the development of corporation domination which had always been rejected both by democrats, small d democrats and civil libertarians in the past. we need to reunify democracy and civil liberty and it gives us the frame work to work it out. this faction on the supreme court is stealing away from democratic institutions the power to regulate money and to establish what has been a wall of separation for a century.

>> thank you. my thanks to all of you and to all of the audience for attending. i'm going to adjourn and keep the record open for one week. your testimony has been excellent and very helpful and informative and on behalf of the committee, our thanks. thank you. >> president obama and british prime minister david cameron held a joint news conference today on the closing of the g-7 meeting. you can see their remarks tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. >> on a lonely wind swept point on the northern shore of france t air is soft but 40 years ago this moment the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men and the air was filled with the

crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. at dawn on the morning of the 6th of june, 1944, 225 rangers jumped off the british landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasi invasion. to climb these cliffs and take out the enemy guns. the allies have been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the allied advance. the rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliff shooting down at them with machine guns and the american rangers began to climb. >> this weekend, american history tv will mark the 70th anniversary of the d-day invasion of normandy. starting saturday morning at 1030 eastern. that's followed at 11:30 by the

author and historian craig symonds and at 12:30 questions and comments live and a look back at presidential speeches commemorating the day. all on american history tv, saturday on cspan 3. >> the reason we are trying to focus on the speaker is because it is the speaker with the full majesty and weight of his position who yesterday made certain allegations which at this point at least he does not yet answer to -- would you prefer i -- i'll yield to you. >> you have an audience. you don't normally have that in the 26 hours you presented this case to the public but the interesting fact is the whole tenure of your remarks going back to 1970 and going back to 1972, taking out of context. you were there for one and one purpose alone and my opinion, and that was to imply that members of this side were

un-american in their activities. you stopped, you waited. will you respond? you knew that there was nobody there. you knew that there was nobody here. >> camscam. >> yes. >> put those two men from your perspective, give us your perspective on the two. >> well, speaker o'neill was really a giant. he knew the politic of the house. he knew the politics of the house and kept much of it to himself and received a great amount of sbel intelligence all day long. he believed that politics was the art of the possible. he was a broker within the democratic caucuses and within the house. what you saw was newt gingrich that made a conscious decision that they would be in the

minority because they worked with the majority. so he started attacking bob michael, the leader and john rhodes and everybody on that side. >> in his own party. >> in his own party. because he just said the only avenue is confrontation. this is about the misuse of tv. now coming to the floor where he would ask these rhetorical questions and make these charges and he knew the chamber was empty but at that time remember the chamber was really tight on the speaker at that time and the chamber either had people in it or it was empty and it changes the whole dynamics but that was a process that now many years later has torn this institution apart and has paralysed the institution.

>> now, house armed services committee vice chair mac thornberry speaking at the heritage foundation on national security policy. represen represenni representati represent to thornberry is considered to be the next chair of the committee. following his comments, they discussion national security priorities by looking back at the lessons learned from world war i. this is an hour and 15 minutes. had [ applause ] >> well, thanks, i appreciate the invitation to be with y'all today and certainly have benefitted from heritage foundations insights on national security since i was a young hill staffer working on defense issues in the early 1980s.

those were exciting and contentious times. we suffer from a bit of amnesia if we think that reagan's defense build up and fight against communism was some sort of inevitable triumph of consensus policies. in fact, reagan's policies were resisted every step of the way. viciously. and just as steps that we need to take today are and will be resi resisted. i also think that the effort of heritage to look back a century at world war i is good and needed partly to prevent the sort of amnesia that i just mentioned and partly because there seems to be an inevitable tendency to abuse history for current political ends. even recent history. you know, we tend to heir in one

of two ways. either we try to shoe horn whatever the current problem is into some sort of historical anlage and it's usually immunic, vietnam, or these days iraq and therefore make the outcome inevitable. or we tend to forget the lessons of history and there by fulfill the warning by repeating the mistakes of the past. the truth is, no result is inevitable. it depends on the decisions we and others make but if we're wise, we can learn the lessons of history and take the principles of history and apply them to the circumstances of today. if i can shortcut to my bottom line, it's that peace through strength is one of the principles that we can and should relearn, refresh and apply over and over again. now some people may ask whether this slogan really has any

application in today's world. there are some who seem to believe that the national security challenges we face today are far too complicated for the simplistic approaches of some by goner range era. we need someone nimble and smart enough to find just the right balanced approach for every single problem that we face. today at westpoint the president is said to begin an effort to explain his national security policy to us. according to press reports, we the american people don't really understand just how daft the president's policies of hitting singles and doubles in foreign policy really is. the problem is us. if we let him educate us we'll have a greater appreciation of his more sophisticated nuisanced approach to these issues.

well, maneuver as he will, the united states does face a wide complex array of threats. mr. putin reminded us that europe is not the peaceful place that many people had assumed. despite the administration's best efforts to persuade us otherwise, the terrorists have not all gone away. in fact, in many ways, terrorist threat today that we face is more difficult than ever before. i noted a story in the new york times a few days ago in which the new director of the fbi said that before he was sworn in, he underestimated the terrorist threat. quote, i didn't have anywhere near the appreciation i got after i came into this job. just how those afilliants had become. there's more than i appreciated and stronger than i appreciated. of course he's the latest to remind us of that. the dangers opposed by outlaw

states such as north korea and iran are greater than they have been. afghanistan we'll talk about more in a minute but we have to keep sight of the point that whatever policy we have in afghanistan is next door to the nuclear state of pakistan. the reemergence of al qaeda groups in iraq coupled with the safe haven in syria poses higher risk as europeans and others travel there and back again. new demands of warfare in cyber and in outerspace continue to develop and we struggle to keep up. a few weeks ago i travelled to asia with majority leader cantor as we heard the same talking points from one high ranking chinese official after the other i must confess that my heart sank because they clearly see china as a rising power. they clearly see the united states as a declining power. they clearly had historical grievances that they think this is the time to correct. they are clearly aggressive and

confident and all of that made me think of germany before world war i. now i don't see conflict with china as inevitable. there but again it depends on the decisions we make and how they view those decisions. the other point that was made clear from that trip is that friends and allies and other countries who are not necessarily friends and allies are watching very carefully are whether the united states keeps its commitments and means what it says. today there is reason to doubt not only in asia but in europe and the middle east, in africa, south asia as well. so maybe it is no surprise but still a little bit unsettling to see people like richard haas president of the counsel on

foreign relations write, quote, american foreign policy is in troubling disarray we are witnessing a accelerating movement towards the postamerican world. david brooks in the "new york times," quote, all around the fabric of peace and order is fraying. even lec valenca got into the act saying the world is disorganized and the superpower is not taking the lead. he went on to say to president obama if he doesn't lead then find a country that will. these are not exactly your typical obama bashers. across the spectrum there is concern that under barak obama america is in withdrawal mode. and there is a fear that the president thinks and acts like he can make things happen in the world just by giving a speech. that he can protect america with his rhetoric.

now, look, i'm a fan -- a big fan of churchill and reagan. i have a lot of appreciation for effective communication. but that communication has to be backed up by something and backed up by someone whose willing to make the tough choices and then defend them. what we say is important, what we do is more important. the president has taken "speak softly and carry a big stick" and just turned it on its head. more people are ra coming to realize that unfortunately more often than not for this administration, short-term political tactics take precedence over protecting longer term strategic interests. david ig nashs, again, not a typical obama critic and someone who admits that he has sympathies with obama's foreign

policy goals writes the benghazi e-mails show, quote, the administration spent more time thinking about what to say than what to do. and he goes on to write, under obama the united states has suffered reputational damage. this damage unfortunately has largely been self inflicted by an administration that focuses too much on short-term messaging. consistent with this short-term political focus is the unprecedented micromanagement of all aspects of the national security by the white house staff. from secretary gait's book and other accounts it is clear how frustrated people in the departments have been in trying to carry out their responsibilities. and i have heard from them firsthand about how difficult this -- this is. but remember, the biggest scandal of the reagan administration was an run out of

the national security council staff. and yet that happens every single day in the obama white house. so the president is going to educate us and about how these critics are wrong and how enlightened his policies truly are. well, what are the fruits of the obama approach? well, greszers are em boldened, friends are unsure. neutrals are making new calculations. and according to the yearly index published by freedom house, freedom is in restreet, declining for the eighth consecutive year. this morning the washington post editorial board rites the afghan decision would have been understandable had obama's previous choices proved out. but what's remarkable is the results have been consistent, consistently bad. end quote. the president loves to set up straw men arguments. his opponents are either

isolationalists or interventionally. and of course he knocks them down and comes right down the middle with the only reasonable approach. that's approach to argument that we could expect i guess from a law professor. but that is not leadership. this world does not operate in a "split the difference," neither this nor that the mode. the world wants to know what will america fight for? what does america stand for? can america be counted on? yesterday the president announced we would keep 9,800s troops in afghanistan after december. cutting that in half next year and pulling out by the end of 2016. yan i can't be the only one who suspects that we got to 9,800 because it sounds a whole lot better than 10,000.

and i suspect i'm not the only one who suspects that this is another example of the president calculating what the minimum necessary to get by is but his heart really isn't in it. now listen, if you are a friend or ally of the united states, does this decision give you more confidence in your friendship with us? here is a harder question. if you are one of those 9,800 do you think the president really supports your mission? we started out talking about learning the lessons of history this morning. again the washington postin the morning editorial said we left afghanistan once. 9/11 happened and we vowed we were never going to leave again to. make that premature decision. even a president with rhetorical gifts can finesse his way out of military weakness or a loss of credibility in the world.

power and influence in the world comes from having the capability plus the will to use it. we acquire military capability with our defense budget. last week the house passed the national defense authorization act for 2015. the vote was 325 to 98. having bipartisan support of course the president promptly threatens to veto the bill. in part because we rejected, as did the senate armed services committee a lot of the proposals that he had made. for four years in a row t administration has sent congress budgets that hide the full effect of their defense cuts by including a number of proposals that they know nooitd the house nor the senate, neither republicans nor democrats will agree to. defense spending this year is 17% of the federal budget. lowest it's been since world war two. does congress bare some of the

responsibility? absolutely. both parties and both housings bear some of that responsibility. although i have to say i do think mr. putin has helped enlighten some of our republican colleagues about the reasons that we always put national security first. but what we see over and over again however is that there is never any substitute for presidential leadership on matters of national security. and when it is lacking, american security suffers. so where are we headed with the budget? well, if we don't find a way to replace the budget caps with something more reasonable, we are headed towards the smallest army since world war ii, the smallest navy since 1931, and the smallest air force we've ever had. we have already arrived at a place where we have a nuclear weapons complex that is falling apart.

just as the challenges in dealing with those aging complex machines is mounting. and the reason is we have not kept the funding commitments that were made in exchange for the senate ratification of the new start treaty. we've already arrived at a place where our national security space program is dependent upon russian-made engines. so meanwhile what is the rest of the world doing? according to the economist magazine, if you look at the last ten years of military spending, china is up 170%. russia is up 110%. even india with all of its domestic challenges is up 45%. the u.s. is up a meager 12% and some of our best friends, britain france and italy all went down. of course it is not just about how much money is spent. it is also about how that money is spent. and we clearly have a lot of work to do to see that our

defense dollars are spent more wisely. that we get more defense out of the money we spend. and we have a bipartisan, bicameral effort to work with the pentagon and with industry to help reduce overhead and also improve our acquisition policies. but on the bigger budget picture, the administration resorts to political blamesmanship, accusing congress of just being interested in parochial interests for not agreeing to their defense cuts. is there some of that? sure. always has been, always will be. is that the reason so many members of congress in both parties have real doubts and concerns about where this administration is taking our country's security? i don't think so. i disagree with a lot of the president's proposals really for two reasons. one is i'm not sure they are well thought out. last year they came to us and proposed that we keep the u-2 airplane