how much they can give and debate various proposals for improving the system. this discussion was hosted by the national archives. >> thank you for hosting us in this marvelous building. this protects the history of the united states of america. we at the association of the former members of congress, and i want to say that you, we appreciate the partnership we have within the archives. it has resulted in excellent discussions and deliberations across the political aisle. they are not part of -- we are nonpartisan and we hope in november this will bring us to a new time, a new time when the white house and the congress get along. we can only hope. before elections can be one, they need to be run.

and these days to run an election means one thing, finance. the other night i was bemused at the new hampshire primary, economist -- a panelist at the john kasich was going to be able to really give jeb bush a hard time for the establishment of a. and he said, oh no, john kasich cannot out fund jeb bush, end of story. that is what we deal with these days, because money has become so pervasive in our system. many individuals and organizations are taking a look at this whole situation. our group that we are joining with tonight, the archives and with former members, is issue one. this is an important

conversation. and i thank you for coming, because this is important for the future of the system. let me quote from the website. this is a nonprofit organization committed to putting everyday citizens back in control of our democracy, by reducing the influence of money on politics and policy makers. this is an important initiative. a bipartisan group of 120 former members and government, working together to bring attention to this issue. i think you because i love people who are interested in something that could hurt the whole system. i am a proud member of the reform. very profit and all former members you will see, they are part of establishing issue one and being part of it. they are very knowledgeable.

we will take a serious look at financing campaigns and we have an outstanding panel. let me ask them to join me on stage and you can help me in welcoming them. a democrat from louisiana, senator bennett. [applause] >> senator bill brock from tennessee. a democrat from indiana. who after his service in the house was our country's ambassador to india. and meredith, the director of the campaign legal center in the areas of campaign finance, voter rights, political communication, and government ethics. [applause] >> keeping things flowing and

keeping these folks going, will be the job of the moderator, and story and, a comic strip author, a writer for the, and a west wing writer. i want to say thank you, because to have a place like this and the caliber of these panelists and discuss what is bothering us, the fact that money has taken over election. we cannot continue this way. i thank you for coming. [applause] >> thank you. i want to thank all of you for coming out on a very cold night. i want to thank the national archives for hosting us. and the u.s. association of former members of congress for sponsoring the event.

we are very lucky to have such a distinguished panel and former members of congress with us. a group whose careers have stand -- spanned eras, they have survived them all and they will be sharing experiences and insights with us. i want to thank meredith for being here. we are glad to have your expertise on hand to try to navigate the complex and changing landscape of campaign finance. i will have questions for each of you. we want to this to be a conversation, so if you want to jump in at any time, i know that members of congress are used to that. but congress rules do not apply tonight. and later we will take questions from the audience. in the spirit of the subject of the evening, the microphones

will go to the highest bidder. we will begin with meredith, we are marking as we all know, i say marking, not celebrating the 40th anniversary of the buckley decision in the supreme court. this is the decision that equated spending with speech. can you walk us through buckley, what it decided and why it is such an important decision? meredith: i will spend a minute explaining how we got here, because it is important to see how the issue developed. i could start back with the start of the country, but i don't think i will go back that far. i think that you need to look at this through the scope of the last century, where you had the 1907 corporate ban that was passed and the aftermath of the railroad scandals, into the 1940's, where there was a ban on campaign contributions, this was

after world war ii and the steelworkers strike. after that, in the aftermath of watergate, and a series of court cases. the one that people paid the most attention to was the buckley decision. what was critical was the differentiation between how the court interpreted the treatment of expenditures versus contributions. it really kind of fabricated the way that these were treated under constitutional law. saying that, in terms of expenditures, we could not put limits on expenditures for candidates. you could have independent expenditures. independent expenditures were not corrupting. you could give a small contribution, small of $2000, anything after that was corrupting.

if you spent $1 million independently, that was not corrupting. the buckley decision also touched on issues in terms of coordination versus independent spending. and it also looked at some of those areas about how you can get around spending limits. things like contribution limits, how much you can give to a party. that recognized that you could have the ability to give money to a party, then that money would go to candidates, potentially corrupting influences in the exchange. the other notable question here in terms of court jurisprudence was the notion that you could not exactly equate money with speech, but that obviously the

ability to spend the money had free speech implications. it was really this notable leaking of first amendment rights. this had really not been the jurisprudence and it changed more than 200 years of how the country looked at the link between speech and money. i will move very quickly, so you can see where we got today. after buckley you had austin versus michigan chamber of commerce. that is important because they looked at the corporate contribution ban and the ban on that was upheld. the philosophy on that was, it had the ability to distort the process if you allowed corporations to cap treasury funds. then you moved from austin to the bipartisan campaign reform act in which i know that some of you up here lobbied on.

i did. it was challenged in a case, very notable that the court upheld that. it had a very -- on what constituted corruption. and then after mcconnell, citizens united, in which contributions were committed, followed by another case, which allowed super pac's to raise and spend unlimited money. and the last, in which the campaign conjugations were thrown out by the court. the most important things, the differentiation between expenditures and contributions of also the court saying that the only constitutional ground to discuss these kinds of limits are the grounds of corruption and the appearance of corruption. so, that is important because when you got to this last court case, the court basically in the

robert majority opinion said, unless you have a quid pro quo agreement, then you really do not have corruption. it is a reminder in the kennedy decision for citizens united, that seeing the buying and selling of influence will not create problems of undermining public confidence in the government. whether you believe that or not, that is up to you individually. host: one of my questions is whether you believe that and what defines corruption. before that, senator brock, you like senator johnston were elected around the time that congress passed the federal election campaign act in 1971. you were in office for the watergate era reforms, the feca and for the buckley decision.

i wonder if you can speak to the changes that you witnessed during your tenure? how did it affect you as somebody who is running for office on either side of the events? as someone who is trying to get something done, did you feel that money was playing a greater role in that time? senator brock: i think that, my first race for the senate was 1970. and, i do not think that we thought much about it. you could take cash, checks, and never got any -- i'm not sure what that meant. but, the idea that money was sufficient to cause a serious

corruption, i do not think that most of us thought about that until watergate. then we began to read the story of people going to jail for violating, i guess it was the -- we thought, well, something is going on. after that, 1974 limits were imposed and again, this do not have any effect on me. i do remember, though, one specific case which we had in eastern businessman of -- up in tennessee and he was used to tapping all the suppliers to his company, saying that if you want

to do business with me, i want a piece of the business we do together. then he would turn around and give it to cash, whether local or national. i went to see him because he was a political, not just a giver, but in activist. he said, have this for you. i said, jack, i know what is in there and i cannot take it. he said, it is newspaper clippings. [laughter] i said, i do not think so. he said, trust me. i have these two guys with me and we had given about one mile. and i said, i need to open this. it was a huge stack of bills. not newspaper clippings. and i told one of them. i said, take it back.

i am not going to jail. for whatever it was, $5,000, whatever. i said, i will not do it. he was heartbroken. he had been doing all of his life. all of a sudden, we began to see the change of rules. and it did not work before we got there, but it was a different world. we were reacting to this kind of thing. and trying to see if there was not some way to make sure that if there was corruption, that we could stop it. we could stop it by at least the campaign side. that was the hope. host: thank you. senator johnson, can you speak to the same question? did you see a change? did it become a greater concern to you and constituents?

senator johnson: iran and 1972, the first year that the federal election campaign was reformatted. that was the one declared unconstitutional in buckley. it was a very good act that restricted contributions of $1000 per person per election. the restricted the amount he said -- the amount you could spend. it really worked very well. it kept people from spending. they could only spend $40,000 of

their own money. then in 1976, it was declared unconstitutional. from then on, we ran under, you know, unlimited expenditures. i was very concerned about it, because you could see that every year it got worse. it started off, they did not know how to spend the money. now they have a huge combines that know exactly how to do opposition research, polls, targeting of people. they spent up to, in one house race, $100 million. it is so absurd it has ruined the senate as a bill brock and i -- i was very concerned and i had a committee chair man and i had a bright staff. he said, what can we do about it? we researched up and down the how we could solve the problem, given buckley, that was before

citizens united. and we came to the conclusion that there was not much you could do. remember, i thought this was an act -- which i voted for and even that was declared unconstitutional. so i am convinced that the only one way to deal with expenditures, contributions, and what has corrupted the whole system, is to have a constitutional amendment, or a vote on the supreme court. citizens united was 5-4. there are some other things that maybe you can do that would

marginally help. but, you need a constitutional amendment. we should put it in now. every candidate for president now has endorsed it. i was just reading yesterday, bush said that he would eliminate citizens united. donald trump, every stage he makes -- speech he makes, i do not want your money, i want your vote. and you know hillary clinton and bernie sanders, they are for it. we should have a constitutional amendment. ask every candidate, are you for it? do you want to deal with this issue? you should do the same for every member of congress. if we did not pass it quickly, we could start a movement. believe me, bernie sanders talks about a revolution, we need a revolution in this issue now. host: we will do canvassing of the former members about the constitutional amendment and other ideas as you indicated, there are other possibilities

that might be pursued. i would like to get to those before we go to questions from the audience. congressman, you were a long serving member of congress. you no doubt saw and were affected by the changing dynamics of congress that are often limited on both sides on the aisle, the spike in bipartisanship, the breakdown of what used to be a very collegial group of folks. i wonder how big a role you think money has played in that? there are a lot of things that feed into this. let's focus on the question on hand, the role of campaign money. >> no question over the time i was there, increasingly for both parties, the leadership was encouraging individual members to spend a lot of time dialing

for dollars. that helps to determine to some significant degree whether you will advance to the chairman and that sort of thing. in the old days, seniority was king. you do not have to -- can you imagine some of these guys dialing for dollars? they would not do it. and i think myself it has led to dysfunction within the congress, because so many decisions are funneled through, rather than allowing a leader of different authority -- and these guys were, you know, after the chairman, this was like ruling the roost. the secretary of agriculture and so on and so forth. that has changed a lot. i think that -- one other point i want to make on what senator johnson was saying, there are important decisions made by the court.

they are supposed to be administering laws and it has been a very dysfunctional. there is a business of independent expenditures or something, this is an area where they could be aggressive. you could cut back a lot of that or make a truly independent, and they are not doing it. so as well as amending the constitution or replacing supreme court justices, whether -- this has been screwed up before, at least we ought to be looking at administering the laws we have effectively and that is not being done because we are gridlocked, we are not looking at positions and candidates come in and they are not filing a complaint. this is the law of the jungle out there as far as elections are concerned. host: ambassador, looking back,

it was mentioned dialing for dollars. we are familiar with this. i'm sure that you are familiar with it. issue one shows us that 50% of people are doing this and not the people's business. can you talk about that pressure to raise money and how does it affect the other 50% of your day? ambassador: that is a great question. we have a republican from the midwest, a republican from tennessee, democrat from louisiana, the deep south, a midwesterner, all of us uniting and gathering together to encourage the people of our country to take back democracy. and demand the government we deserve. let's talk about how this money is impacting the electoral process, the governing process,

and the recruitment of good candidates to run for congress. and we are doing it in the appropriate place, because in the archives we have the sacred documents that have founded our country on the basis of equality for people, and opportunity. yet the system that has dominated, the big money and billionaires and the families that have provided half of the money for campaigns that we are going to write now, are determining not only cool when, but who will -- not only who will win, but who will run. so i think that this is one of the most fundamental questions that we face in this presidential year. al qaeda is importing, foreign policy is vital, and certainly in a quality in america and more opportunities for jobs in the 20th century, but -- 21st

century, but this issue of our democracy and who runs and how they represent the country is a fundamental piece of solving all these other issues. education and -- so when i first ran in 1989, i need to take on the incumbent had been in office for 10 years. he had spent about $1 million. i needed to raise $1 million through fish fries and other contributions, but we both knew, the republican iran against, we both knew that we needed to raise money. and then comes, buckley and other decisions and the door started to open up. independent expenditures outside groups, things that could add into the contribution levels.

eventually, you some members spending more and more and more of their time, dialing for dollars, raising money. they were not going to the committee, they were not talking to republican across the aisle to figure out how to balance the budget or deal with climate change, they were on the phone at headquarters, raising money. 1, 2, 3, 4 hours a day. that not only impacts who will want to run in the democracy, this impacts when you get to washington, how you do your job. and who you do it with, and how you govern, and to the work of congress. and then it impacts on top of that, it impacts the kind of

people that we are going to see running for president. and where they spend their time and who they talk to, so i think that this is a critically important issue right now. and i am delighted to see that there are people who care about it and we can talk about some of the solutions. host: meredith, you talk about the definition of corruption as it has involved over the supreme court decision. i bookmarked that and i am coming back to that. to throw it open to the group, the corruption, how do you define corruption? is the supreme court defining it to nearly as the kind that rarely happens, where you have newspaper clippings in an envelope? is that the only kind of corruption that concerns you, or should not only the rest of us,

but our justices and judges elsewhere -- >> one point, there is a difference between individual corruption, people taking money and using it for personal purposes, and corruption of the process, where you get illegitimate decision and people buying public policy. there is less individual corruption in congress than there ever has been. and i think that people, personally, by and large they are honest and conscientious. we have not had to be like this for years, they were very concerned about this. but people raise money for committees. and sometimes they are consuming because they want issues to be

raised, because they have a provision there that they are trying to protect. and this weakens the ability of the process, of the system, to improve the way that we are governing. meredith: that is the way -- i think that people talk about corruption -- the word i prefer is corrupting. this is a system in which, and i would recommend this, a new book by richard painter, the who is -- who is the ethics counselor for president bush, he was making the issue about this and talking about not only the jurisprudence of corruption and the appearance of corruption, but i think that what we are seeing reflected in this campaign, is that is -- there is no doubt that it is happening every day. a gift -- a big donor gives influence.

if you are in average american, the chances that you have of having that same kind of next in mill, everyone's and a while you might get an opportunity to meet with a senator or representative, but there is an ability to be heard and have influence. i guess the most corrupting part of the system is this access. >> i would echo something that my friend talked about. i do not think that there are a bunch of members, jeff, dialing for dollars and raising $5,000, $10,000 a day and putting that money in their pocket. that is not the problem. the problem is, they start the day at 8:00. this is usually on tuesday. they may go to a committee assignment, then go to raise

money for five hours on tuesday. wednesday, a little bit more fundraising and another fundraiser at night. and maybe a little bit of work. thursday they go home. so much of that time that they should have been doing the people's business working on government problems, water in flint, jobs, infrastructure projects, addressing the issues of affordability in higher education, they are not doing this. they are instead talking to people who can afford the $5,000, $10,000, a $5 million, so instead of talking to the teacher and hearing about how they are worried about jobs,

kids, how many jobs the kids might have in their lifetime, that member may be on the phone, listening to somebody on wall street talk about derivatives. and something they need to do on legislation that may be coming up later. so is that a corrupting influence on the system? is that assiduous to democracy, is that unfair to the rest of the people of america, yes. yes it is. that is not how the system is supposed to work. that is what needs to be changed. >> i have such respect for my colleagues up here. i really do not like the word fair. i am worried about what is happening to our country, where people live. i want you to think about what it feels like to really care about an issue that affects you

directly, or your community or family. and you know, you just know, you do not need to see who is raising money. you know. well, that the guy who gave $20,000 is going to get his phone call answered. the odds of you getting a phone call answered are zip. and what that does to you and the sense of what this country is all about, the genesis of it, but the core -- the decore of a self governing politic with representation, what that does to you when you look at that, i happen to think that this is a

problem. and i think what has been done to divide the parties -- we are down to one out of seven americans voting in a primary and most candidates are elected in primaries, because you get the democrats, you get the republicans, we do not have to worry about -- 14% voting in a primary. forgive me, but, nuts vote in a primary. [laughter] >> single issue people. people who have a passion for a particular thing. but it is not a broadly based look at my family, my community. if i honestly cannot see a way to have an impact, why would i

vote? if i do not vote, why would i trust the system? i might as well vote for chowder. that scares me. i do not call it corruption, i just think it is an erosion of everything that this country stands for, that people could come to a conclusion that they do not have a voice, because of the way things are operated. it scares me to death. >> the american public gets to this. the polls show that over 80% of americans think this is system is rigged because of money and politics. so the time is right to change the system. governor johnston: they say it is too hard. i was there when we passed equal rights amendment. it was a highly controversial

issue, but it still passed. that is a long story. rescission and how long you have to do it, but i believe this could be done. and if you cannot do it, you can at least start a movement. i bet you, i bet you if we ask how many of you would help ring a doorbell or something to try to help, i bet that everybody would say, yeah, let's do it. that is all across the country, the country is ready for it. when every presidential candidate says they are for changing the rules and we do not even try to change it, we need to try. we have got to try. post: if i could ask you a follow-up question, the polls are clear. you mention the number and we

are seeing it across the different polls, same result. democrats and republicans, they feel just as strongly about this. this is manifesting itself in the primaries on both sides and there is a reason that all candidates are speaking to this. so given that, why is reform such an uphill battle? why is it so difficult to translate? this is not even a 60-40 issue, this is an 85-15 issue. and maybe the 15 could be persuaded after hearing about it from candidates and from elected officials. >> first you have to try. senator johnston: we need to have an amendment put in.

if you do not like the one i gave, get another one. go see somebody and say, would you introduce this? then run ads and have the questioners on the debates say, are you for such and such amendment? if not, why not? if you think that the constitutional amendment is not the right way to go, what is your solution? believe me, i have tried. we have spent weeks trying to figure out a way -- we did this before citizens united, that was lovely. but it is so clear and simple. the amendment says that congress may define and regulate contributions and expenditures. very simple. that is this whole thing and if you do not deal with that, then you cannot deal with

expenditures and contributions. that is the problem. host: yes? >> if you pass that and turn over to the federal election commission, you are not accomplishing a whole lot. the supreme court has a difficult job, they're trying to balance freedoms that we have. you can go one way or another, so they struck a balance and said that they were naive about politics and expenditures. but if it is not administered effectively, it seems to be the thing to say that the system is not working so we need to amend the constitution. >> let me try to referee. it is tough to do. i think that bennett is right and you are right. we need to go after bold ideas to turn the system upside down and we need to chip away.

this is difficult because there is so much money dominating the system, it is paralyzed and frozen this way. we have a president who appointed me to a job i am very grateful for. and who gave a great talk in springfield about reclaiming our politics. and becoming more civil and cleaning up money on the system and making it more fair. he has an executive order on his desk and he has had it for many weeks, to clean up how the federal contractors do business with the government. and to say to all federal contractors, you need to disclose who you give money to. because, you are not going to win a contract based on

contributions, you will need to win it on merit. we need the president to sign that executive order and take a modest step forward to clean up the system. i think he will do that. and the bipartisan group is encouraging him very strongly to take action. and that will have an impact. we are talking about big ideas to reform the fec, which is worthless right now. they are not doing anything to enforce the laws. if somebody breaks the law and it takes a contribution, nothing happens, because of the 3-3 split, the democrats, republicans are tied up forever. we are talking about a solution and the bipartisan group we formed. democrats and republicans, to overturn citizens, to consider and push the constitutional amendment, to get the candidates for president on record, 20 point, to actually interview the nominees for supreme court and

ask them, will you vote to overturn buckley and citizens united before they appoint them. i think you have to start with success, chipping away at this corrosive system dominated by money. at the same time, go after the old ideas to completely change a system that is number -- not representing american people. meredith: you asked a question, why we have no action. to some degree, i can give you a one word answer, that would be mitch mcconnell. and senator mcconnell has taken this issue on from a very personal standpoint.

he has blocked most things to update the financing system, to move forward. there was actually a vote in september 2014 on the constitutional amendment to overturn buckley and citizens united. that was a 54-42 vote, not one republican voted for it. so it was totally a partisan split. right now, when you talk to the american people outside of washington, the conversations you have about money and politics are amazing. everybody gets it. i can tell when there is a registered lobbyist, you go to the hill and essentially the door is slammed in your face. where we have had success, is with fec reform. we worked hard on a bill, a bipartisan bill, that had to democrats and the two republicans, to try to fix the

federal election commission. i will note that the two republicans went on the bill and got phone calls from the leadership, saying what did you just do, so the party structure on the republican side has taken a position that they believe -- they oppose the amendment, they oppose efforts to change the system. my hope is that what you see in this election with mr. trump, mr. sanders, the other candidates, this dynamic is changing and it is an unsettled electorate and you will see more residents -- residents with this issue. there is a total division between what you hear in the countryside and what the polls show you and what you hear in washington. >> things have fundamentally changed.

the republican presidential candidates are supporting this. yesterday, jeb bush -- what donald trump is running on. ted cruz has said this. senator johnston: before they had a bow, this is before the huge contributions. the public has changed. look at the polls. you think the leader of the senate, if the american public is concerned about that is going to be able to stop this? that would be like holding back the tide. things have changed. meredith: from your lips to god's ears. jeff: there are a number of ideas out there. one of the most popular suggestions in terms of this

massive problem, there is an appeal to thinking bold and as you said just as -- bold, as you said jessica but when i think about this analogy, see how it applies. as david mentioned, i wrote a book about franklin roosevelt. before president roosevelt decided to pack the court beginning in 1937, he spent a couple of years considering other approaches to deal with the obstacles of the supreme court. as you know, the supreme court was striking down one program after another on a whole range of different constitutional grounds. there was a movement for a constitutional amendment at one time or another, either taking power away from the court, giving more power to congress, defining the process, a whole

range of things. there was a lot of support. roosevelt decided against it, he said i think the problem is not the constitution it is the court, what can we do about the court. there is not a lot you can do and i do not think that any of you would suggest packing it at this point. is there something -- let's talk about it. [laughter] meredith: maybe. jeff: is there a problem in the constitution that needs to be resolved in this manner, or are we waiting for the next up in court appointment. >> to have a constitutional amendment pending and a debate going and the questioners at the debates talking about it, that protects the supreme court. senator johnston: the supreme court listens to the public.

look at the second amendment. when i came, the second amendment was considered to be only relating to militia. and through really political activism, they legitimized the subject and the supreme court changed it. they listen to the public and they have listened to this. they have been pretty tone deaf and not being able to see where this has done to the country. but they will eventually. so, it goes hand in glove. >> in washington, we tend to concentrate on washington. it is where we have worked and what we know. the great news is, not only that we now have presidential candidates talking about the political process being broken, which leads to economic inequalities, but we also have states across the country, 25

states, that have taken this issue on. to reform their own states, cleaning up lobbying and trying to please the connection between -- cleave the connection between lobbyists and senators. san francisco, seattle, maine, all passing legislation at the local and state level, and republicans cannot object, this is states rights. either people at the gas rates -- you have people at the grassroots trying to do more, trying to do more at the local level. they are doing more at the state level and local level to address, as i said, some of the inequalities in the financial system. and in the campaign system.

tim: when you see this movement from arkansas to california, cross main, this does a couple of things. it puts pressure on members of congress to pay attention. so you meet with a republican member of congress and say, look, the state passed all of these reforms, what is wrong with doing this at the federal level? this is a pretty compelling argument, the state's argument to do something common sense. to the point where a constitutional amendment can build support at the state level, where you will have to have support eventually, to get a number of the states to be in favor of this, too. again, you have to fight to chip away and do the fcc reform, the federal contracting reform, make congress accountable and to do more, chain them into this if

they are not convinced on the argument of it, and do this national effort to address the states taking this on and a constitutional amendment. together, i think that will take the system back. will it be done next year? no. two years? no. three or four years? i think we have a shot. senator johnston: i do not believe it would take that long. when people say, look at the history of the constitutional memo, things have changed. the public is on fire with this issue. look at what is going on. look at the debates. watch donald trump, he says, i do not want your money, i want your vote. and he says he will take a back from the people who have this country rigged.

jeff: before we go to the audience, yes? senator? senator brock: i am the old dog. any time you do something, there are consequences. there is a response to a perceived need. we are really good at saying we can fix something. the thing that attracts me to what tim is talking about, if you do believe in representative government and that it works, i guarantee it works best at the local level, when you can talk to your mayor, or your state legislature.

it works second-best at the state level. and probably the least best appear -- up here, in washington. if you want to see change, i think you do have to start that local and state level. then you begin to address the hazard of the consequence, because the genius of the federal system, we have 50 states, we learn from each other. then you begin to build behind your case. you make it partisan, you make it a national demand, you run a risk. i fully believe there is evidence that when the people of this country begin to move, the court does listen. it does affect what they do.

we had a very close vote on citizens. one vote makes a difference. really said this is important to us. jeff: if anybody has questions, please line up by the mic. >> i want to say, not only at the state level, but we have a fairly open process and individuals, and we see with the presidential campaign. can you imagine the candidate going on tv and the next day, there is $6 million. the perception was, she already has the big bucks. and the donald trump is getting a lot of support because he is

saying, i do not want your money. and people -- the purpose of all this money at the end of the day is votes. thomas: if individuals take control and take responsibility and support candidates, even small conservations make a big difference -- contributions make a big difference. >> i was wondering what you thought of the idea of, instead of limiting money, instead of having money matched on the other side. an idea that might not have traction, to be put out there, at least a discussion of it. meredith: to the point that tim was saying, there are ways in which matching has worked. new york has a matching system.

seattle has a different system, a voucher system, which they are spending $100 to every registered voter and they can give that money to a candidate of their choice. a number of times, for 30 years, the president of system, had a matching system that were 12. -- that worked well. one of my political concerns with the constitutional amendment, this is a different question, but it is a very easy answer for politicians. i am for a constitutional amendment. i actually like to see people who are put to the test, are you going to support the legislation to form the fec. are you going to support a system of making small donors.

i want to get these guys and make sure there is an opportunity to not just make a general statement, but to move forward and make changes. there are changes you can make in the rules about what money sitting senators or representatives can accept, that do not have to go through the whole legislative process. in addition to the executive order. so a matching system, a robust small matching system would help with an important change. right now, the incentives for candidates are the big dollars. there is zero incentive for an individual to give a small dollar contribution, because if you like the big ones are really going to make you or drowning out -- drown you out. >> i would say that these are good systems. the problem is, you get matched, you make a pledge.

senator johnston: i am only go to make small conservations and that is matched. but your opponent can spend unlimited amounts. you cannot deal with him if you are not both playing by the same rules. >> i am talking about matching the other side, if somebody puts in $100,000, then the public money matches against 100,000 that they put in. say you have an even battle on the money. meredith: it was in arizona. the court said that was not constitutional. >> so -- senator johnston: we worked on that and found out it was not constitutional. jeff: over here.

>> i worked for -- in north-central indiana. now the senator. and so i want to give a tweak on two points. joe donnelly was the most successful guy i knew, we did events where like three or four people would show up. rep. roemer: that's no reflection on joe. audience: no, no, he's hilarious. great guy. that's probably still the case today. i'm sure congresswoman walorski is having the same thing. congressman petri, i'm sure you saw the same thing. so to a certain extent, i don't think it's a question of access. i think thinking about the challenge, someone said, organized greed will beat

disorganized democracy every time. and i think that's really the name that hasn't come up here is my dad's classmate, the koch brothers but if you're a republican you can talk about soros like my brother does. that challenge, thinking about the challenge, i think, is important, and the access is there if people will take it. but in my role working in south bend, indiana, i think i talked to -- i met probably 5,000 people in three years. i had one person come to us who had a request that was not purely self-interested or ideological. one person said, this is a good idea that i see in the tax code. he was a tax professor. and the second thing is, just to the point, is i think to a certain extent we've created a problem for business, too, and i think this gets under-commented so i'm curious to hear the panelists' thoughts on this.

i love capitalism but corporations have a fiduciary obligation to maximize shared wealth. two, they can spend unlimited money in elections, so three, corporations and their officers have an obligation to corrupt democracy. they have an obligation to spend as much money in our government as will maximize their wealth, their net present value. so i'm curious to hear what people think about not only a problem for our government which we talk a lot about in d.c. but a problem i'm sure people have talked about in board rooms, are they obligated to spend money? how do they spend that money? rep. roemer: let me jump on the first part of your question because you asked it about indiana and my home district. i used to do the same things that joe did. garbage can turkey roast in wanata, indiana, where we'd get 40 people to come on a sunday afternoon to get access to their congressman.

we did that all over the district and joe does that. you mentioned that now congresswoman walorski is doing it. one of the reasons they're doing that is they're smart politicians and good public servants but the other key reason we all do that is because that is one of the few competitive congressional districts left in america. we have a system and this is going back to senator brock's point, where, instead of having 435 people fight for their districts and talk to their people and listen, charlie cook, now, i think estimates that there are about 25 out of 435 really competitive races in america. >> less than 50, for sure.

rep. roemer: somewhere between 25 and 50. maybe 25 that are really competitive. how can that be in our great democracy that you have 350 people that don't even have to go and meet with their constituents? and then they come back here to washington and they raise money. they don't raise money for their election. they raise money for their chairmanship. they raise many for their leadership pac. they raise money for the rnc and dnc, so that accumulates all this money that oftentimes puts other priorities in the queue legislatively and maybe not that person, the joe donnelley or tim roemer or jackie walorski met with to do something to make higher education more affordable. that falls down the line. it's this corrosive system, re-districting and money that has lead to a democracy that is dysfunctional and deadlocked right now. we get the government we deserve. the people of america get the government they deserve. and until we rally up and revolt and take this government back, we're not going to change it,

whether it's a constitutional amendment or f.e.c. reform. the american people really have to take the 75% or 80% frustration rate, "i'm mad at hell," but are you going to do something about it? that's the key right now. meredith: you've raised an important point, the impact of the current system on two issues. the committee for economic development, which represents the fortune 500 companies, has come out with a very strong statement talking about how the system has turned into a legalized shakedown from their perspective. the second is our national defense. i wish mr. hagel perhaps was here.

he talks about how the special interest system results in expenditures on the defense side for things that folks in the pentagon don't even want and so this is a is system that's not -- i think too often, you know, there's a notion that talk about this money in politics, this kind of progressive or liberal issue. there have been studies that have looked at some of the states that have adopted some of these matching systems in public financing. guess what they find?

the average member of the house only serves three or four terms and you say how can it be if they've all saved seats, so on. a lot of them quit once they get into the system and go in with the best of intentions and they're honest people and trying to make a difference and end up being pushed into this system where they're dialing for dollars in hopes of being effective and they're like, this is not why i got into this, and they leave. and yet we have tremendous turnover because of the way incentives, once you get into the system.

sen. brock: please, anybody watching this, thinking about it, don't start saying the system is corrupt in terms of its effect on people. it does work. it's dysfunctional but i'm going to tell you in my life experience and i guarantee you there's no disagreement up here, the huge, overwhelming members of congress are good, honest, patriotic people who are there because they wanted to make a difference and leave because it's really hard to make a difference when the system is in deadlock. it's not just money. it is re-districting, it's a whole range of issues. we have to deal with one issue at a time. start with this or go home and say for gosh sakes, look at what california, the midwest, and others are doing on districting, look at what others are doing in finance. let's try it here in tennessee

or arkansas, ohio. and we learn from each other and then you can begin to create this movement that says we're going to take the country back. that's a good way to put it. but we're going to give ourselves a voice again. we've lost our voice. we feel the loss of that voice. and it scares us, all of us. so senator roemer, you said the system is corrosive and insidious but hasn't the system always been corrosive and insidious? it's not like before buckley it was narnia, everything was good and you had hearsts before that running politics.

there was still access by a limited few, it was just a different limited few. so if money isn't free speech, how do you ensure equal access to information for equal parties? rep. roemer: i think that's a very fair question. i would say first of all that maybe there's always been the potential in this system that is increasingly been about raising money and members spending more time doing it, that the possibility of this gridlock and insidious system would come about, but now because of complicated decision like buckley, like citizens united, like mccutcheon, it has opened up such a tsunami of money in all parts of the system, plus you have the re-districting problem where state legislatures are carving out seats for 80% of the members of congress on the house side and they don't have to legislate, they don't have to work on your problems. all they got to do is keep a primary from taking place.

and so you have that problem layered on to this, in addition, because of these complicated supreme court cases, now at the presidential level, you have very wealthy americans that can write a single check to a single candidate and keep them in -- in iowa, in new hampshire, in south carolina, into michigan. they don't have to go out and convince all of you in this room to vote for them and give them money. all they have to do is get one person to bank roll them now and they are a voice out there, sometimes for good, sometimes for not so good.

to create a system that does not allow generally the american average citizen to have the voice that jefferson and washington and adams and our founders said was an equal opportunity system for voting and accessing the system. it's not working. jeff: if we can pause on super pacs for a moment, if we can bear it. is there anything that can be done short of a constitutional amendment to put the super pac genie back in the bottle? meredith: there are a number of things that can be done that i think would certainly change their role. one of the most ludicrous parts of the current system are the candidate centric super pacs. people remember mitt romney talking about my super pac. the whole notion, and the court talked about this, is the notion

of being totally independent. well that's a farce. so that's actually partly at the door of the federal election commission. they could come in with reasonable, rational rules about what constitutes independence, and so that's just a starting place to say, you know, we've had independent expenditures, people forget that, since buckley, and they weren't very effective for the most part because you often had this lack of coordination. dark money groups, oh, my goodness. this is an i.r.s. problem. the i.r.s. has said, as long as you don't spend more than 50% of your money on political activity, you're a social welfare organization. that's ridiculous. these are very fixable problems. they're not going to go ahead and -- i think this is where mr. roemer hits the nail on the head. you always have to think in politics in two tracks. i'm going to disagree with you a little bit. my experience of 30 years of politics is if most of the consequences are in fact intended, it's just nobody knew exactly and was paying

attention. i think there's so much that can be done even right now, this congress, and certainly super pacs, the f.e.c. could move tomorrow if it had an effective commission that was working.

i'm curious, between the senate being a six-year term and the house being a two-year term, how much relatively pressure there is on how about members to raise money versus senators. there's countries like the philippines that have a three-year term for the house and so this reduces a little bit of the pressure for fund-raising for races that are 50% more time between terms. as i understand it, jimmy carter, after he left the presidency, thought maybe the presidency should have one six-year term. what do you think of those ideas?

now senators raise money, all six years, and they do it morning, noon and night, weekend. it's -- these guys do not do the job. they are raising money. and they're traveling all over the country to do it. i think it's scandalous how little time they spend learning their job.

many districts of the country, probably because they're safe or they're rural and don't have tv stations in them, you still have to advertise but the costs are much less in rural areas than obviously if you're in new york or connecticut or someplace like that. the actual money in most races isn't that much. meredith: the broadcasters are making out like bandits. >> you want to make a lot of money in america today, buy a radio and tv station in iowa and new hampshire and just wait for the onslaught of money to be spent in the primaries in the presidential race. sen. brock: then shoot yourself if you're looking at the tube. one word was mentioned here that hadn't been mentioned before and that's party. i don't know, you're the expert. aren't there limits on the parties now?

meredith: there are limits on what can be contributed to the parties. sen. brock: ok. i think about this issue with primaries. think about what california's trying to do with winner-take-all primary. where they say the top two people in a general primary run against each other. can be two democrats, two republicans, whatever. but the idea is that by doing it that way they're going to force those two to compete for the center, where most of us are.

we've replaced our two parties with pacs. we're crazy. nobody controls the pacs. it's so upside down, what we got. it's crazy.

actually this question about the connection between lobbyists and bundling and the role that they play -- that this kind of unholy alliance that kind of where you have the lobbyists coming and representing those that are giving a lot of the money. you have this kind of ability for the lobbyists not just to give themselves -- that's not the real issue here. it's about this ability to organize the money and get credit for the money and then to come to the congress and everybody knows that if you're the lobbyist who's organized all this money, you're getting in the door.

we're all good at defining a problem. it's really easy to see the problem. but getting the -- putting those people in a position to effect the change. they're there. make it possible. when john kennedy was president, there was a poll done and the american people were asked, do you believe that government can be a positive force in your life? and i think something like 75% of americans said, yeah, i do, whether it's the post office or veterans or, you know, something in government, yes, can be positive. today, especially with our young people and our millenials, that's upside down.

every federal contractor that does business with our government, they need to disclose who they're giving business to. i think we can do that. secondly, coming back to the f.e.c., the federal election commission, you break the law when you're running for congress and you take illegal contributions or you break, you know, a limit, there is a limit.

you should pay a price for that. and right now, literally nothing happens to anybody. congress, in fact, uses the f.e.c. as a political tool to almost confuse people in campaign commercials of doing something wrong because they know nothing will ever happen so if we can reform the f.e.c. and get congress to pass a bill to change the demographics there, you know, maybe it rotates, four democrats, three republicans, depending upon who's president, it's never deadlocked 3-3, they're independent people appointed, that could do a lot to change the way that there's teeth in our election system and the way it's enforced and then you build from there. you start going to the states and the states are encouraged to keep up their reforms. you see jurisprudence efforts,

whether it's a new supreme court or a few supreme court members, a constitutional amendment you could work on at the same time. that's the kind of momentum we need to see from the american people on this.

you'll follow it more and get more involved and the whole purpose is citizen involvement and a system that is responsive to the average citizen but the average citizen has a responsibility, too, and that is to understand that you don't just get rights. you have to have responsibility and we should encourage, not set up barriers to people participating. sen. brock: we got to do something to create a sense that it can be done. you need some early wins, short victories that people can say, oh, i believe it's possible. once people begin to get a little bit of up to this

conversation, it will happen. he spent 27 years in a prison in south africa and one of the things that sustained him was the fact that when he got out, he wanted to bring democracy to his people and he held up america as the standard for that democracy in the world, that we were that beacon of hope to every other country. and what we had, he wanted for freedom and equality for his people. sadly today, when you travel around the world, you start to hear from people, hey, you know what, america is becoming a lot more like the rest of the world.

our democracy is at stake, i think this is going to turn. i really believe there's a positive wave coming in america to take back this government. meredith: my last comment, i actually think democracy is both robust and fragile at the same time. my father left his high school i think at age 17 to go fight in world war ii because of the threat to our nation. and i remember taking my niece one time to the holocaust museum and we were going through and we saw all the stories and they saw that in germany, actually, adolf hitler came to power through

elections. they were stunned. they had no clue. every time we think about our democracy, i think mr. roemer hit the nail on the head, we get the democracy we deserve. but i think a lot of us take it for granted. it's always been there. yeah, we had problems before but we've always stuck it out. i think it's much more fragile than that and i think we really as a nation and as a people can't assume just because we've had 200-plus years of a democracy, that we're entitled in some way to 200 more and if we are careful with what happens and the way the system actually works, these kind of very basically issues about democracy, we're going to lose it, and we're going to think, what the heck happened here? so i really think that this is the time. i think senator johnston hit the nail on the head. there is a wave and now is the moment to catch that wave and if we don't, i think we do it -- we lose it at our own peril.

sen. johnston: grover norquist has a pledge members to sign about taxes.

>> the way it is set up is to relate to the context. side having the plaza. having theern side sherman memorial. have you get people from this part into that part? how do they see the park from each of those places. ? as you walk along the sidewalk there,eedom plaza over that becomes the line that draws you into the park. as you are on the other side of sherman, you don't see into the park. can we clean t