nk you -- note to close on. everyone for coming. we appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible] conversation ] >> the european trade commissioner will be in washington dc monday. he will he got the center for strategic and international studies about trait on the including ongoing negotiations over the transatlantic trade and industrial partnership. that is at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two. later in the day we take you to the cato institute for the future of south africa. speakers look at the political and economic developments in that country since apartheid was abolished. begins at 12:00 eastern live coverage on c-span two. >> monday night on "the communicators," we spoke with

three members of congress with shared interests. >> firmly believe that comcast and time warner cable would have been too big of a company and anti-competitive, not in the public interest. it would have led to higher prices from consumer, less choice and it would be too possible these with service. >> we are also working on dealing with people property and protection of civil liberties. that is legislation dealing with the nsa and foreign intelligence surveillance dealing with the revelations about the gathering of telephone metadata, this bill which would pass the house and a big part partisan vote, we are about to bring it up.

and metadata collection and storage by the government. >> if you saw the net neutrality debate also, that is unbelievable in the sense that people understand that the internet should be free. and there should not be people who get faster access or not. when that occurred, that whole energy that happened, when chairman wheeler, because of the overturning of the open internet order, when he had to have a new proposal out there he hinted that there might be paid privatization, that means from the internet provider to the end-user or the customer and a sense, that they may have to pay for faster fees or whatever. 4 million comments, that was

unheard of. ? monday -->> monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. >> next, look at the 2016 presidential election and the impact that campaign finance will have on the race. this is 35 minutes. "washington journal" continues. host: we welcome meredith mcgehee, a policy director for the campaign legal center which is what? guest: nonpartisan nonprofit representing the public interest to strengthen our democracy. host: we have the creation of the federal election commission, candidates beginning with jimmy carter and gerald ford to accepted funds and that worked fairly well until 2004 and significant change in 2008 with barack obama. what happened in those ensuing years? guest: i like to compare to a car that needs maintenance. by 1976 version of the car -- if

you buy a 1976 version of a car, never take it in for maintenance coming get it updated, make sure the system is working, it is the price of 20 years or 30 years later the system is out of date. really what happened despite 2008, through a series of efforts in congress to block any updates, the amount of money that were provided to the candidate were too low and there had been efforts to make the amounts of money given to the candidates reasonable for the kind of racist that now exist and they were all blocked. so you have a system that made no sense for most of the candidates to go into. host: hillary clinton expected to raise between $1 billion and $2 billion and the republican nominee expected to reach the same levels. that does not begin to account outside special interest money that will be flooding into the system for both democrats and republicans, some including hillary clinton and calling for a constitutional amendment to block some of these donors. is that even viable? guest: well, the election we are

looking at in 2016 may cost as much as $10 billion. the best estimates in the last presidential election were about $6 billion. this effort toward constitutional and is understandable given the majority in the court and what they have said over the last several decisions they have made. it is an understandable reaction. but i think many chemical the constitutional amendment and say, one, it is fairly systematic. it is not going to happen. particularly with this congress. a lot of times, people forget that if you look at the language the actual language talking about expenditures and media exemption would not even cover what citizens united, the group, actually did. for me, i look at this situation and i think the call for a constitutional amendment by a politician is kind of an easy out. is -- host: is money free speech?

guest: look, we've got to have a decision and conversation about this nationally. we have had five members of the supreme court who are basically saying that. i think according to the polling, many americans, the majority of americans who basically disagree with that. they say the ability to express yourself and have the ability to go and put your message out there is one thing. whether or not you have the money to buy the biggest megaphone is a different question. i really think that this court in saying that these are the same as really undermined the fundamental principle of democracy. all they say, it has applications for speech about your ability to get the word out , but what it sets up is a system in which billion errors have -- billionaires have much more speech than average americans. this country was founded on this notion that if -- i will take an old example, ross perot walks into the voting booth and he has

one vote. i walk into the voting booth and i have one vote. regardless of economic status. i think we have now reached a point where this political system is so far tilted and in favor of those who have the money that this notion of speech equaling money is a very dangerous kind of way for this democracy to proceed. host: that is a headline on friday from "the wall street journal." other liberal activist trying to help democrats or the coat others and special interest -- koch brothers and special interest. they are taking on a competitive role but they are not allowed to coordinate with the candidate. my question is is that in with a wink and a nod? guest: it's beyond a wink and a nod. the way the federal election commission has interpreted what constitutes coordination has meant that you can get away with an amazing amount.

we saw this in the last election. in this notion that the super pac's are operating independently is a farce. we have seen reports where mr. bush, jeb bush, is talking about there is a whole plan in place to use of the super pac to run much of his campaign operation. we have candidates that pretend that they are not coordinating with the super pac, but the american people know it's a farce, the candidates know it's a farce, and i think most importantly, what you have is a system that is pushing average americans out of the system. this is not a system that encourages more and more individuals to get involved. it is a system in which those who have not just large amounts of money, huge amounts of money are really going to be able to dominate the choices. yes, we will all go in the voting booths if we choose to go vote but they determine what

the election is about, the ability to spend this money determines but we talk about. the subject that we talk about in this election, and in the end, that is really going to influence a lot of how the election for the comes out. host: some background on our guest, meredith mcgehee with the campaign legal center, a former peace corps volunteer in west africa, a veteran of capitol hill, and formally with common cause and the past president of the alliance for better keep campaigns. our phone lines are open, 202 is the area code. host: 202-748-8000 line for democrats. 202-748-8001 line for republicans. prudence is joining us on the democrats line from utah. caller: since we seem to be failing in so many ways trying

to organize ourselves the way we used to be organized, perhaps, we should cut out the middlemen. i am not sure that -- why don't we just let the superrich via among each other and whoever gives the country the most money would have to cough it up to the country and let them run things. we can't do worse than we are doing now, can we? [laughter] host: thank you for the call. guest: i think one of the things that has happened in our system, this is a system that turns off the average american. a bucket recently came out written by the weekly standard called -- and he makes a fascinating point. when the founding fathers got together all those years in go to talk about this country's jackpot about this -- talk about this country, they spent months and months talking about the processes of government, not

policy. because as madison put it, they had the great concerns about factions. i think what we now have gone is a system in which the factions meaning in many cases those who really have the money, are really controlling the process. this is not just about being a good government question, a group who question this is fundamental about how a democracy works. and about how the united states will continue to be a vibrant system. when you essentially have a system that either financially excludes the vast majority -- we are talking the 1% of the 1% to a controlling it, and you have more than 99% of americans who realistically feel like they are not even a part of the process. that undermines that kind of fundamental strength of a democratic system. host: one of our viewers saying i don't expect that congress or the supreme court to do anything about campaign finance reform. share your thoughts at c-span

wj. david, virginia, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you, sir? host: we are fine, sir. we are with meredith mcgehee of the campaign center. caller: yes, i have a comment but first off, i will start with saying to meredith that i agree with her completely. this tsunami of money coming in from one or two very rich families or groups is alluding our entire system of campaign finance. it's just really ruining the whole system, you know? i gave, you know, a couple

thousand dollars to one of the parties over the course of the last election, but how can that compete with somebody who can give for or 50 or $60 million out of top? guest: that's exactly the point that so many americans feel like they really don't have a role to play in the process until the very end. in many cases, they feel they don't even want to go vote because they feel it has been decided. i want to be very clear that i think you have to look at what is going on, not the conservative or right versus left or progressive perspective. this is really a question on how you conceptualize the american democracy. is this a system in which you have this farce about being independent if you are a super pac or a dark money group versus a system in which there is

really hierarchy and at the top of that hierarchy really should not be the -- really should be the candidate. those are the ones that should be heard in this race. i think we have a system right now where the super pac's are not totally independent. they are closely aligned. we really need to find two really key issues here. one is, how do you restore candidate to the top of that hierarchy? that is who the citizens here from first and foremost. it does not mean you don't have other voices, but there is a hierarchy to make sure that the person walking into the voting booth those for whom they are voting and why. they can make up their own mind. the second is that you have a democracy in which there are new incentives and more robust incentives or average americans both to give money and for candidates to pursue money that is

ly controls whether or not citizens can see who is sponsoring the political ads that are coming across the living rooms. you have the securities commission they have a proposal pending about whether or not shareholders of corporations have the right to have information about how the corporation of which they are a shareholder expense of the political money. these are all things that are pending right now. there is a negative order that has been proposed at one point by the white house about government-run -- contractors and their ability to pay so i really want to emphasize that we are not in a now or nothing constitutional amendment or congress is hopeless -- there are lots of things that could be done.

they are not going to make magic laws to make the system perfect, but they can make improvements and i think it is really important to be realized that there is change that can start to turn the state a little bit. host: we are talking about finance campaign -- campaign finance laws and another comment on our page from twitter, nobody changed the rules, those with the most money wins. speaking of elections, there is one in great britain thursday, election day which we will be following on the c-span networks. polls showing it to be close and i mention that because our next call is from great britain. good morning and good at -- that afternoon to you. caller: good afternoon, how are you doing? host: fine, thank you. caller: excellent, excellent. look, as you know, we've got an election on tuesday -- on thursday. we are in need of some sort of

cooperation between these parties, etc. to give you something just because you are talking about your own campaign finance elections. for example, we've got 72 billion people and we do an election in four months of around $500 million. india has a population of about 1.2 billion people and it does it with the same scale. slightly increase at around $750 million. you've got a population of about a hundred 75 million and you do it with the securities budgets etc. and on what parties spend. around $20 billion. now, how do you expect the montecito last if you are talking about those sorts of amounts of money because it means -- expect the democracy to last if you are talking about

those sorts of amounts of money because you are talking about the scopes of going forward in the election. to give you examples, my country and india for comparison. host: thank you for the call. guest: in my view, the amount of money, shocking as it may be, is not the issue. there are two dubbed issues i think are the most important. one is, where is the money coming from? this is really the fundamental question here. not the fact that there is a lot of money. the sources of the money that comes into the election are often very interested sources meaning that they really have something they want from the candidates and from the government. the other side of the large amounts of money better spent in america's election is where does all that money go? the best guesses, and i say that because the reporting is pretty inadequate about where all that money goes is really influenced, believe it or not, by television. and when you say television, not

just buying time, paying the consultants, doing the polling to figure out what the issue should be, doing focus groups. all of this money that is flowing into the system, a surprising amount of it is simply turned around and pumped not only into television but to broadcast television. even though broadcast television share of the market is shrinking, it still is a lot of what is controlling the spending and being really driving the costs. every once in a while, i think it is important to step back and say, yes, 6 billion or 10 billion sounds like a lot of money, but what are the incentives or people to get that money? what are the sources of the candidates have to go to? how much time to the candidates have to spend raising all that money? we have seen reports with the new member of congress coming in when they get their training about how to be an effective member of congress. they are sometimes spending on a

eight hour day, at least half of that day dialing for dollars. that is not doing the public's business. and the people that are giving, sometimes they are giving because they think they might get the access and influence that the supreme court unfortunately, has said is constitutional. most of the time, they also have the concern that this is illegal shakedown. if i don't get, what is going to happen? you have this very interesting dynamic between what many people talk about legalized bribery and the other side of that is the legalized shakedown of i better give so my company or my industry or my interest is not get hurt. host: you are saying a comment -- you are saying that and a comment from another person no successful business person makes an investment without expecting a return. guest: absolutely. obvious he come i don't agree with the citizens united decision and the notion that they equated corporations with individuals and it's more

complex than that. probably the most concerning part of that decision and it was recently reiterated in different words was this notion that the buying and selling of influence is perfectly fine. there was just another recent supreme court decision that came out this past week in which the chief justice wrote, that it is expected for a politician to be responsive to their donors. i just find that shocking. he of course goes around and finds it if you are a judge that is not acceptable. but, i think most americans are pretty outraged at this notion of seeing politics and seeing their elected officials somewhat like a vending machine. you put money in and you expect something in return. it's not just good government. host: agree with you saying you are spot on with your comment and you blow me down with the truth. wow. bill is next. from pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning.

i just wanted to call in and express my concern that the campaign finance laws that we have at the very beginning have destroyed by making direct contributions and almost impossible. at the same time opening opening the political system to candidates to have vast amounts of money because they have no system, no group to whom to make their pitch and gain support. guest: well, i would note on the political parties having robust political parties -- many people see value in that. this is always a tough question in that in some states, you can go and see the political party and part of the problem in the

system, some states like illinois or new york have had a history of where the political parties at the state level have been somewhat problematic. but stay in ethical terms. on the other side, i would note that after the mccain-feingold bill passed in 2002 also known as the bipartisan campaign reform act and everyone said it would be the death of the parties, in fact, contributions to parties increased significantly. a lot of that money did not just disappear out of the system. you want robust parties. at the same time, we need to make sure that the parties don't become, like in some of these states, where they foster this kind of honest graft if you will. so we need to have robust parties and the truth is, post -citizens united, there is no logical sense after that decision for anyone to spend time really going to the party because the courts between that

decision and another decision called speech now and essentially set up the super pac system, all the incentives now are to either go to the super pac's and can give unlimited money and they can spend unlimited money not just give -- just knock it directly to a candidate or you can give it to a money group. if you are a smart corporate executive it probably makes more sense because then you can give to the dark money group and nobody knows you have used your corporate funds to give to that group and you get no blowback from the public from the right nor the left. we have a system of unaccountable money. we have a system that is now giving the playing field over to the 1% of the 1% and i think a few weeks ago there was an article in "the washington post" in which a blender who had raised in the hundreds of dollars -- hundreds of thousands of dollars was lamenting that she was no longer important to the candidate because she cannot deliver millions.

she only delivered hundreds of thousands. it was a sad commentary on where the system currently is. host: we should point out examples on both sides of the aisle, a piece by ken vogel at politico.com focused on the koch brothers. a memo outlines their plans for 2016 and begins with the following -- ira is next from west palm beach florida. host: on the line for independent with meredith mcgehee. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, you are on the air. caller: yes, i heard you all say that with these campaign funds we get no blowback from the public the right or the left correct? guest: for the dark money groups, right. caller: right, but the question i have is, if you have given

under a small business huh? under the small business and you are giving, you still have a limit of what you can give. guest: when it comes to a dark money group or super pac, there is no limit on how much you can give. there are limits on how much you can give directly to a candidate. super pacs cannot give directly to a candidate nor can a dark money group. then you have the old-fashioned and traditional political action committee or pack which can give 5002 at candidate for the primary and 5000 for the general. -- $5,000 to a candidate and $5,000 for the general. what now seems almost kind of genteel about, $2700 for most americans is a heck of a lot of a lot of money, much less to a politician. we have a system now in which there are very few incentives to

give directly to the candidates. and all the incentives to get to the super pac or to the dark money group. for the candidates, they are left in the world where they are going to move their political operatives to the super pac ride which they have done. and this is happening, as you noted, not a republican versus democrat issue. this is the way the system is right now. host: "huffington post was quote writing about the well-known bundler. he is launching his own effort to defeat the denier candidates. the focus of climate change which is first and foremost with tom stier. that story available online at huffington post.com. jerry from huntington beach california. good morning. caller: good morning. getting campaign-finance reform to the congress is difficult, but there is one thing that they could do and they should do. that would be to eliminate the

electoral college direct boat -- direct vote. that would increase the number of people participating because people not just don't even bother. the state is going to go one way or the other and they don't vote. we have other benefits but i realize that is difficult. i don't know why it is so difficult? we should be able to do the right thing and do away with electoral college and there would be camping reforms that would make sense. thank you. host: thank you for the call. is this something you have studied? guest: there are a number of proposals out there on how to change the process to either make it at the presidential level the system more responsible to congressional level. for example, limiting the left war college is one possibility discussed. another that has gone more and more discussion is redistricting. the concern that voters should be choosing their politicians

and politicians not choosing their voters. which is really what happens now with gerrymandering. i think all of these issues about trying to find a way to make the system more responsive to the voters were worthy of time considerations. my problem with some of these, and as i said, they really should get a lot of attention and a lot of discussion, is that as long as you have a system for which the candidates have their a few incentives to go and talk to the average voters, not only talk to them but to see them as the source of their ability to win or lose elections then they will go and do this kind of what i called the queen elizabeth wave where they go and have this patina that they are engaged with regular people. it is the people bringing in millions of dollars that they are really going to listen to and spend their time with. whether it is the electoral

college reform, redistricting reform, these are the proposals for changing how you aggregate the votes. i think all of these in a system that is not working, they are very serious consideration. we really have to try and figure out a way as citizens to demand from our candidates and politicians that they begin to react, respond more and have more incentive to look at the candidates. i want to emphasize, you know, this is not simply congress is hopeless, let's give up. there are many different lovers here -- levers here for us to focus on and things that can be done. it may be incremental, they may not be pulled the exciting, but that is under the work of government. the work of government is only responsive when the people start saying to their elected officials, hey, we really hate

the system. we don't like the way this is going. and a lot of consultants in washington, a lot of the political operatives, pretty much bank on the fact that they are going to turn off the vast majority of the american people. and that means that the small believes who pretty much stay engaged in the process get to control what goes on. there is almost -- you can look at this process to say there are so many incentives to exclude the vast majority of the american people that it really has to take this robust kind of citizenship, if you will, to go back in and say, wait a minute. if you think of benjamin franklin when you walked out of the end of all of the discussions of the founding of the country and they said, what happened? and he said, a republic, if you can keep it. that is the stage we are at. host: a suggestion in a tweet saying but about limiting the election into six months divided in half or three months for primaries and three months for the general?

you can share your thoughts at c-span wj. let's go to sharon it next in oregon, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. my hero in washington, d.c., was senator tom coburn. senator tom coburn said, no one should be in the house of representatives more than three terms. no one should be in the senate more than two terms. read his book and listen to senator tom coburn. the problem is being an elected person in washington, d.c., is their business. they are well paid. some of them are extremely good. i watch c-span every day. it is my absolute favorite show because it is educational and learning. but again, being a politician, being a representative or a senator in washington, d.c., you are well paid, it is big money.

not only that, my hero also was william glasser. we are into power, we are into making the big money, we are into making the salaries, and yes, it is very sad. but again, read senator tom coburn's book and find out what he said. he did not just late the republican side. he was a man who listened to everybody and stood up for what he felt was right for the common people of the united states. thank you for listening to me this morning. host: sharon, you might have seen the interview we conducted with senator coburn before he stepped down this past year. it is part of our "q&a" program but if you go into the video library, he talks about the issues you pointed out. guest: i had an opportunity to meet with senator coburn when he was here. we were talking about many of these issues on how the system was broken. i have to tell you, i can argue

square and round. there are days when i very much believe in term limits when i see entrenched power and i see the lengths to which it seems some in washington are just determined to hang on. the other side of it, i see to some degree what has happened in california, where they have implemented term limits. when you have this turn through the legislature, you find that it does not empower some of the staff that are not elected, but also the lobbyists who are there. the turnover in the legislature is seen, but the lobbyists remain. the new legislator comes in and they don't know a lot about the issue and they have to turn to the experts. in many cases, those experts are the lobbyists. as they say, i am sympathetic and i want to go back again to the founding fathers. one of the things he said about madison on a particular set about this, he said he did not

think politicians were any worse than the rest of us. in fact, he thought they were exactly like the rest of us. and he understood that there was not going to be this kind of magical power that once someone got elected into office, they were going to somehow become above it all. they are going to be just like the rest of us, and that is why it was -- and that is why it was so appointed to have processes in place that understood the dynamic. you get into power, people like power. once you have it, it is hard to give it up. that does not mean that person is unusually bad, it means it is a pretty typical reaction. that is why i think it is so important that we kind of start aging these changes that we need to make in the system because i think there is a pretty universal agreement that the system is working. host: jane responding to the previous caller saying the following -- without tom coburn as president, america does not have a chance in hell. we will go to mimi on the

democrat line. caller: good morning to you both. can you hear me? host: we sure can. caller: i think you probably have answered some of what i wanted to ask as you have been speaking this morning. to those that don't understand politics and those who don't vote, can you explain in simple terms when i heard last night on tv. the numbers that were passed up the hind this thing that was happening in baltimore. the disparity between income and security, etc., etc. this has to be a major effect that has taken on people of color or poverty or that live in poverty because they don't have money to make contributions. a lot of folks -- i have a poor

white side to my family and a poor black side in my family and i see what's happening on both sides. host: thank you. we are short on time and we will get a response. guest: i think is a very much a minute -- a very legitimate and real concern. when you have able feeling alienated from their elected officials. when you have people feeling like they have no power, eight is not a good dynamic for a healthy system. the income inequality issue is exacerbated by the campaign-finance system because if you look right now when we are talking about the 1% of the 1%, it kind of goes back to that old line of, he who pays the piper calls the tune. we have a system right now where the people who are paying the piper are the 1% of the 1%. that is not going to create a very healthy dynamic. which it you need all the

resources to participate. the more people who feel alienated, the more they are cynical, the more they are apathetic, the more they turn away from the system because they feel like the system is not responsive to them. host: more information available online at the website campaigncenter.org. our on the next "washington journal" -- talking about patriot act and chances of congress renewing certain provisions set to expire next month. and the discussion on reconstruction efforts in afghanistan with special inspector general john sopko. and we look for calls and comments on facebook and twitter here on c-span.

>> next, newsmakers with represent thornberry. and part of the spotlight on 2016 presidential hopefuls from new hampshire tv station wmur. and at 8:00, our conversation with "the washington post" columnist walter pincus on "q&a." >> joining us on newsmakers is the republican from texas, he is the vice chair of the house armed services committee, also a member of the house intelligence committee. this week he presided over the review of the 2016 defense budget 612 billion including $90 billion for war funding and 18-hour marathon session that lasted until 4:39 in the morning. thank you for being with us this week.