from the "washington post," quote, the story prompted a letter from the obama campaign attorney bob bauer to wisconsin's attorney general. these acts of willful misrepresentation to individuals sent to polling locations to enforce the law raise serious concerns under wisconsin law, mr. bauer wrote. he added that this was not an isolated matter, citing the wisconsin activities of true the vote, an organization close to the republican party and the romney campaign. that would be mr. bob bauer making that complaint, the attorney on the left there, who is now co-chairing the president's improved voting commission with the romney lawyer on the right, whose campaign was trying to stop early voting in ohio, and that gave its poll watchers wrong information about how to keep people from voting who should have been allowed to vote. awkward match, right? putting the guy whose party has tried and is still trying to make it hard to vote on the commission to fix voting, insisting that republicans must be as bothered by this as democrats. that's what the president left on the table last night after tha

in law, we have heard and both bob bauer and the panel and france smith noted that it was a culmination of a long series of developments which ultimately lead to a point to use a phrase that we have used at the campaign finance institute and other publications to a point where you can see limits on what accomplished. it does not mean citizens united has done away with what one could possibly accomplished through limits. that is to say i do believe that contribution limits do relate to and prevent plenty of examples of the extortion and actual corruption in that direction. both contributions to parties and candidates. but limits or restrictions do not and cannot alter the fundamental dependency issues. or promote greater equality and participation, which i would be very frank in talking about. more -- nor do i think it appropriate to promote equality for restrictions, but i do think it is appropriate to promote it. when i shift to what should change, when you focus everything around citizens united, what you are focusing the discussion on is on what is present in the system. instead, i t

in law, we have heard and both bob bauer and the panel and france smith noted that it was a culmination of a long series of developments which ultimately lead to a point to use a phrase that we have used at the campaign finance institute and other publications to a point where you can see limits on what accomplished. it does not mean citizens united has done away with what one could possibly accomplished through limits. that is to say i do believe that contribution limits do relate to and prevent plenty of examples of the extortion and actual corruption in that direction. both contributions to parties and candidates. but limits or restrictions do not and cannot alter the fundamental dependency issues. or promote greater equality and participation, which i would be very frank in talking about. more -- nor do i think it appropriate to promote equality for restrictions, but i do think it is appropriate to promote it. when i shift to what should change, when you focus everything around citizens united, what you are focusing the discussion on is on what is present in the system. instead, i t

the second speaker today will be robert bauer, bob returned to the four -- returned to the firm afteriod of service as white house counsel from december 2009 until june of 2011. he is now general counsel for the president's reelection committee for obama for america and general counsel for the democratic national committee. he has served as co-counsel to the new hampshire state senate in the trial of the hon. chief justice david lee broke. counsel to the democratic leaders on trial of jefferson clinton in 1999. the author of several books, united states federal election law, from 1984, so -- the guide to the new campaign of finance law in 2002, more soft money and hard law, the definition of new finance laws in 2004, and many articles about campaign finance and laws. he is other was one of the leading experts and most experienced people in this area. we set out -- we certainly welcome him back to the institute as a commentary today. -- commentator today. >> thank you very much. john said something overly helpful about his own role in the field in his opening remarks. he has written a