Dark Money Trickles Down

03/31/22 • 25 min

This week, Simone is joined by two CLC experts, Erin Chlopak and Brendan Fischer, as well as attorney Peter Earle and “BadAss Grandmas” Ellen Chaffee and Dina Butcher. These guests help explain two key instances in which big money spending impacted local communities. Importantly, they also explain how every day citizens can make their voices heard.
Campaign finance can sometimes seem like something far removed from our everyday lives, maybe something that only matters in Washington. But there’s a lot going on at the state and local levels, too, and there’s a lot that everyday citizens can do to influence things and ensure their community’s voices are heard.

Guests:

Dr. Ellen Chaffee is a consultant to university governing boards after a long career in higher education research and administration. This included two university presidencies, presiding over two national professional associations, and serving on boards of directors. After decades of political independence, she agreed to be a running mate to a gubernatorial candidate, which taught her "too much" about how the current political system works and how unsuited she is for that arena. Her alter ego, BadAss Grandma for Democracy, works to improve America's flawed democracy, which is a root cause of most social problems.
Dina Butcher’s grandson’s friend dubbed her BadAss after seeing her picture on a brochure promoting an initiated measure to amend the ND Constitution regarding having an ethics commission and requiring transparency in political influence on elections. This 2018 campaign led to many of her fellow Republicans questioning her loyalty. As a first generation American, born to German-Jewish refugees who fled Germany in 1939, she feels she needs to speak up against the militant right infiltration of the Republican party. Since she tended a Goldwater campaign headquarters “trailer” in King George County, Virginia with a pause while her husband served in the FBI, she has been a Republican activist, run for elective office in 1996 and served in three Republican administrations. This graduate of Skidmore College with teaching credentials earned at Minot State College, says her daughters say “she has lost her filters and gained her voice” in this her ninth decade.
Erin Chlopak leads CLC’s work to promote and defend strong campaign finance laws and ensure that existing laws are enforced. Through litigation, advocacy and public education, Erin works with CLC’s campaign finance team to make our political system more transparent and accountable, and to protect the right of every American to participate in the democratic process.
Read her full bio here.
Peter Earle was born in Mexico City on June 22,1950, and emigrated to the United States in 1955. He graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law with High Honors in 1988. As an attorney, Mr. Earle has been selected for an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell each year for the last 30 years. Mr. Earle has also successfully litigated numerous individual lead poisoning cases resulting in the expansion of the risk contribution doctrine in cases where the plaintiff is unable to identify the manufacturer of the product that actually caused the injury. Thomas v. Mallett, 701 N.W.2d 523 (WI 2005); Gibson v. American Cyanamid, 760 F.3d 600 (7th Cir. 7/14/14). He is widely regarded as an aggressive bilingual lawyer dedicated to enforcing the rights of working people and holding accountable those who abuse authority.

Brendan Fischer currently serves as Deputy Executive Director at Documented, having served as Director, Federal Reform at CLC from 2016-2022. He has expertise in campaign finance, government ethics, lobbying and political transparency issues, and is a frequent commentator for national news publications. He also has spoken at conferences and events nationwide on money-in-politics issues. Before CLC, Brendan was General Counsel with the Center for Media and Democracy, where he led the watchdog group’s legal research and advocacy efforts.

Links for Part One:

“Bad Ass Grandmas Say Alaskans Should Vote for More Transparency in Elections” (Campaign Legal Center)

“How Our Government Put Money and Oil Before the People of North Dakota” (Campaign Legal Center)

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Guests:

Links for Part One:

“Bad Ass Grandmas Say Alaskans Should Vote for More Transparency in Elections” (Campaign Legal Center)

“How Our Government Put Money and Oil Before the People of North Dakota” (Campaign Legal Center)

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Previous Episode

How Did We Get Here?

Joined by Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director of OpenSecrets, and Norman Ornstein, chair of the Board of Campaign Legal Center, host Simone Leeper looks back on the history of campaign finance law in the United States.
As they trace historical events from the Watergate scandal to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and beyond, Simone and her expert guests explore the scandals, legislation and judicial decisions that have helped shape the current system and the root causes of the ever-growing cost of our elections.

Guests:

Sheila Krumholz is the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks money in politics on its website, OpenSecrets.org. Krumholz became Executive Director in 2006, prior to which she was CRP’s research director for eight years, supervising data analysis for CRP’s website, OpenSecrets.org, and for CRP’s partners and clients in the media, academia and elsewhere. Krumholz has testified before Congress and the Federal Election Commission on issues related to government transparency and is cited frequently in prominent national media outlets. She regularly makes presentations to scholars, government officials, NGOs that conduct research and advocacy, meetings of professional news organizations, and trains reporters on CRP’s data tools and resources. Currently, Krumholz serves on the board of the Institute for Nonprofit News. She has a degree in international relations and political science from the University of Minnesota.
Learn more about OpenSecrets, the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics, here.

Norman J. Ornstein, CLC's Board Chair, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is co-host of AEI’s Election Watch series, is a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal and The Atlantic, and a BBC News election analyst. His campaign finance working group of scholars and practitioners helped shape the major law, known as McCain/Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system.
View his full bio here.

Links:

Money-in-Politics Timeline (OpenSecrets.org)

"The Tillman Act: 34 Stat. 864 (1907)" by Paweł Laider and Maciej Turek (Basic Documents in Federal Campaign Finance Law)
Mission and history (The Federal Election Commission)
﷟HYPERLINK "https://www.fec.gov/about/mission-and-history/"Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) (The Federal Election Commission)

“Anniversary of U.S. v. Nixon Shows Why We Should Restructure the FEC” (Campaign Legal Center)

Buckley v. Valeo (Oyez.org)
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Oyez.org)

“How Does the Citizens United Decision Still Affect Us in 2022?” (Campaign Legal Center)
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (Oyez.org)

About CLC:

Democracy Decoded is a production of Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization which advances democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every American’s right to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process. You can visit us on the web at campaignlegalcenter.org.

Next Episode

There Oughta Be a Law...

This week, Simone takes a closer look at the Federal Election Commission - the only government agency tasked solely with overseeing the integrity of our political campaigns – with one of the FEC’s commissioners, Shana Broussard.
She also takes a deeper look at our current campaign finance system, and how that system has failed to keep up with modern times – namely by failing to adequately regulate online ads. She is joined by some former Senate staffers who were part of an effort to change that.

Guests:

Commissioner Shana M. Broussard joined the FEC in 2008 as an attorney in the Enforcement Division of the Office of General Counsel. In 2015, she was assigned on detail as Counsel for Commissioner Steven T. Walther, advising the Commissioner during his tenure as Chair in 2017 and continuing in that role until her own appointment as Commissioner. Commissioner Broussard previously was an Attorney Advisor at the Internal Revenue Service, Office of Professional Responsibility, and Deputy Disciplinary Counsel at the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board. She also worked as a New Orleans Assistant District Attorney and was appointed in that role to the Violent Offenders Strike Force.
Read her full bio here.

Adav Noti coordinates all of CLC's programmatic activities, overseeing CLC's efforts to fix the campaign finance system, protect voting rights, ensure fair redistricting and promote government ethics. He has conducted dozens of constitutional cases in district courts, courts of appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Prior to joining CLC, Adav served for more than 10 years in several capacities within the Office of General Counsel of the Federal Election Commission. From 2013 to 2017, as associate general counsel for policy, Adav oversaw all legal recommendations regarding the FEC’s regulations and advisory opinions.
Read his full bio here.

Lindsey Kerr is a Senior Vice President for The Messina Group. She is a veteran of Capitol Hill, having served in the House and the Senate, including time as the chief of staff for Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). In 2021, Lindsey served as the top Senate Democratic staff representative responsible for working with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies to plan, oversee, and execute the Presidential Inauguration. Prior to that, she worked in the House of Representatives as senior counsel to Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN). Lindsey started her career on Capitol Hill as a fellow with the American Political Science Association. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and juris doctorate degrees from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
See her full bio here.

Truman Anderson is former chief-of-staff to the late U.S. Senator John S. McCain III of Arizona and is now a consultant to the McCain Papers Project at Arizona State University. He holds a doctorate in History from the University of Chicago, was a lecturer at the London School of Economics in International History, and served for many years as the Executive Director of the Stuart Family Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.

Links for Part One:

About the FEC (Federal Election Commission)
“Let’s Celebrate the FEC’s 47th Birthday By Strengthening the Agency’s Enforcement Abilities” (Campaign Legal Center)
“Democrats’ Improbable New F.E.C. Strategy: More Deadlock Than Ever” (New York Times)

Links for Part Two:
Disclosure Rules for Digital Political Spending (Campaign Legal Center)

“FEC Symposium Draws Attention to Online Advertisement Disclosure Loopholes” (Campaign Legal Center)
“What You Need to Know About the Honest Ads Act” (NPR)
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