Why Super PACs have more power than ever in elections

14:24Michael Kang:The court decided in Buckley, that's a big enough worry in a democracy that the government should be able to regulate that. And I think that's really where you see this cat and mouse game start up in earnest.

14:40Henrik Schatzinger:Kang says it wasn't easy for wealthy people to spend their money on their own megaphone during elections. They needed help from political groups or the parties themselves. And that money was restricted. Yet through the 1980s and into the 1990s, campaign costs were rising. And people were finding ways around the FICA laws. Enter soft money, a loophole that allowed parties to collect big sums of money for generic party-building activities.

15:08Michael Kang:Things like voter registration and get out the vote. And so you had this creep of ultra-wealthy people spending more and more money in politics from the 90s into the 2000s.

15:17Henrik Schatzinger:Which meant that candidates were focusing more and more on the money.

15:22Michael Kang:So now you have kind of this unlimited appetite for money because you want to be able to be sure you're not going to get outspent in a dramatic way.

15:32Henrik Schatzinger:And advertisements and marketing and media can make up a majority of the campaign costs.

15:38Michael Kang:And what we've seen, obviously, over the FICA era is the money keeps going up.

15:45Henrik Schatzinger:I don't remember a time where a candidate is not immediately getting elected and then turning around and beginning to fundraise again for their reelection campaign. It's just like a constant fundraising machine, it seems like.

15:58Michael Kang:Exactly right. Right. And that has lots of effects on politics. The politicians are spending less time doing their actual job and more time raising money. It distracts them from kind of what we consider like what's important about their job, which is making policy and thinking about what's good for the country. There's lots of reasons to think that's not a great development in campaign finance.

16:20Henrik Schatzinger:Then came the controversies. On the Democrat side, President Bill Clinton got in hot water when his campaign received foreign donations and held fundraising events at the White House. Meanwhile, Republicans had their fair share of scrutiny for contributions they received. And then came a senator from Arizona who used these controversies in his 2000 presidential campaign.

16:45Michael Kang:Until the last breath I draw, I will fight to eliminate this soft money, to give that government back to the people of America who have had it taken away from them. That's what this campaign is all about.

16:56Henrik Schatzinger:When John McCain ran for president in 2000, he emphasized campaign finance reform. McCain ended up losing to George W. Bush in the Republican primary and was astoundingly outspent. But in 2002, he introduced the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. It was designed to end soft money contributions, which had soared by this time. And the law forced candidates to stand by their ads with messages like this.

17:29Michael Kang:I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this message.

17:33Henrik Schatzinger:And the McCain-Feingold Act also restricted corporations and unions from running ads or media mentioning federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. This was called electioneering communications and was meant to limit a kind of attack ad close to elections. And it would be this last law that would be at the heart of a case about a movie that would change the way money in American politics works. So who is the real Hillary Clinton? Is she a brilliant trailblazer poised to make history as the first female president? Or is she ruthless, cunning, dishonest, willing to do anything for power?

18:21Coming up, Hillary the movie.

18:25Henrik Schatzinger:Hi, I'm Carolyn from Tallahassee, Florida, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR. ThruLine keeps me captivated with every episode, unraveling history in a way that teaches me something new and fascinating each time. Thank you. Part 2

18:45Michael Kang:This message comes from NPR sponsor BetterHelp. Financial stress affects more than just your bank account. It can impact your sleep, your relationships, and your overall mental health. If money worries are weighing on you, you're not alone, and it doesn't mean you've failed. Therapy isn't about financial advice. It's about working through the anxiety, shame, or overwhelming thoughts that money stress can bring. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash NPR. The floodgates open.

19:20Henrik Schatzinger:In the 2000s, Jim Bopp had already made a name for himself in conservative legal circles. Starting in the late 1970s, the Indiana attorney represented a number of conservative groups. And that led him to fighting for how they used their money to get their messages out. And in the 2000s, he had become the go-to guy for campaign finance cases.

19:43Michael Kang:I think the government is just really grabbing for more regulation and more control, more prohibition on speech.

19:49Henrik Schatzinger:For Jim Bobb, the more speech, the better. Meaning the more ads telling you what a candidate believes or what others believe about them, the better. One of the questions, you know, people need to ask themselves, you know, is having knowledge about the positions of candidates on issues, what they're for and what they're against. Is that good or bad? I mean, I argue that it's good. His arguments boil down to four points. This is Henrik Schatzinger, professor of political science at Reppin College in Wisconsin. And he has a book coming out called Super PACs in the City. His first argument is that ordinary people should be able to pool money in groups to really compete.

20:34Henrik Schatzinger:So he frames the decision or the case as one that will level the playing field. So in other words, if a super rich person wanted to run for office, under the law, they could spend whatever money they wanted to run ads. Bopp argued that regular people would be forced to pool their money together to equal one rich person's buying power. So groups of people, including corporations, unions or political action committees, should be able to do just that.

21:03Michael Kang:You can't stop rich people from spending money. But what you can do is have a system that, number one, people of average means can contribute and be effective. And that requires groups.

21:15Henrik Schatzinger:His second argument is that the campaign finance laws are really about protecting incumbents. Incumbents had name recognition and war chests. Challengers often relied on smaller donations. His third point, he argues that the laws are so complex and confusing that they can become a deterrent for people to run for office. The whole idea behind the First Amendment was to protect political speech and thereby protect the right of average citizens to participate in our democratic process. And the last argument he makes is about civic courage. He argues that you should not need a lawyer and a stomach for harassment to really support the cause.

22:00Henrik Schatzinger:He casts enforcement as intimidation. And he says the laws chill political participation. And that brings us back to Hillary the movie.

22:15Michael Kang:What is the truth about Hillary Rodham Clinton? It's a recklessness that's born of arrogance that goes back to her 1960s roots in their narcissism.

22:26Henrik Schatzinger:Remember, the Federal Elections Commission rules prohibited the film from being aired. In 2007, Jim Bopp signed on as the lawyer for Citizens United, the organization behind the movie. He saw Citizens United as a First Amendment rescue mission, if you will. In a way, the case was similar to the other campaign finance cases he'd taken on before. Those four main arguments that show political speech and paying for political speech are protected under the First Amendment. In his telling Citizens United is about freeing speech, not freeing money. When he went before a federal court in 2008, he said the film was just like any other news program, like 60 Minutes, and so it should be allowed to be broadcast.

23:21Henrik Schatzinger:The judge laughed at him. Citizens United lost the case. But then it went to the Supreme Court, a court that had become more conservative in the 2000s.

23:33Michael Kang:So initially the case is a kind of small case.

23:35Henrik Schatzinger:This is Northwestern law professor Michael Kang.

23:38Michael Kang:Citizens United is really about this obscure provision in McCain-Feingold.

23:45Henrik Schatzinger:Which prevented corporations or unions from funding certain ads that clearly mentioned candidates on broadcast television 30 days before a primary election.

23:55Michael Kang:So the really narrow question here is whether video on demand constituted a broadcast communication under McCain-Feingold. Very limited, not likely to change campaign finance. But when the case went up to the Supreme Court, something happened.

24:12Henrik Schatzinger:It was kicked off by Justice Samuel Alito.

24:15Michael Kang:You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned? At oral argument, there's a critical moment where the deputy solicitor general, Malcolm Stewart.

24:31Henrik Schatzinger:who represented the U.S. government and the FEC in this case.

24:35Michael Kang:Gets engaged with this back and forth with Justice Alito. And Justice Alito starts to wonder if this sort of ban could be justified in the same way maybe a federal ban on books could be justified.

24:52Henrik Schatzinger:I'm not saying it could be banned. I'm saying that Congress could prohibit the use of corporate treasury funds and could require a corporation to publish it using its...

25:02Michael Kang:Well, most publishers are corporations. A publisher that is a corporation could be prohibited from selling a book. Well, of course, the statute contains its own media exemption for media. But I'm not asking what the statute says. The government's position... And Alito is kind of like a dog with a bone. He just won't let go of this point. So he keeps going after Stewart. The government's position is that the First Amendment allows the banning of a book if it's published by a corporation.

25:33Henrik Schatzinger:Because the First Amendment refers both to freedom of speech and of the press, there would be a potential argument that media corporations, the institutional press, would have a greater First Amendment right.

25:44Michael Kang:He tries to say, this is not really what this case is about, which was true. But then Alito says, well, like, well, what's the answer? Could we ban corporate money from funding a book that engages in political advocacy? And ultimately, Stewart says we could prohibit the publication of the book using the corporate treasury fund. That seems to be a critical moment for Citizens United. Generally speaking, most people think it's OK for the government to regulate big money in politics and regulate campaign ads, which may influence people's views about the election and is where most of the money is spent.

26:23Michael Kang:But banning books sounds like something else. And so Alito was kind of connecting the specter of book banning that we're sort of familiar with and has this really ugly connotation with what the government was trying to argue in that case.

26:39Henrik Schatzinger:Yeah, it seems like a very intentional and calculated choice of metaphor in this case, right? Because book bans, book burning, it has a very negative, specifically, connotation in most people's minds. It's like the most dramatic form of censorship that we often think of. But it's interesting then to apply the idea of censorship of free speech to corporate spending.

27:07Michael Kang:Yeah, I think the way that campaign finance reformers would present campaign finance regulation is we're not trying to swing the election one way or the other. We're not trying to censor speech. What we want to do is regulate how much influence people with a lot of money have over the election and equalize to some degree the amount of say we all have as citizens in a democracy. But what Alito was doing was connecting campaign finance regulation with this worry about government making choices about what's acceptable speech and picking sides in the debate, which is much more in the conservative direction.

27:46Michael Kang:And one of the conservative anxieties about campaign finance regulation is the worry that that's what the government is trying to do in some sort of more subtle way. And so instead of deciding Citizens United on this narrow question, instead, the court comes back and says, we want you to re-argue this case, re-brief this case. We're going to do it over, but we're now going to engage this much larger question about whether the federal government constitutionally can prohibit corporate money from funding election speech.

28:18Henrik Schatzinger:In other words, the Supreme Court wanted to take on a much bigger question, one that had already been settled by decades of legal precedent. Could the government really ban corporate spending on elections? Did the free speech under the First Amendment right extend to corporations like it did to individual people? Later that year, 2009, the case came back to the Supreme Court. By this time, Barack Obama had become president after massively outspending John McCain with unprecedented help from private donors.

28:54Michael Kang:So when Citizens United goes back to the Supreme Court the second time for re-argument, it's a pretty momentous oral argument. It's Elena Kagan's first argument as Solicitor General. Everyone knows that basically the future of the campaign finance system is on the line. And we're not surprised when Citizens United wins the case ultimately. because at the argument, Kagan goes in and essentially is trying to limit the loss.

29:24Henrik Schatzinger:If you're asking me, Mr. Chief Justice, as to whether the government has a preference as to the way in which it loses, if it has to lose, the answer is yes. What case of ours?

29:35Michael Kang:What case of ours? If we lose this case, we do have a preference on how we lose this case. We don't want to lose this case so badly that we lose all campaign finance regulation. So it's no surprise when the government loses. But it is pretty dramatic. Today, the Supreme Court struck down federal legislation that restricts how corporations can spend their money in political campaigns.

30:02The 5-4 majority, led by Justice Kennedy, said that political speech is at the heart of the First Amendment.

30:12Henrik Schatzinger:And the identity of this speaker does not remove that protection. Whether it's an individual or a group of individuals, maybe who work for a corporation, if they want to spend their money on getting their message out, they can't. So they rejected the idea that corporate wealth creates a special corruption risk that justifies a ban.

30:36Michael Kang:These restrictions on corporate spending have been around since 1907.

30:42Henrik Schatzinger:The Tillman Act of 1907, the United States' first law to ban corporate spending in elections.

30:48Michael Kang:And now we've blown a huge hole in campaign finance law. And the worry along these lines is that the floodgates will open to corporate money. And that's really where all the attention is. the supreme court has said like people corporations have the right to engage in political advocacy and expenditures without restriction that had always been a critical distinction we treated people differently than corporations and corporations don't have to be treated like people so it's not really the reasoning of the case that gets sort of blown up in the reaction to the case. But that's the immediate reaction.

31:30Michael Kang:It's like, what's this going to do? How much are corporations going to spend? The irony is that Citizens United's ultimate importance is really not about corporations because certainly for-profit corporations, for the most part, there are exceptions, but for the most part, for-profit corporations aren't actually all that thrilled about spending a lot of money in campaigns.

31:51Henrik Schatzinger:It could be bad for business.

31:53Michael Kang:It's bad for business. You know, I think Michael Jordan at one point is asked, like, why didn't he support Democratic causes and candidates more? And he said Republicans buy gym shoes, too. Right. They buy sneakers. And so by being too publicly engaged in politics, you alienate people. And we've seen lots of examples of that recently, especially. In fact, there are a bunch of corporations that argued against the outcome in Citizens United. They didn't they didn't want to be drawn into this.

32:26Henrik Schatzinger:All the attention on the Citizens United ruling overshadowed another case happening around the same time in a lower court. One that would build off the ruling from Citizens United and make the case that since corporations could raise and spend whatever money they wanted, any group should be allowed to do this. Even groups that had been restricted under McCain-Feingold and other election laws before.

32:52Michael Kang:Within the same week that Citizens United is decided, the D.C. Circuit heroes oral argument on a case called SpeechNow v. FEC and decides that case two months later.

33:06Henrik Schatzinger:SpeechNow was a nonprofit created by a small group of libertarians to promote the First Amendment. Specifically, they wanted to advocate for and against different candidates, but they would have had to organize as a political committee in order to do that. They went to court to argue that wasn't fair.

33:24Michael Kang:And two months later, the D.C. Circuit cites Citizens United about two dozen times in 20 pages and says essentially Citizens United ties our hands in this case. Would have been a different case probably before. But because of Citizens United and what it says about the government's constrained ability to regulate expenditures, it's clear SpeechNow has the ability to be a super PAC, to be able to raise money without contribution limits, as long as they're only engaging in this kind of independent speech.

33:55Henrik Schatzinger:In March of 2010, SpeechNow won. And now, any group that wanted to raise and spend unlimited money on their own messages, their own speech, they could. Within a few months, close to 80 new super PACs filed with the FEC in time for the 2010 midterm elections.

34:16Michael Kang:2010 ends up being by far the most expensive midterm election in American history.

34:21Henrik Schatzinger:But it wouldn't be the most expensive to date. Coming up, super PACs explode.

34:33Henrik Schatzinger:Hi, this is Susanna Callahan. I'm calling from Brooklyn, New York. You're listening to ThruLine on NPR. Part 3. Whispering Through a Megaphone. In January 2010, President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address. It was just a few days after the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United, opening the door to massive changes to election fundraising and spending. The nine Supreme Court justices were sitting in the front row for his address.

35:07Michael Kang:At one point, Obama says, Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our election. He actually comments on Citizens United and Alito mouths not true.

35:27Henrik Schatzinger:All nine of the justices, including Samuel Alito, sat unmoved while legislators rose to applause all around them.

35:36Michael Kang:I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. I think super PACs really make their impact in the 2012 elections where you have a presidential race.

35:54Henrik Schatzinger:The jockeying to be the Republican Party's next presidential nominee has begun. And for the first time in more than 50 years, the GOP is without a clear front runner at this stage of the campaign.

36:07Michael Kang:If you remember the 2012 race, Mitt Romney emerges eventually as the nominee.

36:13Henrik Schatzinger:This is Northwestern law professor Michael Kang.

36:17Michael Kang:But he has to kind of fend off challenges from like Rick Santorum, who really relies almost entirely on super PAC money. Who has the best chance to beat Obama? Rick Santorum, a full spectrum conservative.

36:32Henrik Schatzinger:This was known as the zombie candidate moment, where candidates whose campaigns appear to be dead rose from their graves. Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign was effectively dead. This is Henrik Schatzinger, who teaches political science at Rippon College. He's got a book coming out this year called Super PACs in the City. He had no money, no staff, no momentum. Newt Gingrich's effort at political resurrection is not looking so good. Today, the top staff for the Republicans' presidential campaign resigned en masse. In the old world, he would have just dropped out end of the campaign. But this was the new world, where just one wealthy donor could keep a candidate alive.

37:13Henrik Schatzinger:And so Gingrich went actually from being dead in the water to winning that South Carolina primary with super PAC money. It's not that I am a good debater. It is that I articulate the deepest felt values of the American people. But it wasn't just Republicans who made the 2012 election significant for super PACs. President Obama and his reelection team have reversed course. They're now encouraging big donors to finance a pro-Obama super PAC. So the turning point is when Obama's team gave the green light to a super PAC. It was known as Priorities USA Action. And it made a big difference. Priorities USA ran some of the most effective ads during the whole election cycle.

38:05Henrik Schatzinger:It had some of the most well-known ads about a steelworker who lost his job.

38:10Michael Kang:I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant. And his insurance under Bain Capital, Mitt Romney's company, are some of the most well-known

38:22Henrik Schatzinger:ads.

38:22Michael Kang:Furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.

38:25Henrik Schatzinger:Priorities USA Action is responsible for the content of this advertising. So why does all of this matter? This was the moment of normalization. It signaled that Democrats couldn't afford to take the moral high ground. And this unilateral disarmament was basically political suicide. If you're running against someone who has this unrestricted channel of money supporting them,

38:53Michael Kang:It's hard to compete with them unless you do it too. Campaign finance is incredibly competitive. National politics is incredibly competitive. So where you put on the table this gigantic weapon, it's not surprising that both sides reach for it and use it. It would be crazy if they didn't.

39:14Henrik Schatzinger:Since Citizens United, billionaires have spent 160 times more in federal elections. They are the biggest contributors to super PACs. And there are loopholes that allow them, if they want, to remain anonymous. This is a term you may have heard called dark money. Super PACs, by law, actually have to disclose their donors. But if a billionaire chooses to donate to a group, and that group chooses to donate to a super PAC, I call this financial pinball. The billionaire's name isn't the one that gets disclosed.

39:48Michael Kang:It's really, I think, the super PAC era where the wealthy really dive into national politics in this really full-throated way. And I think part of what happens is the Citizens United decision and some of these changes, the evolution of the system, kind of give a brighter and brighter green light to the ultra-wealthy to do this. And that kind of changes the culture and the wealthier people spend more and more without feeling bad about it or anxious about it. But I also think what's important in all of these changes and certainly culminating in the super PAC era is that the ultra wealthy, you don't necessarily want to run your own end.

40:27Michael Kang:That's not what you're good at and you don't have the infrastructure to do that. So what's really helpful is to have a political professional who's aligned with your views, who comes to you and says, hey, we'll do all the work. Just give us the money. And what the super PAC allowed those professionals to do is have this uncapped channel to a few wealthy people who could fund a very sophisticated, very effective ad campaign.

40:55Henrik Schatzinger:And here's where things get a little wild. As we've established, super PACs can't coordinate directly with candidates or specific campaigns. There's too much potential for corruption. But the law says nothing about using information that's floating out there, free for anyone to use. So you can frame public coordination as how campaigns whisper through a megaphone by winking in plain sight. Here are just a few ways super PACs can unofficially and legally get on the same page as the candidates they support. First up, red boxing. This is when candidates put messages on their website. You often see a box that says voters need to know as followed by certain themes and target audiences.

41:46Henrik Schatzinger:But it's actually not for voters. Exactly. Those messages are directly meant for super PACs to use for their own ads. Next up, silent B-roll. Polished, soundless video that's posted online. On YouTube, for example, or Vimeo and other spaces. So outside groups then lift it for ads so everything stays on brand without a single phone call. Public memos. Sometimes candidates issue briefs and opposition research posted in public. And then outside groups can recycle the language nearly word for word. You also have what we call slow walked announcements. So once you announce your candidacy as a candidate, you can no longer coordinate with these outside groups.

42:38Henrik Schatzinger:But before you announce it, you can do whatever. So sometimes what you see is that they delay the formal launch while the outside machine raises money and builds the infrastructure first. This is why several super PACs are headed by former campaign leaders, people who have inside knowledge of the election strategy. When consultants leave the campaign, the candidate campaign, they have to sit out a cooling off period, 120 days, and then they can then join the super PAC. Then there are super PAC fundraisers who ask candidates to be a guest. And you might be asking yourself, but isn't that type of coordination in order to raise money illegal?

43:21Candidates can headline Super PAC events and publicly applaud the group's work. But then they leave the event.

43:34Henrik Schatzinger:And this after that is when they ask tax place for donors to contribute to the Super PAC. These are just some of the loopholes that people like Henrik have seen. And super PACs aren't just working in federal elections. They're in state and local politics, too. And this is where they can really have an outsized impact. More and more cities are seeing the same experience. And no matter what office, city council, mayoral, or school board, where you see outside money pouring in, You know, why are local races more and more targets of super PACs? It's because a few hundred thousand dollars in super PAC money can dwarf what candidates can raise.

44:22Henrik Schatzinger:It can set the agenda. It can define candidates and frame the story. Local elections often have less media coverage and less voter attention. So ads do more of the teaching there and more of the persuading. There's, of course, also a local media vacuum. We have over 200 counties in the U.S. that don't have a local newspaper anymore. And may soon not have a local radio station. And that too. So that may have no local source whatsoever. So when local news is thin or non-existent, these super PACs become the narrator of the race. They fill the silence with their own script. What are the upsides to having these super PACs in our politics?

45:10Henrik Schatzinger:And what are the downsides?

45:12Michael Kang:If you have to come up with upsides to super PAC politics, what it means is there's more money for speech, right? So that's the idea that people should be, in theory, more informed and have more information at their disposal. And that more candidates potentially have access to money and don't need to be able to reach many, many donors to be able to give flight to their campaign. So in theory, more money means more possibilities for candidates and more discourse. for voters to hear and be informed about politics. I think that's probably the strongest argument for super PACs. I think the worry is it doesn't really work out that way in practice, that you end up still with kind of distributional problems where it just means the richest candidates and the richest people have more influence.

46:09Michael Kang:And the average voter may not be all that informed by more ads, that the ads aren't all that informative and the money goes for all kinds of things that just make our politics worse, depending on your point of view about things. I think all of the campaign finance law, there's this kind of irony about it, which is campaign finance law is all about the prevention of corruption. That's really what the constitutional debate is about. To what degree can the government restrict campaign finance activity to prevent corruption? But really, what we're worried about in campaign finance reform is about whether the ultra wealthy just have too much influence and they sort of drown out the average people in a democracy where we're all supposed to be equal citizens.

46:56Michael Kang:So there is this kind of disjunction between where the law sort of centers in terms of the debate and really kind of the political case for campaign finance reform. And that's always been the way that conservatives who want to take down campaign finance regulation sort of aim their firepower is to say, really, this isn't about preventing corruption. This is about silencing people with money. And it's about this kind of censorship. And they're not 100 % wrong about that because a lot of campaign finance reform really is about correcting what people see as a kind of distributional problem in American politics and that wealthy have too much money.

47:44Michael Kang:Conservatives and progressives, though, have a different view about whether that's okay or not.

47:50Henrik Schatzinger:I mean, at this point, is it possible to reverse the amount of money that's being spent by super PACs in American politics? Or is this now just a foregone conclusion of every election?

48:01Michael Kang:I think it'd be very hard to reverse things given that campaign finance law is constitutionalized. So it's not just a matter of Congress changing the laws. What the Supreme Court really does is lock in kind of the level of constitutional protection and limit what Congress can do. So that's why I think people who are trying to undo Citizens United focus on a constitutional amendment because that's the way you would have to do it. Or have a different court decide, you know, overrule Citizens United. But that's not going to happen for a very long time.

48:37Henrik Schatzinger:There are some laws that can be passed to strengthen campaign finance regulation, despite the Citizens United and SpeechNow rulings. Henrik says that many of them would be done at the local level. In some cities, we see top donor disclaimers, like in San Francisco. So voters can actually see who the top three donors are to an ad. And the Supreme Court actually has green-lighted these types of disclosures. Some cities have small donor public financing. Seattle has democracy vouchers. We can also find ways to perhaps better support local journalism and local information. And so it's to build a better, if you will, infrastructure to uplift candidates so that they don't have to rely on these super PACs.

49:34You cannot buy yourself to a win.

49:39Henrik Schatzinger:It just doesn't work that way. Ultimately, voters are not stupid. If they have strong convictions, all these ads, they will not necessarily do all that much good. In fact, they can actually hurt you. At a certain point, do the super PACs pose a real existential threat to our democracy?

50:00Michael Kang:That's a very big question. I think campaign finance issues can pose a real threat to the integrity of our democracy and the way that people feel about it. I think it is corrosive to the confidence Americans have about the way the country works. I think both from the left and the right, you see this lack of confidence in how fair the country works and the way that average people can't get a fair shake. You see that in polling where people feel like the system in America is kind of rigged in all kinds of ways. And I think campaign finance is certainly one part of that. We've only opened more doors to more money, certainly for the last 30 years.

50:46Michael Kang:And generally speaking, money kind of goes in one direction in campaign finance. It's generally been more and more rather than less.

51:00Henrik Schatzinger:That's it for this week's show. I'm Randa Adilfattah. I'm Ramtin Adablui, and you've been listening to ThruLine from NPR. This episode was produced by me. And me and. Julie Kane. Anya Steinberg. Casey Miner. Christina Kim. Devin Kadayama. Irene Noguchi. Kiana Mojaten. Thomas Coltrane. Fact-checking for this episode was done by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Thanks to Johannes Durge, Beth Donovan, and Tommy Evans. This episode was mixed by Jimmy Keighley. Music for this episode was composed by Ramteen and his band, Drop Electric, which includes

51:43Henrik Schatzinger:And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at throughline at npr.org. And make sure to give us a rating or review on Apple and Spotify. Helps other people find the show. And we love hearing from you. Thanks for listening.

52:09Thank you.