Tomorrow marks the sixth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s game-changing decision in Citizens United v. FEC, overturning a century of campaign finance law by allowing corporations to spend as much money as they want on ads and other means to influence peoples votes for or against a candidate.
At the same time, a group of 12 activists got together in Northern California to discuss what they could do to push back against the idea that money equals speech and the corporations are people, and Move to Amend was formed.
Meanwhile, the Citizens United decision didn’t affect individual contributions. Individuals were still limited to donating to any single candidate ($5,200 per election cycle), PAC ($5,000 per year), or national political party ($32,400 per year)- WITH THE MAXIMUM AGGREGATE LIMIT -in 2014 – of $48,600 TO FEDERAL CANDIDATES, $74, 600 TO PARTIES AND PAC’S. That’s an overall limit of $123,200, or more than twice what average American families make in a year.
On October 8th, 2013, lawyers for Shaun McCutcheon and the RNC argued before the Supreme Court that these aggregate limits should be thrown out, and the court ruled in their favor.
I interviewed Shaun McCutcheon once before and, though I vehemently disagreed with virtually everything he said, he was willing to come on the show to talk with me. And when I proposed the idea of debating David Cobb live on this show, he didn’t hesitate.
That said, despite my best efforts to remain calm and neutral during the debate, I did have one outburst when I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. But I soon recovered and just let the two of them do the talking (which I should have done earlier!).
So, for the last hour or so of today’s show, they had at it… The Clash Over Campaign Cash, a debate between Move To Amend‘s David Cobb, and the Alabama businessman who took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, Shaun McCutcheon.
On Wednesdays, I’m usually joined by my fellow Floriduh-ian, Deborah Newell, to poke some fun at the Sunshine State. And we did that today, but first I spoke with one Florida’s best assets
Tim Canova is a professor of law and public finance at Nova Southeastern University, and an activist who’s been working for decades on many of the same issues as Bernie Sanders has been working on.As a legislative aide to the late Sen Paul Tsongas, Tim Canova began warning about the rise of Wall Street special interests. In the 80s, he began writing critically about the deregulation of interest rates & the rise of subprime and predatory lending.
He’s been speaking out against the TPP, took part in Occupy Wall Street, and was selected by Sen Bernie Sanders to serve on an advisory committee on Federal Reserve reform along with some of the nation’s most respected economists.
Most importantly, Tim Canova has thrown his hat in the ring to give Debbie Wasserman Schultz her first real primary challenge since she entered the House in 2004! Check him out online and on Twitter, and kick in a few bucks if you can.
Check out Tim’s interview with Glenn Greenwald, new today at The Intercept.
Tomorrow, Harvey J. Kaye returns to talk about the debates and the Sanders surge in an historical perspective, and Howie Klein will be here too, radio or not!
