Transcript

Forum: Corporate Political Spending and Foreign Influence

Hosted by Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub

Federal Election Commission, 999 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20463

June 23, 2016

THIRD PANEL: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Richard Briffault, Columbia Law School

Jared DeMarinis, Director, Candidacy and Campaign Finance Division, 

Maryland State Board of Elections

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Stetson University College of Law 

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Thank you. That was, for the third time, really terrific and illuminating. So 

we have a couple questions from the audience. First one is for Jared. Some Maryland jurisdictions are 

considering implementing public financing of elections. Do you think those programs will work in an era 

of large independent expenditures? 

JARED DEMARINIS: Yes. Well... yes. I think one of... well, we, in 2014, we actually elected a Republican 

governor using a publicly financed program. The first time ever in the history of the entire program, 

which was over 40 years old. So... with a lot of outside spending, against that governor.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: And when you say it’s the first time ever, first time ever... what was the 

first time ever? 

JARED DEMARINIS: The first time ever that a candidate won using public financing in the state and it 

was only the second time ever that it was actually used by a general election candidate in its 40-year 

history, because of the limits in place on it, there was such a low expenditure limit. But with the right 
messaging or the right campaign, anything can happen. Money that is, people are the greater equalizers 

against money in that situation here. And I think....

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: John Pudner, who was on one of our earlier panels, would undoubtedly 

agree with you. 

JARED DEMARINIS: Exactly! I think that these public financing programs that are out there are in 

response to all the moneyed interests that are coming into the process. And... they, I think, help restore 

the trust that people will have in the system because they would feel as though, that they're not 

answering questions to big business or something, that they would be responsive to their individual 

concerns and that that $5 contribution can get magnified into something that is much greater than what 

their voice would normally be. 

And, I think that it's, these local jurisdictions, Montgomery County has passed it, another one is 

going to think about it. You have successful programs in cities like New York City and other places that 

have used this successfully. And I think that yes, I think that is very important and just also, to go back to 

one of my points about corporate influence and how significant it is. I just wanted to say, this is why you 

also have all the pay-to-play laws in the states as well. 

Because, if it wasn't so significant, and it didn't have such a, I guess, a corrosive effect on 

individual participation in it, you wouldn't necessarily see the, the disclosure, public you know, pay-toplay laws that are constantly out there. So... as you can see, it does have its effect.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Anybody else want to comment on that?

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: Just on the public funding, yes. I mean, we’ve had it in New York City since 1989, 

it’s been... I mean, what do we mean by successful? We’ve had mayors who have been elected on it. We 
had a mayor who was independently financed but his opponents, I think, were able to get their message 

out. They didn’t win but they had enough public money that it was contested elections. 

And actually, I'm pretty sure I mentioned I was on the Moreland Commission, which was a New 

York State commission to investigate public, to look into public integrity. We had an interesting hearing 

on public financing in which a City Council member, a Republican City Council member − we don’t have 

very many of them − testified about the, how, the benefits of having public financing in his City Council 

race and the negative consequences of not having it when he ran for the state legislature. I mean, we 

have the city and state legislature, of course, occupies the same ground as the City Council and we have 

public funding in the Council races but not for the assembly and Senate races which, in New York City, 

the levels of participation, the levels of competitiveness are totally different. And he was, again, very 

complimentary about public financing allowed him to mount a successful race as a Republican for the 

City Council but how he was swamped when he tried to run for the state Senate, where it wasn't 

available.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: This is kind of a related question. It’s directed at Jared, but I think really, 

from your standpoint of people who know what's going on more broadly, I think any of the panelists 

could answer it. From your experience, does regulation of corporate campaign finance work? If rules are 

passed, are they followed? 

JARED DEMARINIS: Yes, I think that, well, I think one, it works because it gets greater disclosure for the 

people to know who's giving to their candidates and that they can make decisions at that point there. I 

can think of, you know, when a corporation, I'm thinking of, I guess, the Target situation when they gave 

to an issue there and that the outcry, once people knew about it, actually started boycotting the 

business and they then reversed their corporate giving policy on that front there. 
I think that corporations, too, I think that they will, they want to follow rules. I think people 

want to follow rules. You're always going to have some outliers that will always try to break the rules or 

go as close to the edge as possible there but I think that a majority of the corporations and the giving 

out there want to follow the rules and if you create the bright-line standards for them and [tell] them 

what the regulations are, they will follow them in that sense.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Either of you want to comment on that?... I mean, that's my experience 

as well. Most people do want to follow the rules and where you run into problems are when there's a 

vacuum in the rules and then people say, “ Well, if there aren't any rules...” that, then, who knows?

JARED DeMARINIS: They'll fill the vacuum right there and it's very difficult to take it out.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Indeed. So, here's a question for Richard. What is the agency's role in 

creating a record for Congress and other agencies such as the SEC? 

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: I could send that one back to you, but I think it could be whatever it wants to be. I 

mean, I think the agency has the power to undertake rulemaking. I mean, a lot of this, I think, for itself, 

but I think its investigations could surely inform congressional action. I’m thinking of another one of the 

many recently contested actions here within the agency is, I think, I don't know if we alluded to here or 

a prior conversation about the Murray Energy case which was efforts on the part of... allegations that a 

corporation was putting major pressure on its employees to participate in support of an election 

candidate, Governor Romney in the 2012 election. And in the end, the Commission declined to bring an 

enforcement action on the feeling that the, whatever activities the corporation did, it fell within the 

statutory, it didn't violate the statutory language. Well, this could be a nice example of fact-finding in 

the ways in which corporations try and persuade, pressure, pick your verb, their employees to 

participate in the elections. It could be that you need a set of regs that reflects a richer understanding of 

how the internal dynamics of a workplace. But it also could be that you could need an investigation that 
would lead to congressional action, either to amend the statute, to make it more protective, or to pick 

up things that are not just involving, not just campaign finance participation, but other forms of coerce 

participation, such as showing up at rallies, which is not clearly picked up by the statute as it's written. 

So I do think that one of the... I think it's fair to say, the agency’s had trouble making decisions in 

the last period. Maybe the agency should rejigger itself and focus more on fact-finding and building a 

record, including participation from all sides and actually getting it out there. 

I mean, the McConnell case was a great example of a court's relying heavily on a record, but the 

record was largely compiled in litigation. But people, this is a domain of a huge amount of anecdote and 

not a lot of record facts. And it could be, I don't know how the commission as a whole would feel about 

this, but maybe some of the work of the Commission could be focused on fact finding. And maybe, 

maybe, maybe, don't know if this is ever done, a collaborative work as Rob Jackson suggested with the 

SEC to figure out, because obviously these issues of corporate participation in elections is the domain of 

both agencies, or could be, but right now we're in a stage where it's falling between two stools. And 

whether it's joint fact finding or developing some facts and shipping them over. I think it would be a 

very, it's a potentially productive use of the agency's time, like the hearing like this suggests, too.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: And that was one of the goals of this hearing, was to bring more 

information to us and potentially that we could share with other entities.

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Can I add on that point? 

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Yes, please.

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: So, a couple of months ago, the entity in Mexico that regulates their elections 

invited me and other academics down to talk about how U.S. elections are administered. And I felt really 
proud as an ex-New Yorker and really mortified as an American to give my presentation. And the reason 

is, I did a compare and contrast between the New York City Campaign Finance Board which has a stellar 

reputation for enforcing the laws and rules that they, you know, require all these candidates who are 

getting this public money to abide by, and then I contrasted that with the FEC and I think the FEC 

actually has, is bordering on a rule of law problem here. One of the tenets of the rule of law that would I 

would teach to my constitutional law students is that no one is above the law. Well, you are regulating 

sitting members of Congress and often sitting presidents. And so, I think it is very important that the FEC 

take its role as a regulator of such powerful people seriously. And if there are rules on the books, for the 

love of Pete, enforce them!

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Well, I agree with that. [Laughter] I was going to say....

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Yes, I'm lecturing the wrong commissioner.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: ... I was going to say, when you first started to describe that conference 

like "Oh, wow, I wish I’d been there! I wish they'd have invited me," and then when you told me what 

you said, I thought, maybe it's just as well I wasn't there. And let me just say that as, I think, a lot of 

people know in the Murray Energy case as in many others, we did not carry that case forward or do an 

investigation because of a 3-3 split. That was not a consensus decision.

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: In context with the comment I made earlier, and maybe this is totally naive and 

you’re totally on my part, and almost surely it is and I'm not that much of an optimist but, it did strike 

me that having sort of looked at a lot of these 3-3 divides that have come up in the enforcement, do you 

think that...? I shouldn’t be asking you the questions − we’ve reversed the roles again. Do you think 

there's any prospect for more collaborative action if these things are taken up, not as enforcement 

actions but as rulemakings? In other words, not targeting a specific company or LLC or participant and 

saying, in effect, I'm thinking, like, the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, forgive everything... don't 
go into anything that's happened so far... going forward, we need rules on LLCs. Going forward, we need 

rules on, more informed rules in light of the post-Citizens United world on corporation participation. 

Does that have a prospect or am I just being ridiculous? 

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Well, I hope you're not being ridiculous! I didn't invite all of you really 

smart people in here because I thought that, you know, you would be just sort of entertaining us all for 

the day and that it would all go into the circular file. I'm hoping that we are working on a process of 

perhaps moving forward and doing something productive. I think a lot of people agree that rule-making 

is a better venue than enforcement. When you said earlier, many agencies prefer to act through 

enforcement, I don't know that I would say prefer to act through enforcement but we can't avoid acting 

through enforcement because the complaints are presented to us and we have to have a decision in 

that, whereas we can avoid starting a rulemaking. I wish we wouldn't avoid starting a rulemaking and as 

I said at the very outset, I think that it really shouldn't be controversial to say, “We don't want to have 

foreign money in our elections.” I don't know. One of my colleagues asked me, when I was walking 

around with the agenda, saying, "So, did you invite any pro-foreign money speakers?" And I said, “Are 

there any? I don’t know anybody that advocates that, ‘Yeah, [what] we really need in our elections is 

more foreign money!’” So it seems to me that if ever there was an issue where maybe there could be 

some common ground, I would hope this would be that. And that was part of the motivation in bringing 

in all sorts of smart people who are not the usual folks who come and talk to us but, you know, try to 

bring in some new ideas, some ideas from scholars, from people who are not partisans, but are just 

deep thinkers on this subject. So I'd like to think there's a prospect for, for action. You know... we'll see. 

I have another question here, which, actually, this is a good segue to Ciara. As a historian of 

campaign finance, how were corporate and foreign contributions involved in the Watergate scandal 

which led to the creation of the FEC?
CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: All right, how much time do you have? 

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Give us the succinct version.

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Okay, the short version is: so, part of the money that went into the reelection 

of President Nixon in 1972 went to his committee which had the awesome acronym CREEP and CREEP 

gathered in lots of money from corporate donors and the problem with that is that's perfectly illegal, 

both then and now, under the Tillman Act. And part of that corporate money actually went to fund the 

Watergate burglary. So when the Watergate burglary happened, which is a burglary at the DNC, some 

enterprising reporters from The Washington Post start following the money and some of the money that 

they find is being routed through Mexico and Bahamian banks and Swiss bank accounts. And one of the 

things that comes out in the Watergate hearings was, there was these cash payments from Gulf Oil to 

the Nixon reelection campaign. And this sparked the interest of the Securities and Exchange Commission 

at the time because they sort of asked the question, wait a minute, Gulf Oil is a publically-traded 

company, how is it giving these $50,000 cash payments to the Nixon campaign? 

And they start their own parallel investigation, along with Congress was investigating Watergate 

and so were federal prosecutors. What the Securities and Exchange Commission finds is that I think it's 

500 different publicly traded companies had what they called, what the SEC called political slush funds. 

And the money wasn't just going to the Nixon campaign, it was also going to fund Democratic 

candidates, and it was going abroad to fund political campaigns in other countries. 

And other heads of state were impacted by this and some of them resigned after the SEC's 

investigation was made public. 

That led to the creation of a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which means that an 

American business cannot use contributions abroad to get or keep business and one of the things you 
could think about, domestically, is why is it okay for an American company to make contributions when 

they are trying to keep or get business in the United States domestically? I'll end it there.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: So, the, the follow-up that was just transmitted to me is, does this 

history indicate to us that it's important to keep an eye on corporate and foreign money?

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Yes. [Laughter]

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: A very succinct answer. Okay, I’ve got a couple of more questions. This 

came in from the public via e-mail. Has Maryland considered a Bluman-inspired law, Bluman being the 

case on foreign nationals, that would exclude any funds from outside the state from being spent in 

connection with a Maryland election? And I will just broaden that again for the academics on the panel, 

you know, are you aware of that being considered in other places and do any of you think that would be 

a good idea? 

JARED DEMARINIS: I mean, to restrict it from anybody outside the state, I guess, when you start running 

a campaign, especially these local campaigns in the state, and at the county and city, those levels, I 

mean, you always, you go to the people that you know to first raise your money, to get your seed 

money in these campaigns here. Families, friends, colleagues. So... I would probably not restrict it to 

anybody, you know, a person from Alabama or from Maine or from Michigan wants to give to a 

Maryland candidate, I don't think that that would have any sort of impact, especially if it's within the 

limits and I think where it would have impact would be on, like, say, public financing. You'd want to say 

the moneys that they're raising should be from constituents that would be paying into the public 

financing program or have a direct impact into the public financing program, so you would, I would say 

yes, you could restrict it for a candidate that those matching funds or anything with that, if you want to 
participate in those programs, yes, you can make more restrictions because the public is going to get 

money there. But as for a candidate, at that level, I just think that it would be difficult to start those 

campaigns if you wanted to start your grass roots, because the first people you hit up are, you know, 

your family and friends and they may not live in the state. So I'd say, you know, no to that.

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: I actually have a law review article on this. 

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Convenient!

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: How convenient! The 2015 University of Chicago Legal Forum, with the title of --

and I always forget the title even though I wrote it -- was “Of Constituents and Contributors,” but it 

might be “Of Contributors and Constituents.” And it takes off on some language that Chief Justice 

Roberts in the McCutcheon case, which referred to McCutcheon’s efforts as a constituent to... the 

interest of constituents in influencing officials through their contributions. And it pointed out that 

McCutcheon was giving in 15 different congressional districts and 10 different states when he was only a 

constituent in one of them. So obviously, we have a disconnect between who our constituents are and 

who our contributors are. This has come up in literally a handful of states. I think four have had rules on 

this that have been contested. Two Courts of Appeals have struck them down. The Second Circuit struck 

down a rule in Vermont and the Ninth Circuit in Washington State. Oddly, the Alaska Supreme Court 

upheld a similar Alaska rule that was never contested in the federal courts and I think it's actually on the 

books in Hawaii. Even though it hasn’t been challenged, it gives you a sense of which sort of states are 

doing this, smaller states that are more sort of isolated. 

I think it’s unlikely, although the language in Bluman suggests a little bit that you can connect 

campaign participation to eligibility to vote. That’s obviously not true: minors can make, can contribute 

in campaigns, incarcerated people can contribute in campaigns. The two don't go together perfectly. 

And the language in Bluman talked about being part of the American political community as opposed to 
the community of any one state or city. Majority is right about one thing, though: States and cities that 

have public funding, to the extent that they are of a matching form (if you raise, you need to raise a 

certain amount of money to qualify and/or what you get matches what you raise, small donations), I 

think all or virtually all of them either require that the threshold monies and the matchable monies be 

from within the jurisdiction or they require that a significant, a very high fraction of the money be raised 

within the jurisdiction. And sometime’s your restriction’s fairly narrowly defined, like, in Connecticut, if 

you're running for the state Senate, you’ve got to raise X percentage of your qualified funds within that 

Senate district, which can be tricky when there’s redisctricting, but yeah. So I think there's no Supreme 

Court case that puts it to bed, but I think it’s likely that you couldn’t restrict outside donations despite 

the idea that donations should be tied to membership in the political community like voting, but you can 

certainly treat them differentially in a public funding system.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: So this question apparently comes from someone who is a little more 

pessimistic about whether the FEC is going to do anything: Do you think state and local government 

should try and regulate foreign- influence corporations that spend on their elections and how could they 

do this? 

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: So earlier, there was the reference to the foreign pornographer who spent in 

the 2012 election in Los Angeles which is a violation both of federal law (which would have given -- I 

think that you had jurisdiction, the FEC, jurisdiction over that case)....

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: I thought so, too.

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: ... There was also a parallel state law in California which had almost the 

mirror prohibitions. And the regulator in California actually went after the foreign pornographer for 
spending in the L.A. election and they levied a fine over $60,000 for that violation of California law. So I 

definitely think that states can play a role in being a front-line defense against corporate money being 

spent in these elections and foreign corporate money in particular.

JARED DeMARINIS: Well, I just, I think right now with that decision, it opens up the idea on ballot issues 

because you still cannot give to a candidate because federal law still prohibits it at federal, state, and 

local elections. So it's now opened, kind of, this loophole for ballot issue committees. Whether foreign 

corporations can give, I think that you're looking at something that would decide in the political process 

there. And it has major impact with also probably the least scrutiny from the citizens’ participation on 

that. Because as it goes down the ballot, we always go, “Oh, President, everyone has an opinion about.” 

But as you get lower and lower and lower down, especially into questions, people don't necessarily 

follow those issues. They're coupled with the fact that you can make unlimited contributions to ballot 

issue committees that, yes, I think that states need to, with this decision here, have to revisit those rules 

about foreign corporations and foreign nationals participating in ballot issue committees. 

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: And another question that was just handed to me for the entire panel 

What do you make of Norm Ornstein's example from earlier today of GM as a corporate contributor, 

with much of its business outside the U.S. and, you know, I think a majority of its ownership by a foreign 

entity, is what's good for GM still good for America? 

JARED DeMARINIS: I guess I'll start this one here. I did like the quote, that was still relevant, probably, 

but... no, I mean, I guess, corporations act in their own corporate interests and they are made by, you 

know, the boards or anything. So I don't think that they're looking at it and saying what's good for GM is 

good for America. You know, it might have an impact on America and it might be able to benefit 

America, just like any time when they open up a, you know, when they always talk about building new 
baseball stadiums or football stadiums. They go, “Oh, well, you're going to put a stadium here, it's going 

to be good for the surrounding area because you’re going to bring in people, there’s going to be 

businesses, everything's going to grow the economy around there.” 

I mean, GM is looking at it to grow their business, whether... through whatever legislation that 

they want to pass. They want to find people that will help GM's corporate interests. And I don't think 

those are necessarily in line with the idea of the citizenry at times. So I don't think that, you know, they 

might be bigger than U.S. Steel to quote a different movie there, but....

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: I'm not sure it was true in 1954 when Charlie Wilson said it. [Laughter] I mean, the 

reigning theory of corporate decision-making is corporations are to supposed to do what's in the best 

interest of the shareholders. That's the set of incentives that they're given, is shareholder interests. 

That’s... we don't have community members sitting on corporate boards. We don't have politicians 

sitting on corporate boards. We don't have labor unions sitting on corporate boards as they do in, say, 

European countries. We have shareholder representatives sitting on [boards], shareholder welfare. If 

the shareholders are all American, the odds are, it’ll help Americans, although, not necessarily all 

Americans. It’ll help the Americans who are on, who hold shares. If a significant fraction of their 

shareholders are not Americans, and/or they're making a significant fraction of their income outside the 

United States, they have a different set of incentives. There's no reason to assume... it may be that the 

individuals are good citizens, but there's no reason to assume the entity thinks it's a citizen.

And I think that even though it's paradigmatic that a corporation is acting in its shareholder's best 

interest, I think it's important to remember what Professor Coates and Professor Jackson talked about 

earlier, that there can be a lot of tension between what a board wants and what a CEO wants from a 

political expenditure and what a shareholder might want from a political expenditure. The CEO may just 
want a ticket to the Inaugural; the shareholder wants a return on investment. Those are two different 

things.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: So here's an interesting question from the audience. I’ll be interested to 

hear what the answer to this is. So, obviously, everyone in this room is interested in these issues and not 

everyone in this room is a commissioner. So the question from the audience is, what can we do when 

we walk out of here today if we care about these issues? 

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Vote in November.

JARED DeMARINIS: Exactly. I mean, that's the, that's your voice out there. And as an election official, I 

always want people to vote. I don't care, you know... 100%, let's go out there. I think that you can't, 

what is the quote? Our system, and I've done a couple of international elections as well, it has its flaws. 

It has, I mean, it's not perfect by any stretch of the means here. But the one thing that... you know, we 

are the shining light for the rest of the world as an example here. I think that...don't get like a, I guess, 

with all the headlines, check out of the system and just go "ah" throw your hands up and say “ah, you 

know, a pox on both their houses,” but to get engaged. I think that, especially at the local and state 

level, you can see change, you can see the impact that you want to make and electing people, the right 

people, whatever your political persuasions are, to those offices does have an impact. You know, you 

get the potholes fixed. You can see, you know, changes made, especially at the state and local levels. 

So... don't check out. Vote, participate, and, you know, help try to bring about the change that you want.

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: I think also, needing to get involved and organized with groups that focus on these 

issues. I do think that, I mean, people in this room are obviously unique in the sense that you're in this 

room.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: This is not a typical cross section of the American public? 
RICHARD BRIFFAULT: You look at the issues that Americans... because it tends to come up 24th out of 

24. And there's a reason for that. There's a reason we’re more concerned about climate change and 

terrorism and the economy. And there's all sorts of important things that hit people on a daily basis. And 

I think that, for those of us with arms in this, it’s because we see the connections, and that we see that 

some of these issues that may be more front-burner issues -- climate change, the economy, Social 

Security, you know, inequity -- are connected to these structural issues about how we run democracy. 

Whether it's voting rules, voter ID, redistricting, campaign finance, and I do think although it's 

worthwhile as individuals, it's important to find groups that engage with this. Some of them were here 

this morning, although they were more focused on the informational side. Even then, getting 

information is actually pretty powerful and disseminating information is, I think, a pretty powerful tool 

in this area. 

But to remind elected and appointed officials that these issues matter, and that they're not out 

of the spotlight, that... Elected officials are pretty attentive when they're in the spotlight, as the debate 

about gun regulation that's currently going on indicates. You may not be happy or we may be happy 

with how it's going, but at least it's become a front-burner issue. These issues here are very rarely 

front-burner issues, at least at the level of concrete action. And it may be that it's important to get 

involved in organizations or groups that treat these issues as important issues to make sure that elected 

and appointed officials know that they're being watched on this.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: You know, I'm not sure I agree with you that this is such a low-profile 

issue. It seems to me that I've seen an awful lot, there are candidates out there on both sides of the aisle 

who are talking about this issue. I see a lot written about it. I give a lot of credit to some really great 

reporting on this issue; Matea Gold of The Washington Post and Nick Confessore at The New York Times

jump out as people who are really doing a great job of shining a light on this issue. I think people do care 
about this. And I would echo the comments of all the panelists that really what you can do is, obviously, 

vote and get all your friends to vote and... because it's always better for democracy if more people are 

voting, but to get involved at the state and local and federal level, to hold everyone who is out there, 

making decisions that affect your life, including me, accountable, write us letters, tell us, write letters to 

the editor, tell us what we're doing right, tell us what we're doing wrong. When we put things out for 

comment and government agencies are always putting things out for comment, comment! You know, 

pay attention. Stay engaged. I think there actually is a lot that citizens can do to stay more involved in 

their government and, you know, if you want to have a government that responds to the issues that you 

care about, you have to A, vote for the people who are going to represent your interest, and B, you 

know, hold their feet to the fire and make sure they continue to pay attention to the issues that you 

care about. 

So, whatever they are, and whatever side of the issue you're on.

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Could I add two concrete things to that? Bug President Obama about issuing 

an executive order for federal contractors and that part of dark money. And write to Mary Jo White, 

who is the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and ask her to promulgate a rule on 

corporate dark money.

JARED DEMARINIS: What is this? Writing and, write letters to the editor, and write − we tweet and we 

post now, c'mon. [Laughter]

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Okay, that works too!

JARED DEMARINIS: You tweet, you do a hashtag, this is....
COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Tweet at me, I'll retweet it. Absolutely.

RICHARD BRIFFAULT: We want to see campaign finance reform trending on Twitter.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: That would be very cool!

So, this is probably a follow-up to Ciara's comment about the conference you went to, but someone in 

the audience wants to know, are there other countries we can learn from who's doing this particularly 

well? 

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: I'm a big fan of Elections Canada. One of the reasons I like....

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Who doesn't love Canada?

CIARA TORRES-SPELLISCY: Yeah! One of the things that I think is really so Canadian about Elections 

Canada is the only Canadian citizen who is not allowed to vote is whoever is the head of 

ElectionsCanada. Because they don't want the tarnish of partisanship to impact how people think about 

that professional agency. 

And what was interesting in going to Mexico and talking to them is, the way that they run their 

elections would be totally unconstitutional under the American Constitution. The way we run our 

elections would be unconstitutional under the Mexican Constitution. They are much more worried 

about what they call propaganda and they find the way that we run our elections totally abhorrent. On 

the other hand, they are much more restrictive than we would be under the First Amendment. So, the 

two systems are, like, you couldn't run them at the same time. There's a total different approach to how 

elections are run in the two countries.

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Yeah, I'm always struck by the fact that if you compare Citizens United

with an analogous decision from the Canadian Supreme Court, Harper v Canada. Where the U.S. 
Supreme Court takes – and really, you could go back to Buckley on this − where the U.S. Supreme Court 

has taken the position that any kind of restriction on spending is going to limit the amount of debate 

and limit the way the issues get aired and interfere with the robust discussion of issues that we all want 

to promote, the Canadians take the exact opposite perspective, with the same goal, though: In order to 

promote the most robust discussion of all the issues and get all the information out there, they don't 

want one side to be drowning out the other side just because they have more money. So they actually 

have expenditure limits. And I have always found it completely fascinating that you have these two 

countries that come from fairly similar histories, both, you know, former British colonies and, you know, 

lived through a lot of the same experiences and have similar kinds of laws, and they just come to exactly 

opposite conclusions about what is the best way to promote a goal that we all want, which is to make 

sure that everybody's voice gets heard and that we have the best and best-informed debates going on 

on all the public issues of the day. So I just think that's always been interesting to me. 

We are just about at 3:30 when we said we were going to end this, so I want to first of all, thank 

this panel, please join me in thanking this great panel.

[Applause]

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: I want to also thank all of my colleagues who all participated either in 

person or online and virtually and have been listening to all the great panelists. I really, for me, this has 

been an incredible day and has been so, so informative, you know, hearing from people that we don't 

normally hear from. We're going to take all this, we’re going to post videos on YouTube, we're going to 

make a transcript. We're going to think hard about this. I hope that we will get to a rulemaking someday 

where all these ideas might be reflected. I know our policy folks are going to be paying a lot of attention. 
I also want to send another big thank you to every single person who works in this building. 

Because I want to tell you that everything that everyone in this country knows and writes about, 

campaign finance at the federal level, certainly, and who is funding who and where the money comes 

from and where the money goes, everything we know is due to the hard work and good efforts of all the 

people who work in this building and make sure that information gets here and gets online and gets 

reviewed and that complaints are analyzed and information is shared. So, I want you to join me in giving 

a big round of applause to the great people who work at the FEC.

[Applause]

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: They don't get a lot of applause in their lives. And finally, I want to thank 

all of you who showed up in person and who listened in online and who will perhaps, some day, 

continue to see what we post online on this issue and just encourage you to keep paying attention. This 

has been a fabulous day and I thank every single one of you for your attention. Thanks again.

[Applause]

COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: Thank you!

[Presentation concluded at 3:30 p.m. ET].