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| An Unmuted Debate: Money In Politics
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| With Ilya Shapiro (Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute), Lawrence Lessig (Roy L. Furman Professor of Law, Harvard Law School). |
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Oct 06 (Tue) @ 06:30 PM
$30
| | Venue, To Be Announced
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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THOUGHT GALLERY (thoughtgallery.org)
DOORS OPEN AT 6:30, SHOW STARTS AT 7
Money in Politics, baby!
Everyone agrees money runs American politics. The disagreement is whether that's a feature or a disease.
In 2010, Citizens United v. FEC held that the government can't ban corporations, unions, or nonprofits from spending money on political speech. The First Amendment, the Court said, doesn't get weaker because the speaker is an organization rather than a person. Fifteen years later, it remains one of the most loved & most loathed decisions in modern constitutional law.
For its defenders, the case is a straightforward win for free speech. Political speech is the most protected speech there is, & spending money to spread a message is part of how speech actually reaches people. Let the government decide who's allowed to spend on politics, the argument goes, & you've handed incumbents a tool to silence their critics. The answer to speech you dislike is more speech, not a federal permission slip.
For its critics, the case broke American democracy. It opened the floodgates to super PACs & unlimited outside money, & turned elections into auctions where a few hundred families & corporations drown out everyone else. When a sliver of the wealthiest Americans funds the campaigns, candidates listen to them, not to you. That isn't free speech, the argument goes. It's legalized corruption wearing the First Amendment as a costume.
One question every voter feels in a democracy that increasingly answers to its donors.
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow & director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute & has filed more than 500 Supreme Court amicus briefs over his career. The author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America's Elites & Supreme Disorder, he's one of the country's most prominent free-speech-first voices on constitutional law. If you want the case that Citizens United got the First Amendment exactly right, he's your guy.
Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law & Leadership at Harvard Law School & the founder of Equal Citizens. A former Scalia & Posner clerk who turned from copyright law to the fight against money in politics, he wrote Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress & ran a 2016 presidential campaign built entirely around the issue. He has testified before the Senate against Citizens United & the rise of super PACs, & is currently litigating to push the Court to revisit it. If you want the case that Citizens United corrupted American democracy, he's the person to ask.
UNMUTED is a discussion forum for the politically curious. Humor. Tension. Social. Open-minded is the name of the game. Join your people.
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