Democracy & Destiny EP 6 with CREW’s Robert Maguire

[00:00:00] This is Democracy and Destiny with Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, I have the per curiam opinion and judgment to announce on behalf of the court in Buckley against Valeo. We have a cancer within close to the presidency that's growing. In case 0 8 2 0 5, Citizens United versus the FEC, Justice Kennedy has the opinion of the court. The First Amendment's core purpose is to foster a vibrant political system full of robust discussion and debate. There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders with fear for our democracy. I, along with Justices Kagan and Jackson dissent.

[00:00:53] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: Welcome to the show.

I'm Ciara Torres-Spelliscy I'm a law professor in Florida at Stetson Law [00:01:00] School, and I'm a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. I work on the intersection of election law and corporate law. This show was inspired by my third book, which is entitled Corporatocracy, How to Protect Democracy From Dark Money and Corrupt Politicians, published by NYU Press on Election Day 2024. I realize in today's busy world, reading a 300-page book is not on everyone's to-do list. But even as a law professor, I have time to listen to radio shows and podcasts when I'm commuting to campus or walking my dog. So here we are. This is “Democracy and Destiny.”

Today's episode is about campaign finance, especially surrounding January 6th, and those members of Congress who voted to not certify the winner of the 2020 presidential election. I will be joined in a few minutes [00:02:00] with my guest, Robert Maguire, from CREW who will talk about money and politics, especially at the federal level with a focus on the so-called Sedition caucus.

But first, let's start with Pay to Play Today.

The term pay to play comes from the radio payola scandals from the 1950s and 1960s, record companies would pay radio stations and DJs to play their music. Hence, it was literally pay to play. Today the phrase pay to play is shorthand for all kinds of political corruption, especially when government contractors or others with business pending in front of the government, pay bribes to a public official to get a private benefit, like a lucrative, no bid contract [00:03:00] or approval of a corporate merger.

One of the things I learned while writing my book Corporatocracy is that political corruption is prosecuted frequently. But the media just doesn't report on it as often as they report on things like celebrity news. That leaves the misimpression with the public, that corrupt politicians or shady government contractors are getting away with crimes all the time.

So I swore to myself of if I ever had a news generating platform that I would highlight that political corruption can be met with serious legal consequences, including fines and jail time. So our example of Pay to play today is from the federal DOJ. I'm gonna call this one “The Tale of the Illegal Super Bowl Tickets.”

According to the Department of Justice in 2025, a defense contractor pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme involving $16 million in [00:04:00] small business government contracts. Philip Flores, the owner, president and chief Executive of Intellipeak Solutions, Inc. A former defense contractor based out of Fredericksburg, Virginia, pleaded guilty in federal court.

Admitting that he participated in a bribery scheme with former Naval Information Warfare Center employee James Soriano. According to his plea agreement, Flores gave various things of value to Soriano, including expensive meals at restaurants in San Diego and Washington DC field level tickets and parking passes to game five of a World Series in Los Angeles, and tickets to the NFL's Super Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia.

The cost of the tickets to these premier sporting events totaled over thousand dollars. In return, Soriano used his position as a contracting officer's [00:05:00] representative at the Naval Information Warfare Center to ensure that Intellipeak was awarded numerous no-bid contracts. Soriano. Secured the contracts by falsifying technical evaluations, providing high ratings to Intellipeak, to do the contracted work and approving Intellipeak 's invoices on the awarded contracts.

Despite knowing that Intellipeak was not doing the work, Flores is scheduled to appear before US District Judge Robinson for sentencing on June 13th, 2025.

Our next segment is Corruption Junction. I've been writing about money and politics for two decades, and I was inspired to write my book Corporatocracy because of the events at January 6th at the US Capitol. [00:06:00] One of the ways to think about this book is. It is the Supreme Court's horrible decision in Citizens United meets the horrifying events on January 6th, so that we are literally on the same page.

Let me read a short excerpt from Corporatocracy. [Reading from Chapter 8 of Corporatocracy]

Now we get to the heart of the matter, which is the problem of money and politics. My guest, Robert Maguire, writes and researches about campaign finance. He is research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, better known as CREW. Robert has been [00:15:00] published in Time Magazine, Business Insider and Salon, among other outlets. When I think of people who have encyclopedic knowledge of campaign finance data, you are on the top of a very short list. So I am so glad to have you here today to speak about the state of American democracy. Welcome to this portion of the show, which is called Corruption Junction.

[00:15:25] Robert Maguire: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you so much for the kind words.

[00:15:29] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: So I think we first crossed paths when you were at the Center for Responsive Politics, better known as Open Secrets, and I was on the board of the National Institute on Money and State Politics, better known as Follow the Money.

[00:15:42] Robert Maguire: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:42] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: For our audience who may not know, what is Open Secrets?

[00:15:46] Robert Maguire: Open Secrets is sort of the premier, money and politics, data clearing house in the country.

They were the Center for Responsive Politics, but they were very much known for their site opensecrets.org. It's basically [00:16:00] where you go to learn about anything that has to do with money and politics. Their aim is. To take lobbying data, campaign finance data, even all of the facets of campaign finance data, so expenditures, dark money, information, super pacs, also personal financial disclosures filed by members of Congress and executive branch people. Anything that they can get their hands on and clean it up. Make it, available to the public in a way that is as digestible as possible. During my time in grad school, I happened to read a book called So Damn Much Money by Robert Kaiser.

There's a history of money in politics in the United States, and I was just floored by it because. I was in grad school learning about all of these different rubrics for decision making and the way that policy works, and none of what I was learning was what was in this book about the [00:17:00] different ways that domestic interests use money.

To influence outcomes in policy debates. And so I looked in the bibliography and I kept seeing the Center for Responsive Politics cited. And so once I graduated, I sought them out and I got a job there. And within about a year of starting at Open Secrets,, because it was literally the first year after Citizens United had come down. People were talking about dark money and writing about dark money, but nobody seemed to know how to track it. And just by chance, one day I read an article that referenced tax returns that nonprofits have to file. And they were specifically referencing a group that I knew that we were tracking as a dark money group.

And so I just started obsessively going through. Any of these filings I could [00:18:00] find and learning about when they're filed and how they're filed and all of this. And I, I also learned that there was no data produced from them. And so I started manually inputting information from these tax documents for years.

And this basically became Open Secrets Dark Money Project. Though, we were able to show how the money flows through these networks and into political elections.

[00:18:25] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: That's so wild that, a single book could change your life's trajectory. I feel like I have a similar experience with the book, "Who Will Tell the People?"

[00:18:35] Robert Maguire: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:36] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: When I was a staffer for Senator Durbin between college and law school, he actually had his staff read that book and…

[00:18:46] Robert Maguire: Oh wow.

[00:18:47] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: That was quite the eyeopener, in terms of money and politics and lobbying the way that Capitol Hill really works. After I graduated from law [00:19:00] school, I realized, wow, I have a crippling amount of student debt. I need a real job. I decided to start at a white shoe law firm called Arnold and Porter, and I remember talking to my dad, who was a very much a realist. He sort of laughed at me and said, Ciara, that is not going to be a good fit for you. My father could not have been more. Right. It was a square peg, round hole.

In terms of me and big law though, I have to give Arnold & Porter credit where credit is due. They do an enormous amount of pro bono work. The great pro bono thing that they did is they had us do election protection.

[00:19:47] Robert Maguire: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:49] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: That experience really made me into an election lawyer. 'cause I was taking calls from the Midwest and it was four years after [00:20:00] Bush versus Gore.

So the country and election administrators had four years to fix some of the problems that had been identified in the 2000 election. So Election Eve, it was normal calls from voters, like, how do I find my polling place? What kind of ID do I need? Things like that. The calls that we got on election day blew my mind.

So we get, again, this is from the Midwest of America. My polling place is closed. My polling place has moved. My polling place doesn't have ballots. My polling place doesn't have pens or pencils.

[00:20:36] Robert Maguire: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:36] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: My polling place, doesn't have functioning voting machines. It blew my mind and…

[00:20:43] Robert Maguire: Right,

[00:20:43] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: and that is part of how I decided, okay. I don't like corporate law that much anyway. Right after that, I joined the Brennan Center and the opening that they had was in their campaign finance department. So you are now a [00:21:00] CREW, also working on money in politics. I see you're a glutton for punishment just like me. So could you tell our audience what is CREW?

[00:21:09] Robert Maguire: CREW. We are in some ways in Open Secrets with lawyers. CREW stands for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Our mission is to fight for an ethical, accountable, and open government. And to do that we use aggressive legal actions, in-depth investigations, and innovative policy and reform work to achieve.

This vision of an ethical, accountable, and open government. We do a lot of similar stuff to open secrets in the sense that we are a part of that mandate is transparency. We are looking into. Political money, dark money. We are writing about the ways that people are trying to get around rules of disclosure, but also self-dealing and things like that.

We're also taking [00:22:00] action. We are filing FOIAs, um, freedom of information requests. We, uh, when we don't get the information that we feel that we should be getting, we sue to get it. We file dark money complaints and long term litigation. Related to that, we have forced several, uh, dark money groups like Americans for job security.

To ultimately disclose their donors. Unfortunately, that ends up being, multiple cases that take years. And so in that case, it came down in 2019 and the spending that we were able to get in the donors that we were able to get was from, I believe the 2010 cycle. But you know, better late than ever.

More recently for reasons that will probably be apparent, we have been very active in the democracy space. We brought a 14th amendment case in New Mexico against a county commissioner named Sequoia [00:23:00] Griffin. Griffin had been at January 6th, and we were able to use section three of the 14th amendment to show that one.

January 6th was an insurrection and Griffin for his role in that was no longer constitutionally allowed to hold public office. And then we took that and brought the 14th Amendment case against Donald Trump. We ended up winning in the Colorado Supreme Court. And then unfortunately the US Supreme Court took an out, essentially on a technicality, but notably did not overturn any of the precedent.

Set by the Colorado Supreme Court that, Donald Trump was ineligible, and that January 6th was an insurrection. And increasingly, we are focused on this question of democracy and those who are trying to erode democracy in this country.

[00:23:53] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: I've been on the Board of CREW for a couple of years now, and what attracted me to CREW's [00:24:00] Board was groundbreaking constitutional litigation, including over the meaning of the emoluments clauses.

I think the country is going to go through another round of that because it was just unresolved by the courts. I think this was a real missed opportunity. For even justices on the Supreme Court to clarify what do the two Emoluments Clauses mean? And if we had clarified that in Trump 1.0, maybe we wouldn't have to re-litigate this in Trump 2.0.

But I think we're going to exactly, probably have to have another round of this depending on what happens to the. Plane from Qatar. Do you have a favorite, FOIA request where you actually got some information out of the government?

[00:24:47] Robert Maguire: Oh, wow. There one that really strikes me was, January 6th FOIA related to the recordings of the Park Police Radio who were out on the [00:25:00] Mall.

As President Trump was holding the rally that came before the attack on the Capitol, and they were already starting to identify the fact that people were armed in the crowd, that people were unruly in the crowd, they were being riled up. And this was information, if I remember correctly, that the January 6th committee itself didn't have.

And so when we were able to marshal that information, it ended up informing. The January 6th committee and helping them set the stage and the context in which Trump was giving this speech, because from the January 6th committee, of course, we know that they were internally telling the president that people were armed and that they were being turned away at the metal detectors to come into his rally.

But we were also able to show that people outside in, in the mall were armed and they were clearly sort of gunning for a [00:26:00] fight. No pun intended.

[00:26:01] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: When I'm talking about dark money, I often tell audiences that in order to get to the bottom of the sources of dark money, you need litigation or a leak. Sometimes you get lucky and there are both. What comes to mind is the experience of Sam Bankman Fried, who was

[00:26:19] Robert Maguire: mm-hmm

[00:26:19] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: accused by DOJ of making a hundred million dollars in illegal corporate contributions. We never really got closure on that because DOJ dropped that part of the case. So that's the litigation, which without that litigation, I'm not sure we would've ever found out.

And then we have the leak. And Sam Bankman Fried's leaker was Sam Bankman Fried, which is just wild. While he was under indictment for, mostly securities fraud, which is what he gets convicted for, he starts talking to journalists which is, it's a choice.[00:27:00]

[00:27:00] Robert Maguire: Right?

[00:27:01] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: And one of the things he said is that he gave to Democrats on the record [and] that he gave to Republicans dark, and I think that was another clue that there was dark money coming out of his company FTX. Why is dark money a problem in our democracy?

[00:27:21] Robert Maguire: Well, so the main thing is using nonprofits to shield the identity of corporate and individual donors. Essentially, robs the public of their ability to hold elected officials accountable, or I shouldn't even say elected officials, is essentially, in some instances, just public officials accountable.

And that's because a core lesson to learn about dark money is that dark money is called dark money because it's anonymous to the public. It's not anonymous to the people who are benefiting from it. And so. If you are running for Congress and [00:28:00] you get the backing of one of these massive dark money groups, they are gonna make sure you know who is helping you so that when you get into office you know who to call.

Whose interests take precedent, not only who you want to fund you in the future, but also who has the financial firepower. To come after you later if you don't do what they want you to do. And so we as the public, are locked out of that interplay so that when somebody does come into office and say they were funded by somebody who wants to, you know, build data centers in a certain state or drill on public lands or any number of things that different industries want.

If they come into office and start proposing bills that would benefit those industries and individuals who help them [00:29:00] get into office, we have very little ability to actually hold them accountable for essentially just doing the bidding of. They're our biggest donors. And so that's fundamentally the problem from a dim, democratic, perspective when it comes to dark money.

And I would say, you know, it's important to remember because Citizens United was such an important, turning point in this establishment of dark money and big money in elections in general. Is that. The Supreme Court seemed to recognize this. The decision itself was a five four decision, but there was an eight one concurrence that essentially said, disclosure is still a cornerstone of our campaign finance system. And in part the reason that we can decide the way that we have is that the public will know where all of this money is coming from. And that has not been the case at all. Yes. A big number of these entities disclose their donors, [00:30:00] but a massive influx of money has come from entities that don't disclose their donors.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: One of the things that I've found after two decades of this is that when you are following the money, it crosscuts all sorts of other issues. So in the course of looking at money in politics, I've learned about Chevron's exploding refinery in Richmond, California. The dangers of fracking chemicals and the names of bars where Florida politicians get into fist fights.

So what is the, yeah, what is the strangest money in politics story that you have come across?

Robert Maguire: So there have been a number of, you know, there's things that are sort of trivial but fun. Like, you know, the more you learn about. Disclaimer rules. For example, you see that things like skywriting are exempted from disclaimers because if you skywrite a political message, it's not easy to say, then skyr [00:31:00] paid for by.

It's really hard to top some of the more recent campaign finance scandals. You know, George Santos wasn't entirely a campaign finance scandal. His sort of outrageous fabrications. About his role in the Spider-Man musical or you know, his mother's death in nine 11. That didn't happen. Those kinds of things.

Got a lot of attention. It. He, a part of his fabrications were also loans that weren't real donors. That weren't real. His committee treasurer ended up pleading guilty to conspiracy on bogus loans and fake donors, and Santos himself is also in prison. Now,

[00:31:47] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: would you say that political corruption is a bipartisan problem?

[00:31:52] Robert Maguire: It absolutely is. Over the years we have seen, Democrats and Republicans, indicted, found [00:32:00] guilty, and even in particular in recent years. You had a Senator Bob Menendez, from New Jersey again, another colorful campaign finance crime where the details include. Gold bars stashed away, cash hidden in clothing and his, using his power to benefit donors who were tied to countries like Egypt and Qatar. You have, John Edwards, with his million dollar secret payments to cover up an affair. You have Jesse Jackson Jr. Using hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds for personal use. William Jefferson and his cash in the freezer all the way back and certainly well before this to Bill Clinton and the Lincoln bedroom.

And on the right you have, Representative Fortenberry getting illegal foreign contributions from a Nigerian billionaire. [00:33:00] Duncan Hunter and his wife using hundreds of thousands of dollars from his campaign committees to maintain their lifestyle while they were deeply in debt. I mentioned George Santos and obviously Trump himself.

So you see this on both sides.

[00:33:18] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: Yeah. My, my favorite detail from Duncan Hunter was his rabbit named Eggbert. And one of the personal uses of campaign funds was flying Eggbert the Rabbit on a family vacation.

[00:33:33] Robert Maguire: Yep. I think there were actually two rabbits. I think that one was Eggbert and one was Cadbury, if I remember correctly.

[00:33:39] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: That is an awesome extra detail. Let's turn to January 6th, 2021. What is the Sedition Caucus?

[00:33:49] Robert Maguire: So the Sedition Caucus is the term we use to refer to, primarily to the 147 members of Congress who voted not to certify the 2020 election, [00:34:00] basically giving credence to the idea that the election had been stolen.

[00:34:04] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: And in some ways, the Sedition Caucus story did not end in 2021, this year in 2025. Approximately 156 members of Congress are election deniers and then an additional 23 election deniers hold statewide office according to state's United action. So how is the Sedition Caucus story a money and politics story for us in particular?

[00:34:30] Robert Maguire: One thing that we noted was right after January 6th, hundreds of companies started making promises not to give. Two members of Congress who voted not to certify the election. Some of them said, we're done giving contributions indefinitely to anyone because we don't wanna single out a particular party.

Some specifically said the 147 members who voted not to certify, in a few instances, companies [00:35:00] even shut down their packs, which is incredibly commendable. But what. Anyone who has tracked campaign finance over the years knows, or just corporate accountability over the years knows is that corporations like to make these statements and then very quietly undermine them weeks or months later.

And so as we saw these companies making these statements, we thought we need to make sure that we're tracking this. So we took down all of the companies that made these commitments. We started tracking their contributions to these 147 members. And the reason I can think of two or three reasons why this is really important and also illustrative of the way that our campaign finance system works.

The first is, like I said, we've seen companies make these statements for PR purposes and then not follow through, we saw the same for their racial justice. [00:36:00] Statements by corporations. After the George Floyd murder, we have seen this in the abortion fights where companies will put out these big statements, but they then will fund both state and federal politicians who are doing the most to undermine access to abortion care.

And so there, there was that aspect of it that we wanted to use this as an opportunity to illustrate. Also, we wanted to recognize the fact that in our current system, in many ways, corporations hold all the power. So if they are going to make these commitments, they should stick to them because if corporations did stick with this and they stop funding people who are eroding and undermining democracy, then it has a real chance of actually doing something.

Because it would cut off, some of the members of the Sedition [00:37:00] caucus got upwards of 75 or 80% of their money in terms of their campaign money and leadership PAC money from corporate donors. Obviously this corporate PACs, they're not giving directly from their treasury, but corporate PAC contributions.

And so that's a really powerful accountability measure. And then lastly, it's also a recognition that corporations benefit greatly from the stability that is provided by rule of law and democracy, that we wanted to illustrate the fact that corporations were forsaking their long-term interests in stability that they use to plan for the future for the short-term.

Gain of access to current sitting members of Congress. So I know it's a moving target because political money keeps [00:38:00] on flowing in every day. But roughly how much corporate money has gone to the Sedition Caucus since January 6th? By our account it, we stand at about $164 million right now, illustrating just the hard money that is going to these members who are.

Who are and have been undermining democracy.

[00:38:23] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: What are some of the big trade associations who have been funding the Sedition Caucus?

[00:38:30] Robert Maguire: Well, there are many trade associations who have been giving to these members, and it's important to note these trade associations are made up of dues paying corporate members, but the PACs that have given the most.

That are affiliated with trade associations are, for example, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors, the National Association of Auto Dealers, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, and the National Association of Home [00:39:00] Builders.

[00:39:01] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: And then what individual corporations are some of the biggest funders of the Sedition Caucus?

[00:39:07] Robert Maguire: A lot of these are household names. One of the biggest, Toyota has been one of the biggest Home Depot, Boeing. Defense contractors like to refer to themselves as the arsenal of democracy, but you know, both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are towards the top of the list. They're the ones building that arsenal of democracy.

And at the very top of the list is Koch Industries. Koch Industry stands at $2.2 million while AT&T stands at $1.5 million by our account.

[00:39:38] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: And then what are the names of a few companies that actually kept their pledge and didn't fund the Sedition Caucus there too?

[00:39:45] Robert Maguire: You have some household names. Nike stuck to their commitment.

Whirlpool Lift, the Rideshare Company General Mills. Airbnb. Unfortunately, there's only a handful of those companies out of the more than [00:40:00] 200 that we counted, making commitments. But still, we celebrate the fact that these companies do exist. They do appear to be staking with the commitment they made.

[00:40:11] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: Who were some of the biggest political spenders in the 2024 federal election?

[00:40:17] Robert Maguire: Well, here I would. First point out the fact that it's impossible to talk about this without talking about the fact that there was a lot of dark money in the 2024 elections. So. To some extent, the short answer is we don't know.

Brennan put out a report. My, my former colleague at Open Secrets, Anna Massoglia, wrote a report showing that 1.9 billion in dark money flooded into the 2024 election. And what we're seeing more and more is the Super PACs that by definition, have to disclose their donors. They are also being funded by large amounts of dark monies.

For example, future forward [00:41:00] USA, which was a large super Pac supporting Kamala Harris, it raised half a billion dollars, which is in and of itself a massive amount of money. And nearly half of that came from, a 5 0 1 C four called future forward USA action and on the conservative side. The second largest donor to President Trump's main super Pac was, it itself a dark money group as well.

And all there was about, there were hundreds of millions of do of dollars given to Super PACs from dark money groups. The largest donors, won't be really much of a surprise to people because. Elon Musk by far tops that list. He gave a staggering $290 million in 2024, but you also had, an heir to the Mellon Fortune, Timothy Mellon giving [00:42:00] nearly $200 million.

But you also have, for example, Dustin Moscowitz on the left, Michael Bloomberg, who is, technically an independent but tends to fund. Left-leaning groups these days. So it is really a staggering amount of money that these people are giving, which to them is the equivalent of, buying a pizza or something like that.

[00:42:24] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: So what do you do to keep sane in these trying times?

[00:42:28] Robert Maguire: Wow, that is a good question. I am always trying to preach and practice. That the work that we do is all it is, for lack of a better term, mental or brain work. You cannot do this work if you are not taking care of yourself mentally.

We are not digging trenches or laying bricks or anything like that where you can work until physical exertion. We are doing a lot of thinking. We are doing a lot of investigating and [00:43:00] so. I love playing guitar. I try to do that a lot. I am a big fan of woodworking as well, and so I try to spend time out in my workshop building things, but also just art and culture, good TV shows that pull you away from things.

We are blessed in DC to have dozens and dozens of. Free museums that we can go to to see some of the best art and culture in the world. I also go to concerts as much as I possibly can, and it truly is. Sometimes you feel like you need to buckle down and do this 24 7, but it's just not possible. And so sometimes you have to force yourself to step away and remind yourself that there are things about.

Living in life that are actually the things that we're fighting for, and that you're still allowed to appreciate them when things are [00:44:00] bad. What do you hope the average American voter would do with campaign finance information? One of the first things that I want people to understand is that poll after poll, in the 15 years since Citizens United has shown that Americans across the political spectrum.

Are very angry about the influence of big money, about the influence of anonymous money. And so I want people to understand that this is not a partisan issue, that there is a way to build alliances across political views and that they are not alone. And then second, as people start to understand the aspects of this issue.

They need to be seeing if their representatives support reform because again, this is not a partisan issue. And if they don't, they need to be calling. They need to be hounding [00:45:00] their members of Congress to, make it clear to them that this system needs to be reformed and they need to understand. Look at the literature that we have.

Look at the literature that Open Secrets has, Campaign Legal Center. In this space, understand the ways that members of Congress respond to these calls with things like saying, regulating campaign finance is an affront to First Amendment free speech issues. It's not, it's not.

They need to know how to respond to these things so that at town halls and other places, people, can push back on those members and they don't get to escape. Criticism and accountability by trying to hide behind the First Amendment and things like that. And where can the audience find your work?

We are, at citizens for ethics.org and we also have socials on anywhere that you use socials. So Blue [00:46:00] Sky, x, Instagram, wherever you are, we are, and we are sharing the work that we're doing and. Other information about the issues surrounding campaign finance and other democracy issues.

[00:46:12] Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: Well, I love nerding out with you on the issue of money in politics. Thank you so much for being here today.

[00:46:17] Robert Maguire: Sure thing. Happy to do it.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: As someone who spends her time focused on political corruption, it's easy to end up with a dim view of humanity and to get dispirited about everything. But one of the things that has kept me happy and sane over the past eight years is my 100 pound chocolate Labradoodle. So with your indulgence and to lighten the mood just a little, let me share my life motto with you, which is Loves dogs hates corruption.

One of the great things about living in Florida is there's a wide range of flora and fauna that I get to see when I walk [00:47:00] my dog, or just on my daily commute. I've seen armadillos and snakes and possums, and that's all just in my backyard. And this is not a story about an alligator. I've lived in Florida for over a dozen years and I've never seen an alligator in the wild.

My son told me he once saw an alligator outside of his elementary school, but fortunately for all involved there was a high fence between the school and the alligator outside. One of the parks near our house has a protected habitat for tortoise nests. So when my Labradoodle is walking around the park, we often encounter tortoises.

Most of them are small, maybe smaller than a size of a football, but there is one big boy of a tortoise who is about the size of two large watermelons. My Labradoodle usually has the same reaction when we encounter a [00:48:00] tortoise. The tortoise is, much more aware than my dog is. And when a tortoise sees my dog approaching, he will literally hide inside of his shell, and then my dog will inevitably go over to investigate this thing that looks like a rock on our walking path.

When the tortoise tires of this investigation, the tortoise will stick out its limbs and its head and will start to walk away. And this is when my very brave Labradoodle jumps back. 10 feet bravely runs away. No animals were harmed during this anecdote.

Now [00:49:00] we get to our final segment. The fixes in many of the problems with our democracy seem unfixable, but that is not true. These problems were created by human beings, and they can be solved by human beings. We can improve laws and practices at the local, state, and federal level. And the first step is realizing that these are not unsolvable problems.

We can fix it. One of the topics we discussed today was dark money in federal elections. Dark money is the result of two systems interacting. The campaign finance system, which values transparency and the nonprofit tax system, which values anonymity when opaque nonprofits like 5 0 1 c fours, which are social welfare organizations, or 5 0 1 C six s, which are trade associations, are used to fund political campaigns or political ads.

Then that robs the voting public [00:50:00] of needed transparency. Since we were talking about corporate money and politics today, let me focus on a corporate law. Fix. Corporations are created by state law in the us. Many corporations are incorporated in Delaware because Delaware has robust corporate laws, and a judiciary that is expert in corporate law matters.

So one thing that could solve some of the corporate dark money problem is if Delaware, California, and New York, which is where many corporations are incorporated, change their corporate laws to require transparency of corporate money and politics. This wouldn't fix everything because corporations can move to a different location and reincorporate in another state.

But there is a certain amount of inertia around corporate charters. If you are incorporated in Delaware, you're likely to stay in Delaware. Now, if this sounds like an impossible reform, I would encourage you to look up [00:51:00] benefit corporations, which are permitted under Delaware's corporate law, answering increased demand for socially responsible enterprises in.

2013 Delaware amended its General Corporation law to allow entrepreneurs to incorporate a new form of entity known as the Public Benefit Corporation. Before this change in Delaware corporate law, many would have predicted that this improvement to allow for socially responsible business corporations would've been impossible, but it was not.

It happened. Changing state corporate laws is one way to chip away at the dark money problem in our elections. Just remember that democracy is worth defending and a little truth goes a long way.

Thank you to my guests for joining me today. This is a production of Ciara Torres-Spelliscy who can be found on social media as ProfCiara, [00:52:00] P-R-O-F-C-I-A-R-A. The episode was mixed by WBAI. Our logo is by entire world. Theme Music was composed and performed by Matt Boehler. This show is based on the book Corporatocracy, published by NYU Press. This has been Democracy and Destiny with Ciara Torres-Spelliscy.

You can listen to the full episode here: https://soundcloud.com/profciara/democracy-and-destiny-ep-6

Or here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/democracy-and-destiny-ep-6-with-crews-robert-maguire/id1818631157?i=1000719203965