In this episode of The Stakes, host Brad Rourke talks with Kettering Senior Fellow Neal Katyal and Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig on the eve of their First Circuit argument in Dinner Table Action v. Schneider. They discuss their defense of a Maine law—passed by nearly 75 percent of voters—that caps contributions to super PACs at $5,000. They argue that Citizens United v. FEC is among the most misunderstood Supreme Court decisions in American history: it never authorized unlimited super PAC contributions. That came from SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a lower court ruling they say rests on a logical error, one that turned super PACs into cutouts for wealthy donors to buy influence—$86 million in spending in 2010, $6.9 billion now. Katyal asks, “If Maine can’t act to stop this massive sea change of money into politics, creating the appearance and reality of corruption, who can and when?”
Lessig also lays out an argument aimed at the court’s conservative justices, arguing that the Framers were most concerned with institutional corruption and citing James Madison’s promise of a government “dependent on the people” and “not the rich more than the poor.”