Interview - The Constitutional Amendment That Could Change Money in Politics

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
As a mom with two young kids, summer planning isn't just about picking a place to go on vacation. It's figuring out camps, activities, travel, and making sure everything fits into the family budget, which is why Monarch is so key. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything. Accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending. Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off, just $50 with the promo code MoNews. You could see your entire financial picture in one place. So you could keep track of everything without constantly checking different accounts. And Monarch's AI weekly recap flags spending spikes and upcoming expenses, so there are fewer surprises. You can even ask Monarch's AI assistant questions like, how much did we spend on travel last summer? Or can we afford this vacation without touching our savings? It's helped take a lot of the mental load of managing family finances off my plate. So use code MoNews at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Corps half off at just $50. That is 50% off your first year at monarch.com with the code MoNews.

**Mosheh Oinounou** (1:08)
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the MoNews podcast. A special interview edition here for all of you. One of the biggest questions we get from the MoNews audience is simple. Why is there so much money in American politics and why can't anyone seem to do anything about it? It's something we're diving into today with Jeff Clements. He's the CEO of American Promise. They've been leading a nationwide effort to do something few people even attempt anymore, amend the US Constitution, and he's actually making pretty good progress on it because one of the few things that unites most Americans, Republicans, Democrats, and independents is the belief there is way too much money in our politics. We're now talking about $20 billion election cycles. Yes, that is billion with a B. Billionaires writing nine figure checks in the hundreds of millions of dollars, super PACs, dark money, campaign spending that seems to have almost no limits. And yet every attempt to crack down on this seems to hit a wall, the Supreme Court. It's one of the rare cases where Congress might be able to do something if it wasn't for the way the Supreme Court is interpreting the First Amendment. Over the last few decades, the Supreme Court has opened up the floodgates with the assertion that giving money to candidates and spending money on politics is the equivalent of free speech. So today we trace the Supreme Court cases that transformed campaign finance, that Citizens United case from a few years ago. Why the US has become such an outlier here when it comes to democracies around the world? And yes, is it realistic to change the Constitution? We've only done it a couple dozen times in 250 years. So whether you think money is corrupting politics or believe that spending money is protected free speech, this conversation gets to one of the biggest questions facing American democracy.
Who should decide the rules of our elections and the money that goes into them, the courts or the American people? Here's my conversation with the CEO of American Promise, Jeff Clements.
Jeff, it is great to be chatting with you.

**Jeff Clements** (2:58)
Great to be with you, Mosheh. Thanks.

**Mosheh Oinounou** (3:00)
So you've been working on this issue for about a decade now in American Promise. I want to start with a big picture here and effectively lay out what the deal is right now with money in our politics, how we got here, and then how we can potentially fix this, something you're working on. But what strikes me, Jeff, is that this is one of those issues, and there's a few of them in America, where the vast majority of Americans agree, regardless of political affiliation, two thirds of Republicans, two thirds of Democrats are frustrated and concerned about the amount of money in our politics. And yet the situation feels like it's getting worse. How can that be possible on an issue where the majority of Americans agree on something?

**Jeff Clements** (3:40)
Well, it's possible because the reason we can't fix it is because the Supreme Court won't let us. That's the bottom line. So basically, almost every American knows that money in politics is out of control. We got $20 billion elections. We got money coming in from outside the country. We've got dark money. We've got a $500 million Senate race coming in the state of Maine with almost no media market. Everybody has experienced this impact of concentrated power, essentially, of money in politics.
And so many Americans agree, again, without regard to party, why don't we fix it? Because every time Americans try, and we do try, scores of state and federal laws that would have limited money in politics are struck down by the courts, the federal courts. And the reason is, the courts say, that spending money to influence the outcome of elections is protected freedom of speech under the First Amendment. So when we try to pass laws that say, hey, maybe one person shouldn't spend $300 million to influence the outcome of an election.