| From | Michael Waldman, Brennan Center for Justice <[email protected]> |
| Subject | The Briefing: A warning from RFK Sr. — about RFK Jr. |
| Date | April 2, 2024 8:55 PM |
Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
The late senator’s prediction about self-financiers looks increasingly prescient
[link removed]
“We are in danger of creating a situation in which our candidates must be chosen from among the rich, the famous, or those willing to be beholden to others.” So warned
[link removed]
Robert F. Kennedy — the senator, not his son who is running for president and just showed the prescience of that long-ago warning.
Last week RFK Jr. named his vice presidential running mate. Nicole Shanahan is an unknown lawyer and activist and . . . oh, let’s be honest. She is a checkbook. Shanahan is the ex-wife of Google founder Sergey Brin. Now that she is on the ticket, she can “self-finance” Kennedy’s campaign with no limits at all. “I’m Feeling Lucky” indeed.
Candidates can spend unlimited funds thanks only to an exception in campaign law gouged out by the Supreme Court in the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo. Spending cannot be capped, the justices ruled, only contributions can, and then only to stop corruption. Since you can’t bribe yourself, we now have unlimited spending by candidates. Self-regarding self-funders often stumble: as my colleague Ian Vandewalker points out
[link removed]
, of the 44 people who spent more than $1 million on themselves in the 2022 midterm, only 6 won. Even so, the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket feels less like strategy than gaslighting.
This is all just the most recent example of how the campaign finance system has descended into a garish mess. Last month Donald Trump installed
[link removed]
his daughter-in-law as Republican National Committee co-chair in the hope that she will use party funds to pay his criminal lawyers’ fees. (At least when Trump hawks “God Bless the USA” Bibles, he gets the money directly. Rev. Jim Wallis has written that this may earn Trump eternal damnation
[link removed]
, but it won’t get him a trip to the Federal Election Commission.)
Amid the grifting, last week’s Radio City Music Hall event
[link removed]
featuring Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton seemed positively quaint. The $250 tickets for this “grassroots fundraiser,” as it was billed, sold out fast — but if you wanted a photo with the big guys, that would set you back $500,000.
Since 1996, campaign spending appears to be growing at more than double the rate of inflation — possibly much faster depending on the upcoming campaign. Predictions for 2024 range from $10 billion to a staggering $16 billion. Who knows what scandals, boondoggles, tax loopholes, and more will be buried in that pile of cash? Who knows how many women, young people, and candidates of color choose to sit it out because of this frenzy?
The role of big money in politics is a huge issue, one of the biggest, as it has been throughout American history. Our dystopian system combines endless, grueling fundraising by candidates with vast sums spent by special interests. Small-donor giving is growing, but not nearly as fast as the big money coming from a handful of wealthy donors. Anger about this is nearly universal among citizens. But voters are cynical. They doubt much can be done and are rightly skeptical that politicians will bite the hands that fund them. And given racially motivated voting restrictions, flagrant gerrymandering, the dramatic efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and more, it can be easy to overlook the magnitude of this issue. Only action can cure cynicism.
The Supreme Court made this mess possible. It goes back well before Citizens United. In fact, Buckley v. Valeo, that half-century-old decision that empowered unlimited candidate financing, needs to be reversed. We’ve supported a constitutional amendment to do just that, so we can once again have reasonable regulation of money in politics.
There can be action in the states, too. As we’ve written here before, New York State is now implementing the most significant reform
[link removed]
nationwide since Citizens United. The state will now have a small donor public financing system that will provide matching funds for small gifts within a candidate’s district. There should be a federal public financing system, too. In fact, for several decades after Watergate, presidential candidates ran using public financing, and the system was far fairer and less corrupt than today.
Congress, which has stood by while our democracy drowns in cash, should act. It came achingly close to doing just that in 2022. The Freedom to Vote Act
[link removed]
would have ended “dark money,” the massive spending by undisclosed contributors in election campaigns, and pushed the impotent Federal Election Commission to enforce the campaign finance laws that already exist. The bill passed the House, President Biden was eager to sign it, and it had a majority of the Senate in support. Two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), while supporting the bill, would not change Senate rules so that it could pass with a majority. But now every Democratic Senate candidate has pledged to change the rules so democracy reform can pass. Depending on the outcome of the November elections, this bill could become H.R. 1 and S. 1. You will see a vigorous effort to pass it, quickly — and we at the Brennan Center will be part of that effort.
Robert F. Kennedy Sr. had it right. “The mounting cost of political elections is rapidly becoming intolerable for a democratic society, where the right to vote — and to be a candidate — is the ultimate political protection.”
Excessive Punishment
A new book released today, Excessive Punishment: How the Justice System Creates Mass Incarceration, explores why the U.S. criminal justice system is so punitive. Edited by Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center Justice Program, the book contains 38 essays that unpack the social and economic harms of mass incarceration and offer insight into how to make the system smaller, more effective, and more humane. Read more
[link removed]
Fixing the Census
Last week, the federal government revised the guidelines for the 2030 census in a big step toward making the count more accurate and equitable. In particular, the changes should enable the census to collect more complete data on race and ethnicity, such as by including a new Middle Eastern and North African category. Improving census data is critical to ensuring the fair allocation of political power and federal funding. And while these new guidelines are welcome, “the job’s not yet done,” Tom Wolf writes. READ MORE
[link removed]
New Rules on Artificial Intelligence
In addition to the census improvements, the White House also released new guidance last week on how federal agencies can use AI. The rules include protections for Americans’ rights, including much-needed checks against AI uses that could lead to racial profiling, wrongful arrests, and mass surveillance. “But the guidance gives agencies too much leeway to opt out of the safeguards,” says Faiza Patel. Read more
[link removed]
Crisis of Secrecy in the Courts
The U.S. Supreme Court is far from the only high court to lack transparency about its members’ financial interests and other entanglements. A new study by Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth reveals that most states shield critical information about their supreme court justices from the public, as disclosures are typically hard to access and short on relevant financial information. “If the public doesn’t know what types of gifts and free trips a judge has received during the year, or what investments they have, or where their spouse works, then we can’t be certain they’re truly unbiased no matter what cases come before them,” Roth writes in State Court Report. Read more
[link removed]
Wisconsin’s High-Stakes Primary Election
Two proposed constitutional amendments on Wisconsin’s primary ballot today could make it harder for the state to run elections. If approved by voters, the changes could leave election administration underfunded and understaffed, possibly leading to fewer polling places, longer wait times for casting and counting ballots, and confusion around the election process. “Despite their importance for elections in Wisconsin, these ballot initiatives are likely to be decided by a very small percentage of the population” due to projected low voter turnout, Erin Geiger Smith writes in State Court Report. READ MORE
[link removed]
Coming Up
VIRTUAL PREMIERE: Decoding the Trump Indictments
[link removed]
Tuesday, April 9, 3–4 p.m. ET
Former President Trump is facing four prosecutions: the January 6 and classified documents cases in federal court, the election interference case in Georgia, and the “hush money” case in New York. Join us for the virtual premiere of the recording of our recent in-person event explaining the cases, as Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann, coauthors of the new book The Trump Indictments
[link removed]
, discuss the extraordinary charging documents against the former president. Murray is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law Faculty and director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law. Weissmann, a professor of practice at NYU Law and a legal analyst for MSNBC, previously served as general counsel to the FBI and one of the senior prosecutors on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. RSVP today
[link removed]
VIRTUAL EVENT: Misdemeanors by the Numbers
[link removed]
Thursday, April 11, 3–4 p.m. ET
A decade of reforms has shrunk the sprawling misdemeanor system, but the prosecution of shoplifting, traffic violations, and other lesser offenses remains a burden on vulnerable communities and law enforcement resources, even as public concern over physical and social disorder in public spaces spurs calls for renewed enforcement. A new Brennan Center report
[link removed]
zooms in on New York City as a case study for how misdemeanor enforcement has changed in recent years, offering insights into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and reform initiatives. Join report author Josephine Hahn, the MacArthur Foundation’s Bria L. Gillum, and Michigan county sheriff Jerry Clayton for a virtual discussion about this under-examined part of our criminal justice system. RSVP today
[link removed]
Produced with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
VIRTUAL EVENT: The High Cost of Public Service
[link removed]
Tuesday, April 30, 3–4 p.m. ET
While abuse directed at federal officeholders grabs the headlines, a new Brennan Center report
[link removed]
reveals that intimidation aimed at state and local officials is distressingly common. These threats have serious repercussions for representative democracy, as officeholders report being less willing to work on contentious issues like reproductive rights and gun control and reluctant to continue serving. Additionally, intimidation is often targeted at groups already underrepresented in government, such as women and people of color. Join us for a virtual discussion of this alarming trend as well as recommendations to stem the abuse. RSVP today
[link removed]
Want to keep up with Brennan Center Live events? Subscribe to the events newsletter.
[link removed]
News
Alicia Bannon on the role of state constitutions in the fight over abortion rights // NEW YORK TIMES
[link removed]
Elizabeth Goitein on the dangers of the Insurrection Act // NPR
[link removed]
Michael Li on states using illegal voting maps // WASHINGTON POST
[link removed]
Sean Morales-Doyle on the myth of noncitizens voting // AXIOS
[link removed]
Daniel Weiner on AI-generated deepfakes // FIVETHIRTYEIGHT
[link removed]
Feedback on this newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
[link removed]
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
120 Broadway, Suite 1750 New York, NY 10271
646-292-8310
tel:646-292-8310
[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
Support Brennan Center
[link removed]
Want to change how you receive these emails or unsubscribe? Click here
[link removed]
to update your preferences.
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
“We are in danger of creating a situation in which our candidates must be chosen from among the rich, the famous, or those willing to be beholden to others.” So warned
[link removed]
Robert F. Kennedy — the senator, not his son who is running for president and just showed the prescience of that long-ago warning.
Last week RFK Jr. named his vice presidential running mate. Nicole Shanahan is an unknown lawyer and activist and . . . oh, let’s be honest. She is a checkbook. Shanahan is the ex-wife of Google founder Sergey Brin. Now that she is on the ticket, she can “self-finance” Kennedy’s campaign with no limits at all. “I’m Feeling Lucky” indeed.
Candidates can spend unlimited funds thanks only to an exception in campaign law gouged out by the Supreme Court in the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo. Spending cannot be capped, the justices ruled, only contributions can, and then only to stop corruption. Since you can’t bribe yourself, we now have unlimited spending by candidates. Self-regarding self-funders often stumble: as my colleague Ian Vandewalker points out
[link removed]
, of the 44 people who spent more than $1 million on themselves in the 2022 midterm, only 6 won. Even so, the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket feels less like strategy than gaslighting.
This is all just the most recent example of how the campaign finance system has descended into a garish mess. Last month Donald Trump installed
[link removed]
his daughter-in-law as Republican National Committee co-chair in the hope that she will use party funds to pay his criminal lawyers’ fees. (At least when Trump hawks “God Bless the USA” Bibles, he gets the money directly. Rev. Jim Wallis has written that this may earn Trump eternal damnation
[link removed]
, but it won’t get him a trip to the Federal Election Commission.)
Amid the grifting, last week’s Radio City Music Hall event
[link removed]
featuring Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton seemed positively quaint. The $250 tickets for this “grassroots fundraiser,” as it was billed, sold out fast — but if you wanted a photo with the big guys, that would set you back $500,000.
Since 1996, campaign spending appears to be growing at more than double the rate of inflation — possibly much faster depending on the upcoming campaign. Predictions for 2024 range from $10 billion to a staggering $16 billion. Who knows what scandals, boondoggles, tax loopholes, and more will be buried in that pile of cash? Who knows how many women, young people, and candidates of color choose to sit it out because of this frenzy?
The role of big money in politics is a huge issue, one of the biggest, as it has been throughout American history. Our dystopian system combines endless, grueling fundraising by candidates with vast sums spent by special interests. Small-donor giving is growing, but not nearly as fast as the big money coming from a handful of wealthy donors. Anger about this is nearly universal among citizens. But voters are cynical. They doubt much can be done and are rightly skeptical that politicians will bite the hands that fund them. And given racially motivated voting restrictions, flagrant gerrymandering, the dramatic efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and more, it can be easy to overlook the magnitude of this issue. Only action can cure cynicism.
The Supreme Court made this mess possible. It goes back well before Citizens United. In fact, Buckley v. Valeo, that half-century-old decision that empowered unlimited candidate financing, needs to be reversed. We’ve supported a constitutional amendment to do just that, so we can once again have reasonable regulation of money in politics.
There can be action in the states, too. As we’ve written here before, New York State is now implementing the most significant reform
[link removed]
nationwide since Citizens United. The state will now have a small donor public financing system that will provide matching funds for small gifts within a candidate’s district. There should be a federal public financing system, too. In fact, for several decades after Watergate, presidential candidates ran using public financing, and the system was far fairer and less corrupt than today.
Congress, which has stood by while our democracy drowns in cash, should act. It came achingly close to doing just that in 2022. The Freedom to Vote Act
[link removed]
would have ended “dark money,” the massive spending by undisclosed contributors in election campaigns, and pushed the impotent Federal Election Commission to enforce the campaign finance laws that already exist. The bill passed the House, President Biden was eager to sign it, and it had a majority of the Senate in support. Two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), while supporting the bill, would not change Senate rules so that it could pass with a majority. But now every Democratic Senate candidate has pledged to change the rules so democracy reform can pass. Depending on the outcome of the November elections, this bill could become H.R. 1 and S. 1. You will see a vigorous effort to pass it, quickly — and we at the Brennan Center will be part of that effort.
Robert F. Kennedy Sr. had it right. “The mounting cost of political elections is rapidly becoming intolerable for a democratic society, where the right to vote — and to be a candidate — is the ultimate political protection.”
Excessive Punishment
A new book released today, Excessive Punishment: How the Justice System Creates Mass Incarceration, explores why the U.S. criminal justice system is so punitive. Edited by Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center Justice Program, the book contains 38 essays that unpack the social and economic harms of mass incarceration and offer insight into how to make the system smaller, more effective, and more humane. Read more
[link removed]
Fixing the Census
Last week, the federal government revised the guidelines for the 2030 census in a big step toward making the count more accurate and equitable. In particular, the changes should enable the census to collect more complete data on race and ethnicity, such as by including a new Middle Eastern and North African category. Improving census data is critical to ensuring the fair allocation of political power and federal funding. And while these new guidelines are welcome, “the job’s not yet done,” Tom Wolf writes. READ MORE
[link removed]
New Rules on Artificial Intelligence
In addition to the census improvements, the White House also released new guidance last week on how federal agencies can use AI. The rules include protections for Americans’ rights, including much-needed checks against AI uses that could lead to racial profiling, wrongful arrests, and mass surveillance. “But the guidance gives agencies too much leeway to opt out of the safeguards,” says Faiza Patel. Read more
[link removed]
Crisis of Secrecy in the Courts
The U.S. Supreme Court is far from the only high court to lack transparency about its members’ financial interests and other entanglements. A new study by Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth reveals that most states shield critical information about their supreme court justices from the public, as disclosures are typically hard to access and short on relevant financial information. “If the public doesn’t know what types of gifts and free trips a judge has received during the year, or what investments they have, or where their spouse works, then we can’t be certain they’re truly unbiased no matter what cases come before them,” Roth writes in State Court Report. Read more
[link removed]
Wisconsin’s High-Stakes Primary Election
Two proposed constitutional amendments on Wisconsin’s primary ballot today could make it harder for the state to run elections. If approved by voters, the changes could leave election administration underfunded and understaffed, possibly leading to fewer polling places, longer wait times for casting and counting ballots, and confusion around the election process. “Despite their importance for elections in Wisconsin, these ballot initiatives are likely to be decided by a very small percentage of the population” due to projected low voter turnout, Erin Geiger Smith writes in State Court Report. READ MORE
[link removed]
Coming Up
VIRTUAL PREMIERE: Decoding the Trump Indictments
[link removed]
Tuesday, April 9, 3–4 p.m. ET
Former President Trump is facing four prosecutions: the January 6 and classified documents cases in federal court, the election interference case in Georgia, and the “hush money” case in New York. Join us for the virtual premiere of the recording of our recent in-person event explaining the cases, as Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissmann, coauthors of the new book The Trump Indictments
[link removed]
, discuss the extraordinary charging documents against the former president. Murray is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law Faculty and director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law. Weissmann, a professor of practice at NYU Law and a legal analyst for MSNBC, previously served as general counsel to the FBI and one of the senior prosecutors on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. RSVP today
[link removed]
VIRTUAL EVENT: Misdemeanors by the Numbers
[link removed]
Thursday, April 11, 3–4 p.m. ET
A decade of reforms has shrunk the sprawling misdemeanor system, but the prosecution of shoplifting, traffic violations, and other lesser offenses remains a burden on vulnerable communities and law enforcement resources, even as public concern over physical and social disorder in public spaces spurs calls for renewed enforcement. A new Brennan Center report
[link removed]
zooms in on New York City as a case study for how misdemeanor enforcement has changed in recent years, offering insights into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and reform initiatives. Join report author Josephine Hahn, the MacArthur Foundation’s Bria L. Gillum, and Michigan county sheriff Jerry Clayton for a virtual discussion about this under-examined part of our criminal justice system. RSVP today
[link removed]
Produced with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
VIRTUAL EVENT: The High Cost of Public Service
[link removed]
Tuesday, April 30, 3–4 p.m. ET
While abuse directed at federal officeholders grabs the headlines, a new Brennan Center report
[link removed]
reveals that intimidation aimed at state and local officials is distressingly common. These threats have serious repercussions for representative democracy, as officeholders report being less willing to work on contentious issues like reproductive rights and gun control and reluctant to continue serving. Additionally, intimidation is often targeted at groups already underrepresented in government, such as women and people of color. Join us for a virtual discussion of this alarming trend as well as recommendations to stem the abuse. RSVP today
[link removed]
Want to keep up with Brennan Center Live events? Subscribe to the events newsletter.
[link removed]
News
Alicia Bannon on the role of state constitutions in the fight over abortion rights // NEW YORK TIMES
[link removed]
Elizabeth Goitein on the dangers of the Insurrection Act // NPR
[link removed]
Michael Li on states using illegal voting maps // WASHINGTON POST
[link removed]
Sean Morales-Doyle on the myth of noncitizens voting // AXIOS
[link removed]
Daniel Weiner on AI-generated deepfakes // FIVETHIRTYEIGHT
[link removed]
Feedback on this newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
[link removed]
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
120 Broadway, Suite 1750 New York, NY 10271
646-292-8310
tel:646-292-8310
[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
Support Brennan Center
[link removed]
Want to change how you receive these emails or unsubscribe? Click here
[link removed]
to update your preferences.
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
Message Analysis
- Sender: Brennan Center for Justice
- Political Party: n/a
- Country: United States
- State/Locality: n/a
- Office: n/a
-
Email Providers:
- Litmus