0:04 over the weekend five men were nabbed in
0:06 the democratic national headquarters
0:08 here in washington seemingly preparing
0:10 to tap or bug the place it was the
0:13 scandal to end all political scandals
0:15 and while it may have started as a
0:18 burglary it soon led to a secret money
0:20 trail illegal contributions to president
0:22 nixon's re-election campaign the secret
0:24 two hundred thousand dollar contribution
0:27 putting the us government on the block
0:29 for sale like a side of beef and a law
0:32 that was to limit the influence of money
0:35 in politics forever we're never never
0:37 never gone back to the old corrupt way
0:40 of doing things but money found its way
0:43 back in soft money secret money dark
0:46 money and decades later there are record
0:48 amounts of money flowing through the
0:51 political system a system some say is
0:53 less accountable than ever
0:55 we can do legally
0:59 everything nixon had to do illegally [Music]
1:10 it was 1972 and president richard nixon
1:12 was on his way to a landslide
1:15 re-election victory backed by one of the
1:17 most successful fundraising efforts in
1:19 history if it takes money and
1:21 organization to elect a president the
1:24 republicans are ready with both
1:26 but that victory would soon unravel
1:29 after five men with ties to the nixon
1:31 campaign were arrested for breaking into
1:33 the democratic national headquarters at
1:36 the watergate hotel
1:38 the ensuing cover-up and widespread
1:41 abuse of power would eventually bring
1:43 down nixon's presidency i shall resign
1:45 the presidency effective at noon tomorrow
1:46 tomorrow
1:48 but right after the break-in the
1:50 administration was concerned that
1:52 campaign contributions had been tied to
1:54 one of the burglars
1:56 john dean who was later implicated in
1:59 the cover-up was white house counsel
2:02 when watergate occurs it's immediately a
2:03 problem for the white house
2:05 it raised the whole issue of what their
2:08 campaign committee is doing and the fact
2:10 that they've raised a lot of money
2:12 watergate investigators learned that
2:15 right before a disclosure deadline the
2:17 nixon campaign had received tens of
2:20 millions in confidential donations they had
2:21 had literally
2:22 literally
2:25 stacks and stacks of cash sitting around
2:27 and they couldn't count it as fast as it
2:28 was coming in
2:30 the source of the money was revealed
2:34 when a watchdog group common cause sued
2:36 the nixon campaign and discovered a
2:38 secret white house list of donors it
2:41 included corporations which were legally
2:44 barred from any political giving
2:46 that list had the names of all these
2:48 corporations and the amounts of money
2:48 they had
2:52 given some people were buying influence
2:53 and some people thought that if they
2:55 didn't put the money up they would get
2:58 punished american airlines has admitted
3:00 it made an illegal corporate
3:01 contributions to president nixon's
3:03 re-election campaign american discharge
3:06 that was a victim of a shakedown your
3:08 two aspects would you get something if
3:10 you gave it or would you
3:11 be prevented from getting something if
3:14 you didn't give it but this money
3:16 bought results
3:18 the president of the united states was
3:23 exchanging government policy for money
3:25 after the dairy industry pledged two
3:27 million dollars to his re-election
3:30 campaign nixon approved an increase in
3:32 the price of milk former head of the
3:34 country's biggest dairy cooperative
3:36 pleaded guilty today to conspiring the
3:39 scandals led to the convictions of some
3:41 of america's biggest corporations and to
3:43 an overhaul of the campaign finance
3:46 system the law would now limit how much
3:48 individuals could give to candidates and
3:50 how much they could spend in elections
3:52 while corporate contributions would
3:54 remain illegal the federal campaign act
3:56 of 1974
3:57 is going to change american politics
4:00 forever and hopefully for the better
4:03 we thought that we got what we needed
4:05 i felt we had achieved
4:08 a very very historic reform
4:11 thank you for your generosity thank you
4:12 very very much
4:15 but by the 1988 presidential campaign it
4:18 was clear there was a major loophole
4:20 while donations to candidates were
4:22 limited to one thousand dollars
4:24 individuals and corporations could give
4:28 any amount to political parties campaign
4:31 handlers like to call it soft money soft
4:33 money can be raised in any amount all
4:35 perfectly legal the campaigns insist
4:37 since they don't spend the money
4:39 directly you've already done 25 000 so
4:41 if you could i've always believed the
4:44 campaign finance reform
4:46 creates a blueprint
4:49 for how to game the system
4:51 robert farmer broke fundraising records
4:54 for democratic nominee michael dukakis
4:57 by being the first to capitalize on soft money
4:58 money
5:00 it can't be coordinated with the
5:02 campaign but it's certainly it's going
5:04 to be spent to help the candidate that's
5:06 well known
5:08 farmer convinced big donors and their
5:11 friends to become trustees
5:13 by asking them to donate one hundred
5:16 thousand dollars to the democratic party
5:18 it was a strategy his opponents quickly adopted
5:20 adopted
5:22 we took such abuse from the republicans
5:25 for this program that went on for about
5:28 45 days and they instituted the exact
5:31 mirror image of our trustee program
5:33 any campaign is competition
5:35 if you don't have the resources towards
5:38 a credible campaign you're out of it you
5:40 can't imagine
5:43 how important you are to this campaign
5:45 when president bill clinton needed money
5:48 for his 1996 re-election campaign he
5:50 invited supporters and some of his
5:52 party's biggest soft money donors for
5:55 coffee and sleepovers at the white house
5:57 it's called the lincoln bedroom and
5:59 while lincoln never actually slept there
6:02 a lot of other people did including big
6:03 money contributors to the democratic
6:05 party the president's overnight guests
6:07 contributed at least seven million
6:09 dollars to the democrats the president
6:11 united states took the lincoln bedroom
6:13 treated it like motel 6 and he was the bellhop
6:14 bellhop
6:17 senator john mccain who was criticized
6:19 years earlier for his role in the
6:21 keating 5 campaign finance scandal went
6:24 on to introduce legislation to close the
6:26 soft money loophole
6:28 there was too much money that was
6:30 washing around
6:33 unattributed and unaccounted for the
6:36 system had become corrupted
6:38 it took an enormous amount of public pressure
6:39 pressure
6:41 to bring about the passage of the
6:44 legislation tonight the first
6:46 significant reform since watergate is
6:48 headed to the president's desk
6:52 it took seven years but in 2002 congress
6:54 passed the mccain feingold bipartisan
6:57 campaign reform act congress finally
7:00 cleaned up the system outlawing huge
7:02 unlimited contributions from business
7:04 labor unions and the wealthy known as
7:06 soft money
7:08 we felt very good we knew there were
7:10 going to be challenges we knew they were
7:13 out there but i was very surprised and
7:15 deeply disappointed when the united
7:17 states supreme court
7:20 made fundamental decisions such as
7:23 corporations are the same as people a
7:25 blockbuster decision from the supreme
7:26 court today
7:28 just eight years after congress passed
7:31 those major reforms the supreme court
7:33 ruled that putting campaign spending
7:36 limits on corporations and labor unions
7:38 was unconstitutional
7:40 the sharply divided justices declared
7:42 that the law violates the first
7:44 amendment's guarantee of free speech for
7:48 all even corporations in a case known as
7:50 citizens united versus federal election
7:52 commission the court said that political
7:55 donations were a form of free speech and
7:58 that corporations and unions have the
8:01 same first amendment rights as people
8:03 the first amendment says congress shall
8:06 make no law a bridging speech
8:08 it doesn't give the right to speak to
8:11 certain people it gives it to everyone
8:13 attorney james bob brought the citizens
8:16 united case and has since brought others
8:18 in pursuit of his goal more money and
8:21 more speech in elections we need a lot
8:24 more money spent because people are
8:26 woefully uninformed most people can't
8:29 even name their congressman
8:31 the rulings in citizens united and other
8:33 recent cases mean that individuals
8:36 corporations and unions can now give
8:39 unlimited money to outside political
8:42 groups non-stop negative tv ads from
8:44 super pacs big money groups outside the campaigns
8:46 campaigns
8:48 and while super pacs have to disclose
8:50 their donors other outside groups known
8:53 as 501cs can accept what critics call
8:56 dark money contributions from donors who
8:59 don't have to disclose who they are
9:02 all this means that in the decade after
9:04 citizens united record amounts of cash
9:07 flowed into u.s elections outside groups
9:10 spent 7.3 billion dollars with the bulk
9:12 of the money coming from a few big
9:14 donors from both parties
9:18 i don't think the problem is the speech
9:20 i think the problem is the fundraising
9:22 harvard law professor lawrence lesig has
9:25 written about the influence of the super
9:28 rich in politics we've given this tiny
9:30 tiny fraction the power to do
9:32 effectively the nominating they choose
9:34 who can have the money to be able to run
9:36 in the elections to be able to compete
9:39 effectively against the other side and
9:42 it's absolutely clear that candidates
9:45 bend themselves contort themselves to
9:48 keep those funders happy if money is
9:49 free speech
9:52 then the wealthiest people in america
9:54 are those that get to speak the most freely
9:56 freely
9:58 and it's not just high-profile national elections
9:59 elections
10:02 big outside money is also pouring into
10:05 state and local contests even judicial races
10:06 races
10:09 we want judges to protect us and funding
10:10 attack ads like this
10:12 which ran during the primary race for
10:15 the north carolina supreme court
10:18 justice robin hudson not tough on child
10:22 molesters not fair to victims i was
10:24 horrified when i saw it the very idea
10:27 that i or anyone else on the court would
10:29 quote side with child molesters is just
10:31 completely ridiculous
10:32 if they were coming in here spending
10:34 money to actually educate voters that
10:36 would be one thing but that's not what
10:37 they're doing
10:39 the ad was paid for by
10:42 justiceforallnc whose address was a p.o
10:45 box at this raleigh ups store
10:47 most of its money came from the
10:50 republican state leadership committee an
10:52 outside political group based in washington
10:53 washington
10:55 we look to find the best return on our
10:57 investment for our dollars in the most
10:58 effective way
11:00 to convey a message to the general public
11:01 public
11:03 the committee takes donations from
11:05 corporations and other contributors and
11:07 funnels them into state-level organizations
11:08 organizations
11:11 those groups then spend that money to
11:14 influence elections from the courts to
11:16 state houses
11:18 the money is a means to convey a message
11:20 about which direction you want the
11:22 country to go anybody that
11:24 thinks that there should be less money
11:25 in politics
11:27 is essentially at odds with the united
11:29 states supreme court that said that this
11:32 is one of our fundamental freedoms
11:35 i think we're well on the way to see all
11:38 of the major legal justifications for
11:41 campaign finance laws to be overturned
11:42 overturned
11:44 for years secretive dark money
11:47 overwhelmingly flowed to republican
11:50 candidates and causes but by 2020
11:53 democrats took the lead as liberal
11:55 groups outspent conservative ones by
11:58 over two to one in the most expensive
11:59 election ever
12:01 nobody looks at this political system
12:05 and likes it this is overwhelmingly
12:07 despised by the american public there's
12:09 no reason for them to worry about
12:11 politics because they don't matter they
12:13 don't count they don't have the dollars
12:14 that have a role
12:17 what was at the core of the watergate
12:19 campaign finance scandals
12:21 corporate money
12:23 secret money unlimited contributions
12:25 from individuals
12:27 what do we have today
12:29 corporate money
12:30 secret money
12:33 unlimited contributions from individuals
12:36 we are full circle to the days prior to
12:38 watergate are not people walking around
12:41 the streets of washington dc with
12:43 briefcases full of money but
12:44 but
13:10 [Music] you
