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  • BILL MOYERS: This week on Moyers & Company

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Money will find a way into politics.

  • DAN CANTOR: Money doesn’t talk, it swears. So were

  • trying to turn down the ability of money to control things.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: For our democracy we cannot rely on disagreements

  • among rich people.

  • BILL MOYERS: And

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: There’s something about poetry that saves

  • me. There’s something about poetry that energizes me that brings me to another plane.

  • Fires all the hormones, I don’t know what. Something intangible and yet tangible at the

  • same time.

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  • BILL MOYERS: Welcome. At the State of the Union speech,

  • there’s always more than meets the eye. Just out of sight is the reality of how we

  • are governed. The House of Representatives, where Congress gathers to hear the President,

  • used to be known asThe People’s House.” But money power owns the lease now and runs

  • the joint from hidden back rooms.

  • You're looking at the most expensive Congress money can buy. The House races last fall cost

  • over one billion dollars. It took more than $700 million to elect just a third of the

  • Senate. The two presidential candidates raised more than a billion a piece. The website Politico

  • added it all up to find that the total number of dollars spent on the 2012 election exceeded

  • the number of people on this planet -- some seven billion.

  • Most of it didn’t come from the average Joe and Jane. Sixty percent of all super PAC

  • donations came from just 159 people. And the top 32 super PAC donors gave an average of

  • 9.9 million dollars. Think how many teachers that much money could hire.

  • Well never actually know where all of the money comes from. One third of the billion

  • dollars from outside groups wasdark money,” secret funds anonymously funneled through

  • fictionalsocial welfareorganizations. Those are front groups, created to launder

  • the money inside the deep pockets.

  • And don't let anyone ever tell you the money didn't make a difference. More than 80 percent

  • of House candidates and two-thirds of Senate candidates who outspent their general election

  • opponents won, and were present and counted as the new Congress prepared to hear the President.

  • Remember, money doesn't necessarily corrupt legislators, but it certainly tilts them.

  • HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER at the State of the Union:

  • Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you, the

  • President of the United States.

  • BILL MOYERS: So let's share some snapshots from the State

  • of the Union. That’s Speaker of the House John Boehner, of course. He's led his party

  • to protect Wall Street from oversight and accountability. The finance, insurance, and

  • real estate industries gave him more than three million dollars last year.

  • Eric Cantor is the Republican majority leader in the House. Among his biggest donors--Goldman

  • Sachs, masterminds of the mortgage-backed securities that almost sank the world economy.

  • Cantor’s also the third largest recipient of money from the National Rifle Association

  • in the House, which is one reason he's such a "big gun" there.

  • Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, may be in hot water. He's currently under

  • investigation for allegations that he improperly intervened with government agencies on behalf

  • of a big donor.

  • And there's Fred Upton, Republican from Michigan, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee.

  • What a coincidence. The oil and gas industry is one of his top donors, helping him raise

  • the four million dollars he spent last year to win re-election.

  • Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrats of New York, have Wall

  • Street as a constituent and patron. Her biggest contributors include JPMorgan Chase, Morgan

  • Stanley, Goldman Sachs and law firms that have advised them. His top donors include

  • securities and investment firms, lawyers and legal firms, and lobbyists.

  • And there are fleeting glances of some familiar faces here tonight seen recently on our broadcast.

  • Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, Republican Orrin Hatch

  • of Utah, and Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana. All cited by "The New York Times"

  • as suspects in that mysterious migration of half a billion dollars from taxpayers over

  • to the bottom line of drug companies, especially the pharmaceutical giant Amgen. Would it surprise

  • you to learn that over the past five years, Amgen has been one of the top ten donors to

  • McConnell, Baucus, and Hatch?

  • As for our president--by attending a fundraiser on the average of every 60 hours during his

  • bid for a second term, he once again broke the record for bringing home the bacon. Although

  • the money power that controls Congress could thwart everything Obama proposed in his State

  • of the Union address, there was not a single word in his speech about taming the power

  • of private money over public policy.

  • And so it goes: The golden rule of politics. He who has the gold, rules.

  • Can we do anything about it?

  • My two guests think we can. They say that if anybody should own the politicians, we

  • the people should. Dan Cantor is a former community and union organizer who’s executive

  • director of the Working Families Party. That's a third party that began in New York State

  • and has now spread to five others. Since its launch fifteen years ago, he's helped lead

  • the party's efforts to elect progressive candidates throughout the state and worked to increase

  • New York's minimum wage and raise taxes on the rich.

  • Jonathan Soros is one of those who would pay more. He's a lawyer, investor and philanthropist

  • working on economic change and social goods. A senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute

  • exploring the role of corporations in society, and co-founder of the super PAC Friends of

  • Democracy, which aims to counter the influence of money in politicsan irony we'll discuss

  • later.

  • Dan and Jonathan are on the front lines of the fight to make New York State a national

  • model for the public financing of political campaigns. Welcome to you both.

  • DAN CANTOR: Thank you so much.

  • JONATHAN SOROS Glad to be here.

  • BILL MOYERS: What an odd couple you are. Jonathan, you're

  • a lawyer, a man of means, you're active in finance among other things. Daniel, you are

  • a street fighter who cut your teeth organizing labor. In fact New York Magazine once called

  • you the very model of a grassroots political boss. What is, briefly, the Working Families

  • Party?

  • DAN CANTOR: So Working Families is a political party organized

  • under the laws of New York more or less in an alliance with the Democrats. We try to

  • yank the Democrats in what we think to be a sensible, humane, progressive direction.

  • We get about five percent of the vote statewide, but in some target races we can get as much

  • as 15 percent, 20 percent, 22 percent.

  • BILL MOYERS: Who funds you?

  • DAN CANTOR: So it's a variety of individual donors. We

  • raise, we do a lot of door-knocking. That's about 25 percent of our donations. Unions,

  • individuals, you know, we scuffle, we do fundraising events. It's not a high donor operation, but

  • we try to keep, you know, keep the doors open.

  • BILL MOYERS: So Jonathan, what drew you to this rabble

  • rouser?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well, Dan and I first worked together probably

  • about a decade ago as we were taking on the question of Rockefeller drug laws in New York

  • State. And then he came back to me you know, a little over a year ago. Dan's been working

  • as part of a terrific coalition of groups, the New York Fair Elections Coalition, that

  • have been promoting campaign finance reform for a number of years in New York state. He

  • knew that I had a lot of interest in this issue for a long time. And so we--

  • BILL MOYERS: What, where does, where'd that interest come

  • from?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: My first real job out of college, I ended

  • up spending almost two months in Moldova, the Republic of Moldova, working with a USAID-funded

  • foundation dealing with their first ever parliamentary elections. I was there on the ground for two

  • months. That was my first taste of really how rules matter, in the way that elections

  • are conducted, and how sometimes the unwritten rules matter too--

  • BILL MOYERS: The unwritten rules? Such as?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well, so there were, there weren't great rules

  • about campaign finance in Moldova. You know, their first ever elections, there was, you

  • know, a lot of use of state funds in electioneering. Folks who were sitting in the parliament were,

  • an existing parliament were running around in state cars, doing their campaigning.

  • BILL MOYERS: This has been a communist governed country?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Communist governed country. And then I had

  • a great, I had a great teacher in law school, Lani Guinier, who really opened my eyes to

  • a number of issues related democratic process. And it's been a set of issues that I've cared

  • about ever since.

  • BILL MOYERS: What are you after in New York state?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: So we're after a comprehensive system of campaign

  • finance reform. I got involved in this really actively after Citizens United on the belief

  • that there is still despite the Supreme Court's rulings that there is a suite of reforms that

  • would be transformative in the way that money flows in and around politics. And that's now

  • on the table in New York state. It starts with disclosure obviously. But it really focuses

  • around what we're calling citizen funding, a form of public financing that allows candidates

  • the opportunity, gives them the option to run for public office without dependence on

  • large contributions and independent expenditures. That's really what we're, what we're seeking

  • to achieve.

  • DAN CANTOR: I mean, I think his point about rules is really

  • worth underlining, right. Better rules product better outcomes whether it's in elections

  • or for that matter in the finance industry. There's economic inequality, you've talked

  • a lot about that on this show over the years. But there's also political inequality. And

  • this effort is an attempt to deal with at least that second one a little bit.

  • But if you deal with political inequality, we have a system that should be one person,

  • one vote, not one dollar, one vote, you'll affect other things besides the elections

  • themselves. The, we have a non-virtuous system right now in which wealth gets power, uses

  • the power to increase its wealth. You know, Justice Brandeis' famous comment about how

  • you can have a great concentrations of wealth or you can have a democracy, but you can't

  • have both. So we're at a moment in this society it seems to us which we have to make a decision.

  • And we need to create a system that voters themselves will have more confidence in. Because

  • right now when you knock on doors people are, they're pretty cynical that things can change.

  • BILL MOYERS: Isn't the governor of New York, Governor Cuomo,

  • on your side? Listen to what he said in his State of the State speech in January.

  • GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: We must enact campaign finance reform because

  • people believe that campaigns are financed by someone else at exorbitant rates […] implement

  • a public finance system based in NYC. It works well in NYC it will work well in NY state.

  • BILL MOYERS: Do you think he's serious?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: I do think he's serious.

  • BILL MOYERS: How will he prove he's serious?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well, he'll prove his seriousness by getting

  • this bill passed in the coming legislature. Campaign, I think we can have confidence that

  • the governor will be able to pass something that is called campaign finance reform in

  • this state. The real test and measure is going to be whether it includes this citizen funding.

  • BILL MOYERS: How would public funding work?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well, it can work a lot of different ways.

  • We're, for obvious reasons it's most useful to point to New York City when you're in New

  • York state. Here we have a system in the city if you're running for citywide office or for

  • city council, any contribution up to, you qualify to get into the system, you elect

  • to be in the system, it's voluntary. Then any contribution up to $175 is matched six

  • to one--

  • BILL MOYERS: By the public?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: By the public. Out of a pool from the general

  • fund from the budget. And that has had a dramatic transformative effect in the way that funds

  • are raised.

  • BILL MOYERS: How so?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: First of all the level of small donation,

  • the Campaign Finance Institute and the Brennan Center have done some great research and produced

  • some beautiful maps showing the difference in the two systems. If you look at a map of

  • state assembly races in New York City and how many small contributions there are for

  • those races, there are almost none throughout the entire city. Look at the same map of New

  • York City for city council races, it's covered.

  • There are small contributions coming from every neighborhood, even the poorest neighborhoods

  • in the city people who are running for office are reaching out to their constituents, ordinary

  • citizens, they're having house parties in people's living rooms, not large, you know,

  • large, check, fundraisers. And the statistics are that the people who participate in the

  • system get the majority of their funding from small contributors and only a small minority

  • of what you, what are still large contributions of, you know, $1,000 and up.

  • DAN CANTOR: This is a gigantic change. I mean, people

  • should appreciate who gets to run for office when you have a system like this. Librarians

  • run for office, ex-teachers run for office. It's not just people who have a rolodex of

  • prospective donors who get to run for office. And it's good for the candidates and the voters

  • alike.

  • You, there's a lot of middle class and working class people who can write, who can put that

  • $10 and $20 and $50 together. That's worth $70 or $140 or $350 to the candidate. So it

  • makes a house party with 30 people at which you raise $1,000, which takes a couple of

  • hours, it's worth $7,000. That's a real thing that the candidate can then use because we

  • actually need money to run campaigns. They have to have mailers and staff and so on.

  • BILL MOYERS: So if I were to run for the city council or

  • some other office in New York City and I announce that I'm going to enter this system and I

  • get you to give me how much?

  • DAN CANTOR: Forty dollars.

  • BILL MOYERS: And if you give me $40 what happens?

  • DAN CANTOR: Then the city fund gives you $240 on top of

  • that. So that's a $280 contribution. That's a big contribution. And it means to me as

  • a voter I have a little skin in the game and I'm going to pay attention to you. So it totally

  • changes kind of the relationship between the candidate and the donor, that a lot of small

  • donors. And also we, you know, we favor people putting a little money in.

  • We don't, if you can't go out, if you're running for office and you can't find 300 or 400 people

  • to give you $20, you have no business running for office. So we're not looking for, it's

  • a little bit of private money and then some public money. But then you don't have to just

  • spend your time as an elected official should you win, in the unlikely event that you win,

  • you then don't have to spend your time mostly worrying about how to get those $2,000 and

  • $3,000 checks.

  • BILL MOYERS: But public funding did not stop Mike Bloomberg

  • from spending a small fortune.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: A large fortune.

  • BILL MOYERS: A large fortune on his three elections.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: That's true. But it did allow his opponent

  • to run a credible campaign. And the election was pretty darn close.

  • BILL MOYERS: Using public funding--

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Using public funding. So if you look across

  • the country there's all sorts of evidence of people who spent a lot of money in campaigns,

  • who spent more money than their opponents and lost because having more money and having

  • a lot of money doesn't make you a better candidate. What matters is having a threshold, an amount

  • of money that's sufficient to run a credible campaign. And that's what citizen funding

  • allows you to do. It allows you to get that amount of money that lets you run a credible

  • campaign, be a good candidate connecting with your voters and do it in a way that's focusing

  • your attention on ordinary citizens.

  • BILL MOYERS: But how does it undo the power of big money?

  • DAN CANTOR: Well, so Mayor Bloomberg's an outlier. There

  • aren't so many candidates like that. Listen, we're never going to keep private money out

  • of politics. That's the wrong ambition. The goal is to--

  • BILL MOYERS: You're not saying we should?

  • DAN CANTOR: We shouldn't and we can't--

  • BILL MOYERS: Yeah, that's right. But Citizens United makes

  • it impossible.

  • DAN CANTOR: They have opened the gates wide. And it was

  • even before Citizens United as you're well aware the gates were open pretty wide. So

  • the ambition isn't to keep private money out. It's to get enough public money in so that

  • even when you have somebody who is not part of the system spending a lot, the other person

  • gets to a threshold that makes it reasonable, right. You don't, at some point the extra

  • money isn't that valuable. You just have to get to be competitive. And that's what we

  • have found in the states and cities where you have public--

  • JONATHAN SOROS: If I could just add to that. I mean, it really

  • is about reducing the influence of that money. And that takes--

  • BILL MOYERS: Of the big money?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Of the big money. So that takes two pieces.

  • One is create an alternative for candidates to run without reliance on the big money.

  • The second is we need to have some genuine rules about what independent means. So when

  • we talk about the super PACs, now, it's widely misunderstood, super PACs are actually fully

  • disclosed. We know where the money comes when it comes through a super PAC.

  • As you were pointing out in your opening there's money that flows into the super PACs that

  • isn't disclosed. So that has to get dealt with. But those super PACs were a farce, right.

  • You have candidates endorsing them, you have candidates showing up at fundraisers and then

  • leaving before the, you know, before the money is asked for. You have campaign staff, former

  • campaign staff running them. We have no effective rules. This is all legal under what is considered

  • coordination by the Federal Elections Committee-

  • BILL MOYERS: Yeah, we say a super PAC is okay if it's independent

  • of the campaign. But in practice--

  • JONATHAN SOROS: But --

  • BILL MOYERS: --and in reality, in the real world--

  • JONATHAN SOROS: But in practice it's not.

  • BILL MOYERS: --it's not independent.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Right. And so that would reduce the influence

  • and the appeal of those vehicles if they really were independent. We've had independent expenditure

  • in campaigns really forever. But even dating back to the last big wave of campaign finance

  • reform and the one before that, the, under the Buckley-Valeo decision in 1976 the Supreme

  • Court said independent expenditures are okay. And those have been there for a long time.

  • Now, we've crossed a different kind of threshold after Citizens United both by allowing now

  • corporate enterprise to get into the game, but also I think more importantly than the

  • legal change which as wasn't as big as people make out, but it's a normative change. It's

  • become an acceptable form of political engagement to be involved in a super PAC and dump large

  • amounts of money in independently into, or supposedly independently into campaigns. So

  • we need to do both things. We need to actually have this separation so that candidates are

  • at least arm's length from the outside groups. And we need to create an alternative for it.

  • BILL MOYERS: I was involved in public funding in the early

  • days 20 years ago and so was the Schumann Foundation which I headed then. And the common

  • argument we ran into everywhere was, "I, the voter, the taxpayer, doesn't want to fund

  • the politician's ambitions."

  • DAN CANTOR: Sure, welfare for politicians. I don't want

  • my tax dollars going to politicians. Listen, here's a good, smart thing they say. We have

  • real problems in our state, we need money for schools. We shouldn't spend even a modest

  • amount of money on this election system of ours. And our view is that's, you know, penny

  • wise and pound foolish because if we don't do this then people feed at the trough, the

  • Verizons, the Goldman Sachs, other forces are able to get public money in a way that

  • would not be possible because we'll end up with people in office who are not beholden

  • to them.

  • And what will happen when we have a clean election system is that it will become a negative

  • for candidates who don't participate over time. In the beginning there'll be people

  • in the system, some will be out of the system, that's okay. But we think we can create a

  • kind of a norm in which people, it becomes a benefit to be part of a fair elections,

  • a clean elections system.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: I think what we're seeing, what we see consistently

  • in polling is that voters are so disgusted with what they see in their politics that

  • they're willing to consider an alternative and they're willing to pay the costs of funding

  • their elections a different way.

  • BILL MOYERS: Is the New York model, the New York City model

  • working? Do you think it's working effectively?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well. It's completely changing the way that

  • candidates run for election. It's opened up the opportunity for different sorts of folks

  • to run for election. And it means that those who are running and succeeding in the system

  • are getting their-- are getting funded in their campaigns from small, principally from

  • small contributors rather than big contributors. I think that means that you have the opportunity

  • to have a degree of trust in your government in New York City that you don't have elsewhere

  • in the country.

  • DAN CANTOR: I think it's been profoundly successful, right.

  • There are always some problems with things and no system, this is not some, you know,

  • magic feather that is going to make democracy work, in all, you know, you still need good

  • candidates with good ideas, you need organizations keeping them honest. But if you can reduce

  • this particular problem which you led off with, the enormous power that private money

  • has you'll get better outcomes. Better rules, you get better outcomes. So there's, yes,

  • it's working I think.

  • BILL MOYERS: There was a local race here in New York for

  • a state senate seat. It got a lot of attention. Your candidate supported by your super PAC

  • and by your Working Families Party was Cecilia Tkaczyk, right? She won by 18 votes with one

  • recount after another. And many people are saying that this is a turning point in the

  • fight to clean up state politics. Tell me about that.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well, for starters she's now potentially the

  • 32nd vote in the state senate in favor of reform, 32 being a majority. But more importantly

  • this election was basically a referendum on her support for citizen funding as a part

  • of campaign finance reform.

  • BILL MOYERS: She was for it and her opponent was against

  • it?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Exactly right. And it became the central issue

  • over the last several weeks. Dan actually called this an organizer's dream. This issue

  • became central and she won as you said by 18 votes after a long recount.

  • BILL MOYERS: Beating a millionaire incumbent?

  • DAN CANTOR: A millionaire assemblyman who was running

  • up the food chain trying to take a senate seat.

  • BILL MOYERS: And you think she won because she came out

  • for the public finance?

  • DAN CANTOR: Absolutely, it animated--

  • JONATHAN SOROS: She thinks she won because she ran on this

  • issue.

  • BILL MOYERS: We have the ad that you supported, let’s

  • take a look.

  • DAN CANTOR: Oh great.

  • NARRATOR in Campaign AD: In the senate George Amedore means more pay-to-play

  • corruption in Albany. Amedore took tens of thousands of dollars from corporations and

  • wealthy donors and opposed a tax increase on the rich. He voted against loans for small

  • businesses, and even opposed raising the minimum wage. And Cecilia Tkaczyk? Tkaczyk’s a farmer,

  • a school board member, and a mom. Shell fight for middle class families and end pay

  • to play politics in Albany that by supporting fair elections that put us ahead of the special

  • interests. Cecelia Tkaczyk for Senate.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Her opponent was George Amedore. He was a

  • sitting assemblyman from, you know, from an adjacent, conjoined district. He then put

  • out a halfhearted response and said he was for campaign finance reform but only about

  • disclosure. And he did that and then he attacked her on her support for citizen funding. That

  • became that's one of the reasons it became the central issue.

  • DAN CANTOR: Her name is Cecilia but goes by CeCe, CeCe

  • Tkaczyk. So Amedore starts calling it the CeCe Tax, she wants to have a tax named after

  • herself that's going to cost everybody in the district money to pay for elections, to

  • give money to politicians. That's sort of your worst nightmare when you're running a

  • campaign. I've got a new tax named after me. She was forthright. She said this is going

  • to make our system better. Voters responded.

  • BILL MOYERS: Jonathan's super PAC supported it financially,

  • but you put boots on the ground, didn't you?

  • DAN CANTOR: Sure, they were an army of door-knockers and

  • phone bankers and volunteers going door to door identifying voters and then turning them

  • out on election day. This was just days after Hurricane Sandy. Roads were washed out, we

  • had to have, you know, caravans trying to get people to the polls, people stationed

  • at bridges that had been washed out persuading them to go out of their way to vote which

  • it produced that last 19 votes we needed. So I'll be ever grateful to the woman who

  • did that.

  • You don't know what's going to win in elections, so you do everything. You have to have the

  • so-called air war, television, the ground game, what Working Families and our allies

  • did. You put it all together and sometimes when you have a good candidate who's willing

  • to be forthright and then you have an opponent who decides, "Ah, I'm going to kill her with

  • this," it makes, it's a perfect storm.

  • BILL MOYERS: And here’s her opponent’s ad:

  • NARRATOR in Campaign AD: Shadowy NYC Money groups, calling themselves

  • campaign finance reformers, spending hundreds of thousands on negative attacks. Rewarding

  • their candidates like CeCe Tkaczyk who pushed their agenda: taxpayer-funded campaigns which

  • could cost us over $200 million per election. George Amedore knows we already pay enough.

  • He’s worked to cut middle class taxes to the lowest in decades, cap property taxes

  • for families and seniors, and cut wasteful state spending. George Amedorestanding

  • up for us.

  • BILL MOYERS: That shadowy New York money, that's you.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: I think that's me, although I don't know which

  • shadows I'm in, I mean, we're fully disclosed in public about what we were doing.

  • BILL MOYERS: But here's the irony that I mentioned earlier.

  • You started a super PAC last spring, Friends of Democracy, because you don't like super

  • PACs, right? You want to get rid of super PACs?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: We were the first to recognize the irony,

  • and we've got a lot of fun out of it, we are the super PAC that is, that has a mission

  • of reducing the influence of money in politics.

  • BILL MOYERS: Who funds your super PAC?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: So I funded part of it. And then we raised

  • about half of the money from other sources.

  • BILL MOYERS: Isn't it a little weird? You start a super

  • PAC to defeat super PACs, aren't you escalating, aren't you proving in the fact that it takes

  • a super PAC to win and therefore you're escalating the arms race?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: So again, I, it's a serious question and I

  • think there are a couple of different points to make about it. So the first is our objective

  • is not to force the private money out of politics. As Dan mentioned earlier you can't as a constitutional

  • matter and as a practical matter you can't. Even if the constitutional regime changed

  • money will find a way in to politics.

  • It really is the focus is about reducing the influence of money. And again that comes from

  • first separating the money from candidates so that if you're going to have independent

  • expenditure it is truly independent, real rules around complete disclosure so that the

  • dark money that you referenced in your opening isn't dark anymore, it sees the light of day.

  • Real and functional enforcement, the Federal Election Commission is designed for inaction

  • and incapacity. It is by mandate three Republicans and three Democrats and they require a majority

  • to do anything, to either make a rule or do enforcement. So that means they can do the

  • little things, but anything that has real meaning, and then obviously the thing we've

  • been talking about, citizen funding.

  • The other thing I make about, related to our irony, we weren't outspending anybody, right.

  • We spent in the aggregate about $2.5 million across eight congressional races and this

  • race in New York state. These are races in some cases $12 million, $10 or $12 million

  • were being spent when you include all the inside and outside so we weren't outspending

  • anybody. What we were doing was we were lifting up

  • an issue that was otherwise, that differentiated the candidates that otherwise was going to

  • be ignored, creating the opportunity for that to then be engaged in the actual debate between

  • the two candidates.

  • And what we saw was that when that issue gets debated and engaged the candidate who is supporting

  • reform and particularly supporting citizen funded elections tends to win.

  • But in the aggregate George Amedore and his allies outspent everybody else on the other

  • side. He had more money to spend in that election and he still lost.

  • DAN CANTOR: Which proves the earlier point. It's not about,

  • you don't have to match the other side dollar for dollar. You have to have enough to be

  • credible. And that's why you want to have a citizen funding system with this private,

  • public match at some multiple that gives people who would never ever think about running for

  • office a way into the game.

  • You get people who come out of a history and service and commitment to a community group,

  • to a union, to some kind of consumer organization. And they say to themselves and we say to them,

  • "You should consider running for office." And it would never be possible and you see

  • the light of on saying, "Maybe I can. I know 400 people. I've been working in this community

  • for 15 years." So that's what becomes possible under this kind of system.

  • BILL MOYERS: Your super PAC didn't just support this senate

  • race in New York. You supported how many congressional races around the country?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: We were heavily involved in eight congressional

  • races around the country.

  • BILL MOYERS: And your candidates won how many of them?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Seven out of eight.

  • BILL MOYERS: There was, well, you ran an ad against Charlie

  • Bass, the Republican in New Hampshire last fall. Let's take a look at that ad.

  • SPORTS ANNOUCER in Campaign AD: Another sell-out crowd at the ballpark today.

  • Three and two--

  • MOCK CONGRESSMEN in Campaign AD: Those seats are taken.

  • NARRATOR in Campaign AD: Do you feel frozen out like this when it comes

  • to congress? No wonder. Corporate lobbyists have your congressmen’s full attention.

  • MOCK CONGRESSMEN in Campaign AD: Sorry, those seats are paid for too.

  • NARRATOR in Campaign AD: Your congressman Charlie Bass took over one

  • hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars from big oil and voted to give them billions in

  • taxpayer subsidies. If we don’t vote against Charlie Bass, middle class families will never

  • get in the game.

  • MOCK CONGRESSMEN in Campaign AD: Those seats are taken!

  • NARRATOR in Campaign AD: Friends of Democracy is responsible for the

  • contents of this advertising.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: That is the message that we're trying to send.

  • Now, our view is that there is a suite of reforms that are, that can be comprehensive

  • and really meaningful and that a sitting politician is not going to elect, is not going to enact

  • those reforms unless they believe it, unless they believe that they're election depends

  • on it. So we're trying to send a message that being on the wrong side of the reform in a

  • close election can cost you your election.

  • BILL MOYERS: Now, public financing has actually happened

  • in several states. Maine enacted it some years ago for state races. Massachusetts enacted

  • it by a 60 to 65 percent vote of the public. But then the Democratic legislature refused

  • to fund it and eventually killed it. Arizona has it and--

  • DAN CANTOR: Connecticut.

  • BILL MOYERS: --it's been, yeah, and Connecticut has it,

  • but it's been involved in one court case after another in Arizona. Do you think ultimately

  • if it gets to the Supreme Court, the Citizens United court would uphold it?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: The Supreme Court has so far not had a problem

  • with the, with citizen funding as a concept. What they threw out in the Arizona case unfortunately

  • was the idea that they could trigger additional funds, so if you're in the system and either

  • a self-funding candidate or an independent group was spending a lot of money against

  • you, you would get more money than you would otherwise.

  • And they decided that that somehow is chilling the speech of the independent person. And

  • so they prohibited it. It makes it harder. It means we have to design a different, have

  • to think about different ways to design a citizen funded system to make it more robust

  • and be able to respond when there is large independent money being spent on the outside.

  • But there is no problem with the constitutionality of a citizen funded system whatsoever.

  • BILL MOYERS: Has it been tested?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: It's been tested. It's been tested in that,

  • you know--

  • DAN CANTOR: It's voluntary, so you're not requiring people

  • to jump in. But if they jump in they have to abide by certain limits and rules and it

  • seems to be pretty successful where it's been --

  • JONATHAN SOROS: It's been tested dating back to the public

  • financing system that existed for the, and still exists technically for the presidential

  • races.

  • BILL MOYERS: Do you think this could ever become a player

  • in the national field?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: I think that what happens here in New York

  • is extremely important for exactly that reason. I mean, first as Dan said earlier this will

  • be the first significant response to Citizens United, the first forward step since that

  • massive step backwards. So that in itself sets a great example.

  • But New York is an example for the nation in many ways. The governor, it's been speculated,

  • has some ambitions for 2016. This would truly differentiate him in an otherwise leaderless

  • field around this issue. He'll be bringing this if he succeeds, trumpeting it in the

  • primaries in 2016 as an accomplishment and challenging his other, the other candidates

  • to take similar stands. And it sets an example for other states then to enact similar reforms

  • and eventually for the federal government.

  • BILL MOYERS: You said recently that money only matters

  • up to a point. How so?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Well, consider the presidential election.

  • You mentioned a billion, north of a billion dollars spent on each side. Would Barack Obama

  • have won reelection if he had $100 million less? If he had $200 million less? Probably.

  • There's some amount of money that it was going to require him to run a robust, credible campaign

  • for president. And beyond that the, to use the economic term, the diminishing marginal

  • returns of additional money is extraordinary, that after a point the spending is just going

  • to the wind.

  • BILL MOYERS: Were you disappointed that in his State of

  • the Union speech there was no reference to Citizens United, no reference to public funding,

  • no reference to campaign finance reform? And I know that polls show that when people say

  • those words, campaign finance reform, eyes glaze over. But he was silent on this subject

  • at a critical moment.

  • DAN CANTOR: Listen, the reason we have to focus on doing

  • this at the state level is the system is blocked in Washington to any meaningful effort, so

  • this why we have to succeed in New York and some other states and that will open things

  • up. I think the president has decided that this is not, this dog is not going hunt.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: I was disappointed that it wasn't in his speech

  • but not surprised. You know, the, and the president has decided instead to focus on

  • other incredibly important issues regarding failures in our democracy and the way that

  • people vote. And that's important as well. But the president has missed a number of opportunities

  • to show leadership on this issue. And I think that's been both unfortunate and a bad choice

  • politically for him.

  • I'd say the biggest obstacle that we face is actually just the enormous cynicism that

  • citizens have about their government. They have a hard time believing that there's a

  • way to do this that actually would create a system where their representatives are really

  • working for them. That's a real obstacle.

  • DAN CANTOR: And I would add you don't, we don't talk about

  • campaign finance reform. We talk about corruption. That's what this system is, right, and people

  • know it. And the data on this is enormous. When you describe to people the current system

  • and say, "This is an alternative," you get supermajorities in favor of it. So part of

  • this is we have to have a good message. We have to be relentless about promoting it.

  • You got to look for opportunities like this senate race, like these congressional races

  • where you can turn an election into a referendum on this unusual but unbelievably important

  • topic and we'll win more than we lose.

  • Elected officials while they're nervous about changing the system under which they have

  • themselves thrived, once in office they like this because a lot of people go into public

  • service for a good reason. They don't want, they don't enjoy going to the lobbyist fundraisers

  • or dialing for dollars any more than a normal human being would. So this is an opportunity

  • for them to get off of that hamster wheel and remind themselves of why they got into

  • this to begin with which is to help solve actually important problems.

  • BILL MOYERS: Can we really though put the genie back in

  • the bottle when everyone these days is rubbing that bottle?

  • JONATHAN SOROS: The answer is we can't know for sure. We,

  • there's so much money being spent, there's so much cynicism about the system. But the

  • evidence shows in the states that do have public financing systems the evidence shows

  • that candidates can run in those systems and win and they do it by focusing on their constituents

  • and small donors.

  • Somebody who gives $10 to a campaign, they're more likely to show up and volunteer, they're

  • more likely to show up and vote, they're more likely to follow what happens. And so that

  • having a system where candidates can spend their time engaging with their constituents

  • directly is going to, is going to be what, part of what allows the big money to have

  • a reduced influence.

  • DAN CANTOR: The electoral moment is the moment in our

  • society where people pause for a minute, not for very long but they do pause and we get

  • to answer the question, ask and answer the question, "How are we doing?" Our view is

  • we're not doing as well as we should and this is one of the reasons why.

  • Bob Dylan's famous phrase, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." So we're trying to turn

  • down the ability of money to control things, not getting rid of it. But somehow for some

  • reason in this moment it seems to have finally penetrated public consciousness. They know

  • the system is corrupt and they want to have some confidence not everybody, but enough

  • people want to have some confidence that we can do better.

  • BILL MOYERS: Jonathan Soros, Dan Cantor, we'll be watching

  • what happens. Thank you very much for this very informative discussion.

  • JONATHAN SOROS: Thank you, Bill.

  • DAN CANTOR: Thanks for having us.

  • BILL MOYERS: There’s a familiar saying in politics that

  • campaigning is poetry and governing is prose. Not on this broadcast. Here, poetry is poetry,

  • period and holds a cherished place, which is why we maintain a sort of poet’s corner

  • and welcome back to it our friend, Martín Espada.

  • Growing up tough and Puerto Rican in the city and then in the segregated suburbs of Long

  • Island, Martín Espada wove his life’s experience into verse, compose even as he studied history

  • and law and worked as an advocate for tenant’s rights in Boston.

  • Now he teaches poetry at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has published sixteen

  • books, including his recent collection, "The Trouble Ball." Martín Espada welcome back.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Thank you.

  • BILL MOYERS: There's a very short poem in the book, four

  • lines long, that I wonder if it's autobiographical. It's The Poet's Son.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yes, it's in the book and yes it is.

  • The Poet's Son Watches His Father Leave for Another Gig

  • Once again you're choosing

  • between dignity and Christmas

  • BILL MOYERS: That's it.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: That’s it. It's like a sub-haiku. It is

  • autobiographical. It is something my son said to me many years ago. Now my son is 21 years

  • old. He's a junior at Bennington College. He's six foot seven. Fortunately he responds

  • to voice commands. He said this about ten years ago. And I never forgot it, obviously.

  • I finally chose to write it down.

  • BILL MOYERS: You were leaving?

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: I was literally walking out the door.

  • BILL MOYERS: Going?

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: To do another reading somewhere on the road.

  • Going anywhere and everywhere. It's what I used to call my tour of dying industrial cities.

  • BILL MOYERS: Well, I…

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: "Hello Scranton."

  • BILL MOYERS: And he was 11 years old and--

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yeah.

  • BILL MOYERS: But he objected to your leaving.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: He did, he did. I think to a certain extent,

  • this reflects the sacrifices that parents make if they are artists or if they are activists

  • or if they are simply workers. And you have to walk away from your son or your daughter.

  • The last person in the world you should walk away from. And yet you realize at the same

  • time that you must. Without the act of walking away, this person's world will be impoverished.

  • And yet at the same time, there is no escaping the impoverishment of absence. You're not

  • there.

  • BILL MOYERS: Yeah, well this is universal.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yes.

  • BILL MOYERS: And I wonder how much it is due to vanity

  • as well.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yeah, absolutely. The gig calls. Well, there's

  • a kind of ethic of the road, you know? You go out there and you do the gig. And it doesn't

  • matter what kind of condition you're in. Some of the gigs I've done have, you know, I once

  • did two readings at a prison with an abscessed tooth. And after that, the librarian at the

  • prison rushed me to an oral surgeon for emergency surgery.

  • But what was I going to say to the inmates, "I have a toothache"? So their need outweighed

  • my own at that moment. I once did a reading in Houston with a collapsed lung. And literally

  • was coughing all night and was in so much pain. I remember that I ruptured a muscle

  • from coughing. I had to sleep sitting up. And yet I went, I did the gig. Now, I learned

  • something over the years. The gig is not God. The gig is not all. You can on occasion postpone

  • a gig or cancel a gig.

  • BILL MOYERS: So with that in mind, read that again.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: The Poet's Son Watches His Father

  • Leave for Another Gig

  • Once again you're choosing

  • between dignity and Christmas

  • He was right of course.

  • BILL MOYERS: Dignity whereas you're being true to your

  • commitment outside. Christmas was his notion of where you are with him.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Well, what he perceived, what he captured

  • was that there was some indignity in what I was doing. And indeed, there is. You know,

  • life on the road is very undignified in a lot of ways. And anyone who's ever done battle

  • with a continental breakfast knows that.

  • BILL MOYERS: Yes, tell me about it.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yeah, you know, that jammed dispenser of Raisin

  • Bran, or the microwave oven where the door doesn't close all the way, or the broken toaster.

  • I could go on.

  • BILL MOYERS: Been there, done that.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yeah.

  • BILL MOYERS: Read me The Playboy Calendar.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Ah yes. This is a poem that's really about

  • me and my father, my father was trying to reach out to me at 17 years old, I was a mystery

  • to him, as I imagine all 17 year olds are to their fathers. And he was trying everything

  • he could think of to see what would stick. And this is what stuck.

  • The Playboy Calendar and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

  • The year I graduated from high school, my father gave me a Playboy calendar

  • and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. On the calendar, he wrote:

  • Enjoy the scenery. In the book of poems, he wrote:

  • I introduce you to an old friend.

  • The Beast was my only friend in high school, a wrestler who crushed the coach's nose with

  • his elbow, fractured the fingers of all his teammates,

  • could drink half a dozen vanilla milkshakes, and signed up with the Marines

  • because his father was a Marine. I showed the Playboy calendar to The Beast

  • and he howled like a silverback gorilla trying to impress an expedition of anthropologists.

  • I howled too, smitten with the blonde called Miss January, held high in my simian

  • hand.

  • Yet, alone at night, I memorized the poet-astronomer of Persia, his saints and sages bickering

  • about eternity, his angel looming in the tavern door with

  • a jug of wine, his battered caravanserai of sultans fading

  • into the dark. At seventeen, the laws of privacy have been

  • revoked by the authorities, and the secret police

  • are everywhere: I learned to hide Khayyám and his beard

  • inside the folds of the Playboy calendar in case anyone opened the door without knocking,

  • my brother with a baseball mitt or a beery Beast.

  • I last saw The Beast that summer at the Marine base

  • in Virginia called Quantico. He rubbed his shaven head,

  • and the sunburn made the stitches from the car crash years ago

  • stand out like tiny crosses in the field of his face.

  • I last saw the Playboy calendar in December of that year,

  • when it could no longer tell me the week or the month.

  • I last saw Omar Khayyám this morning: Awake! He said. For Morning in the Bowl of

  • Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to

  • Flight.

  • Awake! He said. And I awoke."

  • BILL MOYERS: To whom or to what do you owe that defining

  • choice of Omar Khayyám over the Playboy calendar? Because that's the story of your life.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: I certainly owe those who came before me.

  • In particular, I owe my father. My father did not have a college education. There were

  • not books of poetry all over the house. But there was this book. It was significant and

  • profound for someone to hand me a book of poetry. I was surrounded already by the images

  • in that Playboy calendar. And they were not as meaningful to me as the images in the Rubáiyát

  • of Omar Khayyám. And so I'm very grateful to my father for giving me that that book.

  • BILL MOYERS: I really like the poem in here, Blessed be

  • the Truth Tellers. Tell me about that and read it for me.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Jack Agüeros is a Puerto Rican poet, fiction

  • writer, playwright, community organizer, translator. He was for many years the director of El Museo

  • del Barrio was at the time the only Puerto Rican museum in the continental United States,

  • in East Harlem.

  • And every year, Jack would organize a Three Kings' Day parade. Real camels and sheep marching

  • right through the streets of East Harlem. Talk about visionary. Jack was the first writer

  • I ever met. He was a political colleague and ally of my father. And he came to visit us

  • one day in the projects of East New York where I was born and raised.

  • Blessed Be the Truth-Tellers for Jack Agüeros

  • In the projects of Brooklyn, everyone lied. My mother used to say:

  • If somebody starts a fight, just walk away.

  • Then somebody would smack the back of my head

  • and dance around me in a circle, laughing

  • When I was twelve, pus bubbled on my tonsils, and everyone said:

  • After the operation, you can have all the ice cream you want.

  • I bragged about the deal; no longer would I chase the ice cream truck

  • down the street, panting at the bells to catch Johnny the ice cream man,

  • who allegedly sold heroin the color of vanilla from the same window.

  • Then Jack the Truth-Teller visited the projects, Jack who herded real camels and sheep

  • through the snow of East Harlem every Three Kings' Day,

  • Jack who wrote sonnets of the jail cell and the racetrack and the boxing ring,

  • Jack who crossed his arms in a hunger strike until the mayor hired more Puerto Ricans.

  • And Jack said: You gonna get your tonsils out?

  • Ay bendito cuchifrito Puerto Rico. That's gonna hurt.

  • I was etherized, then woke up on the ward

  • heaving black water onto white sheets. A man poking through his hospital gown

  • leaned over me and sneered, You think you got it tough? Look at this!

  • and showed me the cauliflower tumor behind his ear. I heaved up black water again.

  • The ice cream burned. Vanilla was a snowball spiked with bits of

  • glass. My throat was red as a tunnel on fire

  • after the head-on collision of two gasoline trucks.

  • This is how I learned to trust the poets and shepherds of East Harlem.

  • Blessed be the Truth-Tellers, for they shall have all the ice cream they

  • want.

  • BILL MOYERS: It just occurred to me as you were reading

  • that I happen to know that you've been through the last couple three years a very, death-defying

  • ordeal, illness.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Yeah, yes.

  • BILL MOYERS: You're better, I can tell, your color's come

  • back, there's energy in your voice. I mean, you read these poems the way you did the first

  • time.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: There's something about poetry that saves

  • me. There's something about poetry that energizes me, that brings me to another plane. That

  • fires all the hormones, I don't know what. Something intangible, and yet tangible at

  • the same time. There is something to poetry and activism which has the same energizing

  • effect.

  • BILL MOYERS: Does illness of that kind rob you of an identity

  • that poetry gives you back?

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Absolutely. Catastrophic illness destroys

  • not only the body but the spirit and the identity in particular. You no longer know who you

  • are. When the lights go out and you undergo that general anesthesia for whatever the surgery

  • might happen to be, you wake up again, you are not the same person. But you don't know

  • who you are.

  • It's certainly, your name is on that I.D. badge, right the bracelet that you're wearing

  • and you're desperate to cut off. But you don't know. And it will take some time to figure

  • it out. Two schools of thought, one is "Oh, you'll be the same guy you always were." And

  • the other is, "You'll be somebody completely different." And I still don't know how that

  • story's going to end.

  • BILL MOYERS: The book is "The Trouble Ball," the poet is

  • Martín Espada. Martín thank you for being with me.

  • MARTÍN ESPADA: Thank you very much.

  • BILL MOYERS: In our last episode of that Washington soap

  • opera, “As the Door Revolves,” we introduced you to former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White,

  • who left government to become a hot shot Wall Street lawyer defending such big firms as

  • JP Morgan. "The New York Times" reports that she and her husband, who’s also a corporate

  • litigator, have a net worth of at least $16 million and investments that might be valued

  • as high as $35 million.

  • And now, courtesy of President Obama, Mary Jo White’s been named to head the SEC, the

  • Securities and Exchange Commission -- the very agency that regulates her clients and

  • everyone else doing business in the stock market.

  • But as they say on late night TV, wait, there’s more. Join us for our latest episode ofAs

  • the Door Revolvesin which the door spins ever faster between the SEC and big business.

  • According to a major new report from the nonpartisan watchdog POGOthe Project on Government

  • Oversight -- hundreds of the agency’s former employees have done or are doing business

  • with the SEC on behalf of the corporations the agency is supposed to regulate.

  • Imaginehundreds with an intimate knowledge of how the place works advocating for their

  • clients with friends at the SEC -- colleagues who themselves may be looking for a big payoff

  • when they, too, leave government.

  • No wonder the SEC has granted special waivers to business on some 350 occasions that, according

  • to the report, “softened the blow of enforcement actions.” The plot thickens.

  • POGO also reports that when Obama’s first SEC chair, Mary Schapiro, pushed for reform

  • of the money markets business, it was opposed by the two Republicans on the Commission and

  • one Democrat, Luis Aguilar, who used to be an executive vice president with the money

  • management firm Invesco.

  • He came out against Schapiro’s plan shortly after a meeting with Invesco officials. Coincidence?

  • Aguilar told POGO there’s no connection.

  • Sure.

  • When George W. Bush was president and named Chris Cox to run the SEC, we screamed like

  • bloody murder, because Cox had been a partner at a huge global law firm whose client list

  • included Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

  • Now Obama’s pushing his choices through the same revolving door. It’s calledregulatory

  • capture” – the takeover of government agencies by the very corporations theyre

  • supposed to keep an eye on, to protect everyone’s investments and pensions against abuses of

  • private power.

  • What next? Well, stay tuned. In the next few weeks, Mary Jo White will sit for her confirmation

  • hearing before a committee stacked with politicians whose big donors include the financial industry.

  • At our website, BillMoyers.com, there’s an interview with POGO’s Michael Smallberg,

  • who led the investigation. You can also read the complete report, find out how to forward

  • it to your own member of Congress, then open your window and scream.

  • That’s all at BillMoyers.com. I’ll see you there

  • and I’ll see you here, next time.

BILL MOYERS: This week on Moyers & Company

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