the outstanding faculty award for the washington law reviews so he must be doing something right in the classroom and he also writes a weekly first amendment news column for the concurring opinions blogger. please welcome ronald collins [applause] >> jamie raskin, that is not a typo, that is how you spell his name. egos by ginnie. i want to make sure there's no confusion about that. graduated magna cum laude from harvard college and harvard law school. they couldn't get into the university of virginia law school. he was also editor of the harvard law review. jamie is professor of constitutional law at washington college of law and state senator in maryland where he is majority whip of the center. he lead successful efforts to pass the marriage equality repeal. >> just marriage equality. >> let's be careful about that. >> let me try is that again. led the successful effort to pass the marriage ecology built repeal the desk at wiki comment aunt and ban assault weapons in the state of maryland. [applause] >> are you of plotting his achievements or the fact that i got it right? he is also a senior fellow at the people for the american way where he advises on matters of constitutional justice, freedom and political democracy has written dozens of essays and law review articles and several books including the 2003 washington post best-seller overruling democracy, the supreme court reverses the american people and lead the students which analyzed the supreme court decision affecting american students. he has appeared on national television outlooks including that last word with lawrence macdonald, the ed show sean hannity and regular contributor to the nation and huffington post. please join me in welcoming jamie raskin. [applause] >> my plan today is i am officially the moderator but i discovered in doing these things over time that you folks often have better questions than i have. i like to get things going but i am going to open this up to questions very early and keep the conversation going. if you have questions, raise your hand when i asked for the manned wait until we get somebody with a microphone to get to use so the people at home will be able to hear this. this is being recorded for charlottesville channel 10 which is a great service community access channel and c-span's booktv. we are grateful to have them both here today. i would like to start things off with general questions to make sure we are all on the same page. the term citizens united has become part of the american lexicon in the last few years and i would like to ask you if you could tell us what exactly is citizens united? >> let me thank you for inviting me to be part of this. i had to come to this festival because my sister erica published a novel called close and i had to come in and watch her talk so it was a free ride to talk about ron's book too. so this was a water said -- watershed decision in 2010 which toppled to my mind two centuries of understanding what a corporation is. go back to the supreme court decision in the the base in 1819 in the dartmouth college case, john marshall said inc's is an artificial entity, invisible, intangible, existing only in contemplation of law and possessing only those rights conferred upon it by the charter of creation. that said an understanding that lasted until 2010 in citizens united. a corporation is an economic entity that can be regulated by the people, it was a fantastic vehicle of wealth accumulation investment and activity but as justice white put it in first national bank of boston the state need not permit its own creature to consume it. that was that a point when there was an assertion that corporations had political free-spending rights. in 2010 five justice conservative majority on the roberts court reached out to ask a question that had not been opposed to it in citizens united. it was the simple statutory question which was under the mccain feingold bipartisan campaign reform act, does of pay-per-view movie, there was this anti hillary clinton movie made by the citizens united group constitute a tv ad within the meaning of the mccain feingold legislation. all they had to state that the conservative group win was no, that was not what was contemplated in terms of the tv ad but the conservative majority, ordered the parties to go back into arguing a complete mean new question which was essentially do corporations have first amendment political free-speech rights of the people and can they spend on an unlimited basis in our politics? and what the you know, after getting all the arguments back they decided that yes indeed, corporations are just as justice kennedy put it, an association of citizens just like you and me and any other. the ceos have the power to take whatever they want out of the corporate treasury to spend in politics. before citizens united the corporate voice as justice stevens put it was hardly missing from our politics because they could spend all the money they wanted and the ceos could spend all their money and corporations could create political action committees but those had to actually get individual contributions from real human beings so in the 2008 cycle exxon mobil had a pack which raise $1 million which is not chump change which they were able to put into campaigns across the country but citizens united had been in place in 2008 the ceo of exxon mobile could have reached into the corporate treasury and taken out essentially what everyone did. the company had $87 billion in corporate profits in that cycle so if they had taken out a modest 10% of just their profits they did spend $8.7 billion which was more than was spent by the obama campaign or the mccain campaign and every federal candidates 10% of the profits of one fortune 500 company. the court declared that this was what the constitution means, corporations can spend whatever they want and with predictable results. in the next election cycle in 2010 when the major question of the campaign should have been the bp oil spill which destroyed an entire ecosystem in the gulf of mexico or the collapsing coal mines in west or the trillion dollar meltdown of the mortgage industry which destroyed lots of people's jobs, homes when that should have been the issue, instead the infusion of corporate money made the question in the 2010 congressional campaign corporate deregulation and how important it is to deregulate business in america and we saw the triumph of the tea party and since then we have seen ever-increasing spending on the super pacs dark muddy rivers flowing in for a 501 c 46 organizations because it the citizens united opinion which was again 5-4, deeply divided and continuing huge majorities of the american people reject this proposition that corporations should be treated like citizens, like people. there continues to be majority support for constitutional amendment, democrats brought it up on a party-line vote. citizens united, the governing dogmas of the time which are money is speech and corporations are people and now we are trying to work out other statutory ways to fight that. but this is the big question of our time. are we going to be able to find a way to reclaim democratic momentum, all the momentum we had from the civilizing movement of the last century, the civil rights movement, labor movement the -- of we going to allow corporations to govern? i am speaking as someone who wants corporations to profit, prosper, thrive but not govern. that belongs to the people under our constitution. [applause] >> was there anything you would like to respond to? >> i concur in part and dissenting in part. thank you, josh and thanks to the thomas jefferson center. thank you for all the wonderful first amendment work you do, sometimes at the risk of being criticized but for those of us we value the contributions. the reason i have to concur in part and dissenting in part is because it is a very complicated issue. when money speaks, the book i co-authored with michael leather and friend we made a concerted effort to let others decide to be absolutely balanced, not balance in the fox news sense but balance in the definition, dictionary definitions cents. we try to present both sides as best we could so if you look through and try to discern exactly what our position is, good luck. the reason we did that is because this is a very complicated issue. it is one -- the world is not divided liberal/conservative. i take great pride in being affiliated with the legal aid foundation in los angeles, so well continued to defending his role as a member of the state legislature. i daresay there are few things we disagree on and on want to talk about more about his possible bid for congressional seat. last i heard in the washington post your children approved it, your friends approved it on the table. >> won a family primary. >> he is in our to strict so i definitely have some questions i would like to ask but i must say as someone who has done work on the american civil liberties union, i take a back seat to no one when it comes to being liberal. i do not think our current president is a liberal by my standards. he is too separate from my decision. i don't see fit and the fat cat monopolist that jamie raskin rails against and as anyone who defends dissent in america i am pleased and happy there are folks like ginnie taking the positions he does. that said, i am very concerned about civil liberties in america. i am very concerned about our first amendment. just before i came here when i left home i received a letter from the southern poverty law center asking me to contribute. it is a wonderful organization, one of the top organizations in this country that fight racism and bigotry i am happy to support it and i urge you to support it. why am i saying that? money isn't speech, ladies and gentlemen but money facilitates speech. i believe in this cause enough to put my money where my mouth is and i urge you to do likewise and that points to a very important issue and that is in a highly capitalist culture, make of it what you will, money is very much a part of who we are and what we do. from my state, i prefer the measure of free speech liberty we have in the united states over that of many socialist countries. are there many things in the socialist countries that's because it's my ideals? certainly. in terms of free speech i am glad to be an american citizen and glad to receive the benefits of that. let's talk about corporations. jamie did an excellent job describing i agree with you, the way the court should have disclosed it on the grounds that theodore olson argued. he is a concern and -- conservative and his main argument was for this case to have been decided instead to join grounds. won't get into the technicalities but i agree with that and i think actually the elections commission got it wrong in the first place, they should have allowed the documentary. after all what we had was i don't think you mentioned it, citizens united is a non-profit corporation just like the thomas jefferson center, just like the american civil liberties union, just as the national association for the advancement of colored people, ladies and gentlemen, those are all corporations so if you want to diminish or reneged on their rights of corporations think what that would do to planned parenthood, 6 states in the midwest if they could come after planned parenthood because planned parenthood is a corporate entity, didn't have first amendment protection. i have a question for jamie if i may. genie is the senior fellow at people for the american way correct? like a lot of other non profits received a lot of money from corporate entities including large amounts of money from the service foundation. i at no problem with that. that is fine. i wish people for the american way disclosed that on its web site but i researched it and it is available. i urge them to put that sort of information on there website, transparency is a wonderful virtue but let's say that ted cruz -- not even jewish. that is how bad it is. saying -- anyway. let's say ted cruz is the nominee for the republicans. and let's say we are outraged by this and say people for the american way which receives money from other corporations decides they want to make a documentary critical of him and to air during the election. wonderful. i am all for that. i would give my money, tell them if they do that documentary, my check is ready to go. they want to air the documentary in the election and they want something else. they want jamie, they won't pay him for it. they want him to write a book. do you know that under the dissenting views in the very case that he criticized, dissenting views of the case he supported, people for the american way, it would be a federal crime to air that documentary and it would be a crime as evidenced by the oral arguments that elena kagan and previous assistant solicitor general seated all arguments and i have the transcripts ready to read it if we have any doubt of that conceded that a book could be regulated. to me as someone who believes firmly in the first amendment, ladies and gentlemen, this is the nightmare scenario. regulating planned parenthood and depriving it of its first amendment and equal protection and due process rights is a nightmare and that is why part of why i don't come to defend the fat cats. what i am saying is i am very worried, i will get to the constitutional amendment later, lawyers say again our bill of rights has never been amended. how dare anyone call for that? was behind jamie at the judiciary committee that pushed for that and more than what was being proposed and we will get to that in a moment but this is my concern, that sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, the queue or kills the patient. that, as a liberal someone who defensible liberties i simply cannot abide. >> i am sure you don't have anything you want to say in response. >> we still have 40 minutes. >> i think i will take the task of allowing you to respond to that. >> let's start with this because we are sponsored by the thomas jefferson center and we are here in beautiful charlottesville and jefferson wrote in his famous letter that our first amendment create a wall of separation between church and state. what is the church other than a religious corporation? that is what a church is. that created the model the templates for what progressives and populous and liberals tried to do a century ago in the dirksen senate office building 0th century. i would be interested in ron's position. the delmack has been law since 1907 saying that corporations may not give money to federal candidates. corp. is just a person and taking the corporation's political free-speech rights away would deprive all of us of our first amendment rights that would be unconstitutional and corporations could put money directly into federal campaigns. for more than a century we have tried to create a wall of separation in jeffersonian terms between corporate treasury wealth and free democratic erection which belong to the people. it doesn't mean corporate executives and employees and boards of directors can't vote or put their own money in it means you can't take money from the corporate treasury. chief justice rehnquist to give you a sense how far right this court is, said in 1978 that for corporations and artificial entities in doubt with all kinds of special privileges, limited liability to shareholders, perpetual life of the company, favorable treatment of assets and so on and of vehicle for wealth maximization and accumulation in investment but poses special dangers when it comes to the political process. the creature of the state could come to devour the state and control our politics. that has been the central understanding of american jurisprudence and democratic political struggle for at least a century. ron taunted me with the idea of the 5013 see groups that did not profit, if we don't overturned the tilden act or let corp. after two centuries get directly involved in politics than people for the american way and the naacp and national right to life group won't have political rights but that is nonsense because they have had political rights under this system. the real question is in the reverse direction. if we actually say the identity of the speaker is irrelevant which is the heart of justice kennedy's opinion, doesn't make any difference to the speaker is does that mean churches can spend money in elections? that is the question i pose to you. can the church of latter-day saints, the roman catholic church take money out of their treasuries that is in there for religious purposes that people have given on a tax-deductible basis and the churches are tax exempt and put it into politics because the identity of the speaker is irrelevant? can foreign governments spend money and foreign corporations spend money, if not why not? if all speech is good surely those foreign governments, the chinese government would love to spend several billion dollars in our elections. why not a false speech is good and we don't care about the source or the origin of it? the american people have this right, thomas paine when he wrote common-sense knew what he was talking about. people understand that money is not speech. money is in medium of exchange. it can buy speech but it can also buy power. it can by politicians. we don't allow the people to regulate it. money is going to wash away everything and that is pretty much what we are facing in this situation where the supreme court is dismantling the wall of separation between corporate treasury, welfare and public elections. ron says we could end up amending the constitution to take someone's rights away. whenever amended the bill of rights before. i think that is wrong. when we abolished slavery we confiscated millions and millions of dollars of what was considered property. that is what the slave owners were arguing, you can't abolish slavery, you are taking away our property rights. when we adopted women's average in the nineteenth amendment in the 1920s the. is that you are divesting us of our right to govern. you could say the same with the poll tax. in that case harper freezes regina board of elections comes out of virginia, the one dollar $0.50 and the supreme court says you cannot charge people $1.50 to go and vote because some people have it and some people don't. now we are opening the floodgates on corporate money to such an extent that the money of ordinary people is completely drowned out. we are in danger of losing democratic equality. those are the questions i would return to you about a 5013 c, shut all the churches and not-for-profits that get tax-exempt contributions that the participate however they want spending money directly in politics? the point about the book the right wing has used in a propaganda fashion, could you actually since troubled that a corporation put out, putting everybody's for telling them to vote for the koch brothers's candidate? let's say the government decided to endorse barack obama for president and publish a book and go door to door. would you have any problems thing the government printing office could not publish a book and go door to door with it? would that not violate a whole set of rules which would be perfect constitutional if the government decided to start endorsing candidates? those are some of my questions i will throwback in your general direction. >> i told you we agree on a number of things. i don't disagree with half of what you said. you mentioned keeping money, taking money from foreign governments. .. now, hillary clinton is not yet no space off is a candidate which means the rules of campaign financing don't apply to her. you will see with increasing frequency more and more candidates are waiting before they officially announced. why? so they can accept more money not regulated by campaign-finance law. now, getting back to your question, let's say the very foundation the side so he has to speak in ohio and to some donors. who this yes? she asked herself. and has the foundation sponsored those? yes. the question the question is when a country like saudi arabia gives your foundation tender $25 million isn't that like the proverbial alligator in the bathtub they side with the idea that corporations are persons. guess what group led the charge against campaign-finance? was in some right wing group funded by that that conservatives? it was the american civil liberties union from 1976 they filed on behalf of the challenge to campaign-finance what magellan stood on first amendment grounds that has continued up to this term. why? let me take you back to 1972 there is a man in office named richard nixon a lot of political groups want him. they want to raise money to not only defeating but impeachment. and. [inaudible] [laughter] >> anyway, they want to teach them. they want to take out a full-page ad in the new york times basically arguing for impeachment, pretty much like when they attended to impeach johnson. the new york times would not run the ad. the aclu tries again and is threatened by the justice department if they proceed they may well be in violation of campaign-finance law and so they go to court. in two cases they prevail. one other thing and let me tell you what a big dad conservative it was eugene carthy. and why was this all real liberal, a real liberal not like the liberals today, real vilified liberal because he realized the status quo defended the incumbent. my.in all of this is to tell you if you think that this is something that just benefits conservatives and kills liberals and caps on democracy, think again take a few lessons from history. this is not to say that there is nothing we can do. i do think that there are things we can do, but i do not want to tinker with the first amendment and i do not want to amend our constitution. more on that in a moment. >> i appreciate very much the story, but i thought that you were advancing for endorsing the general proposition that the money is speech side is making which is essentially that money speech more speeches better, therefore we have to completely deregulate money. i did i did not hear your position. the position you just said -- >> i would be interested if the logic of your position is how the government could put money and to a campaign car for. >> right now first amendment law does not allow that. >> what is your position? >> i think -- >> why is that? >> why do it -- >> yeah, just more speech. [inaudible conversations] that is just more speech and you speech, and you would be depriving the toddlers of the right to participate in politics. there is no difference with a foreign domestic corporations. anyone can -- purchase a corporation. at a corporation. at what.-- how much ownership must be borne before it loses its first amendment rights? >> that's what a corporation is. it is not a person, not an assemblage person and ownership structure for the investment money. a category error. in citizens united they just made a mistake. >> by that logic then since only clinton's foundation accepts -- and this is your chance to speak out against her. [laughter] running for office. >> i'm a speaking out against anybody. >> this is what it comes to. this is the problem we face. >> let me -- >> the mic is mine. i think this is part of the problem. in the scenarios you just described, that meant that the government could completely shut down hillary plans foundation. it could. they are accepting -- there sucking off the tee to foreign government. what i want to know is this. let's just cut to the chase. he is running for election may be running for election maybe. right now right now he's one of the representatives for the state of maryland which is a highly broadly diversified community. long story. >> ever thought we were both that washington law schools? jamie may be running for office and may be running in one district, and if he does, i want answers to the questions right now. whether or not i should go for you and hold the party for you as we did for heather. progressive wonderful lady that ran for governor in the state of maryland. maryland. unfortunately, she did not win. >> we can get them. >> those of us who want to support your campaign can do so and do so vigorously. >> when heather renn there was a party thrown for her by somebody who was disgustingly rich at a mansion command hundreds of people came. wind, hors d'oeuvres, just wonderful, and people were cutting checks with zeros in all the stuff. first question somebody all right, like that much money you throw a party for you, would you allow it? second question, union support guess what the greatest source of outside income in the dormitory election, the last of the top 25 gubernatorial election of the greatest source of outside to get outside income, unions would you accept you know accept, you know, unlimited union support, not only money but all sorts of contributions. if i want to put up five billboards supporting your campaign, would you campaign, would you discourage me from doing that? also, here is a a good one. as you know, it's jeff kurz on to my great guy great progressive, was involved in the obama campaign with this guy alone raise 150,000. >> 150000 just like a month for obama. but anyway, he ran for congress in new york and for congress in new york and may what i thought was a wonderful pledge to accept know pac money. would would you accept pac money? finally, i we will just leave it they're. i want to be an informed citizen. i want to be an informed citizen command i want to know how vigorously i can support your campaign. help me. >> you are going to be angry at me because i am not right now going to give you a chance to answer that question specifically. >> you get to ask your question. >> and being killed on your behalf. >> it looks like i'm dodging the question, but softball. >> we are getting into the weeds, it's good. >> let me. >> let me ask a question. i think it demonstrates that this is much more complicated than opposite sides like to pretend it is. people on different sides of the issues. let's talk about one thing am hearing from of the view is an agreement that there is a problem with money. so let's think about the possible solution. one is amending the first amendment or as we all know the first amendment is not absolute. there are exceptions. why can't -- why isn't the problem of money in our election campaigns such a problem to our society and our way of governance that may be an amendment to the first amendment on campaign finance is -- >> well, let's go to some practical solutions, okay? as you know, it takes a two thirds vote in the house and senate to ratify. at a certain time the problem goes the solution. there is just too much money despite the fact that we had a partyline vote the senate to amend the constitution. i i support the aclu position which is public financing of elections command i have been a champion of public financing in maryland, and this is clearly the way to marginalize the tyranny of big money which which, you create a matching system like to have in new york city. my friend's hear from new york, and that has become the model for how you do it across the country. there is a proposal in congress today to create a matching system where people would be able to raise money for small donors, not big donors trying get it matched the republic contribution. that is clearly the way to go. on the aclu i yield to no one one, even my great friend ron come in terms of my champion ship of civil liberties and civil rights. i got an award just a few years ago from the aclu for standing up for marriage equality for fighting police, spying for championing that 2nd chance act which we just passed this week in maryland. and so i am a huge champion of civil liberties. of course, as you know, there is a big split within the aclu about this. when i testified before the united states senate judiciary committee are brought with me a letter from former chairs and directors of the aclu saying that they thought that the dominant position feared from the union of democracy and civil liberties which they say they stood for. now let me address the other things and they say they stood for. now let me address the other things and getting your question. >> and i welcome runs challenged, the existential question which is what do you do when you try to get into politics to fight for things you believe in and are in the middle of the money system, a wealth primary, how you deal with that? the 1st thing i did when i announced was said i am not going to take money from corporations, partnerships llcs, people lobbying. none of those llcs, people lobbying. none of those people wanted to give me money anyway. it was an easy pledge to make, but, but i have stood by that command it has given me the power and the independence to take strong positions that are against the current. and if you do not think -- some of these members of congress are saying the money does not make any difference, who is spending the money and who is lobbying. it is irrelevant. if you don't think money makes a difference in politics you are too innocent to be let out of the house by yourself. it makes a huge difference huge difference in terms of what goes on the agenda and what is happening in the big news and more importantly what is happening in the back rooms and the deals are being cut and tax laws are being written and so on. now, so ron asked me, so what do you do? what i'm not accept a big fundraiser, these generosity and opening of his home. i think i heard them offer. [laughter] and the answer is. [laughter] the position that i have taken is that the supreme court has derailed the democratic experiment with citizens united saying that corporations can take money out of their treasury and pump it into political campaigns which is a whole different kind of scale of money, a scale of corruption like we have never seen before in american politics. do i accept money from wealthy people? yes. most comes from middle and working-class people. i live in the other side of the tracks in montgomery county. important things, but i we will get to know this side. if he has a living room big enough, i would love to do it. unions okay, the supreme court and congress both have collaborated in a basic fallacy in equating corporations and unions. the union is a membership organization. if money comes from its members putting money in a corporation gets money from the consumers because they are selling a good or service or product. again it is a category error to say that corporations should be able to take money out of the treasury not only that but the supreme court has said repeatedly you get a rebate for any political expenditures are you disagree with precisely because we do not want your agency fees or dues going to a political a political cause or candidate with whom you disagree. the supreme court has stated that several times. do i accept pac money? sure. sure. that is the money that individuals put in, but i say that i we will save the corporations of maryland american millions are tens of millions of dollars by not accepting the money. i do not think money should be taken out of the treasury and put in for political purposes. if you own a pension fund, how many people here are part of the pension fund that is invested in the stock market? if you are invested that thataway, and some of your money from these big companies is going in to political campaigns federal, state, some cases local campaigns without your knowledge or consent. i introduced legislation culture holders united which picks up on the line from justice kennedy and the majority decision citizens united where he said that shareholders can use the mechanism of shareholder democracy if they disagree and they will know about it because we can do online disclosure. none of that is reality but makes sense in theory. my legislation my legislation which a number of state legislatures are taking up now, they have got to tell the shareholders within 48 hours of doing it but cannot spend it all without getting a prior majority vote of the shareholders on an annual basis. they basis. they do not have to prove each individual expenditure but must have a vote saying we approve the public about it. that it. that is the deal of the united kingdom. we are going down this road. at least the shareholders should have some voice. [applause] >> one response in an allegory questions. >> defending the forces of evil. [laughter] >> i want you to know one of my criticism, my progressive colleagues no one really takes up the hard question of what we can do about this. this corruption in america is a wonderful a wonderful book. i don't think i agree with everything in it but it is a very good a very good book. i recommend it to you. so getting back to the evil force. by the way i do endorse the kind of proposed legislation that is a good thing and more progressives need to do precisely that. it is not as sexy but it is an important contribution. i was i was in the senate chamber the day that the testimony was taken on the bill of rights. just so just so that we are right on nuance year, the first amendment going back to 1791 that is accurate to the t command i do not think that it should be. that liberals, of all people should lend their names, even if they don't think it could pass to tinkering with the first amendment and to amending it, i say to you it sets a bad precedent. i sat behind him the day that he testified. i thought he said many good things, but as someone who has committed my life to among other things, defending the first amendment, the institute command i think it is a wonderful cause and a support that too, but i do not want to amend the equal protection clause of the first amendment. one of the groups that has led the charge and has done just a wonderful job and calling for campaign-finance reform and just to.out a lot of the corruption mentioned in the book democracy 21. and going back decades there's an individual named greg rick hamrick who has conducted, i think, a very honorable charge. do i always agree with them? no, i do not. but if one is to be fair, i think he has led a wonderful campaign along with democracy 21. but guess what guess what group when it came to lending their name to this proposal that jim we defended jamie defended to amend the constitution, guess which group remained largely silent, democracy 21 i asked him point-blank would you support the constitutional amendment? no. i think, you i think you know, if you think about it, why does a group that has committed itself so robustly to defending the cause of campaign-finance why does that group and others, including people from the american way, including a number of unions why does it follow y? and i say to you for the same reason when liberals like myself and other folks have pause when we here about some of the proposed remedies which we think could cure a problem so great that it would kill many of the liberties that we take, i do not want the government going and being engaged in a campaign to abridge my free speech for those of people like the american civil liberties union in the 70s when the nixon administration wants to come after them. so is there a difference here between us? certainly. but i think it is a difference along the spectrum, spectrum, and i think if anything comes of this dialogue today what is important is that folks like us, liberals like us need to find some way that the kind of evils which jamie rails against we can make do something effective not a constitutional amendment which is not going anywhere except the bad press but something that will really change in my opinion to make a difference and in that regard as you have a commonality of interest in the meeting of minds in the proposal that jamie is recommended, and if anything we need more of that. i invite the i invite the opportunity to work with you for liberals to that end. >> i appreciate that. apparently i have lied to you. i said i was going to let you have the opportunity to ask a lot of questions but i hope that you feel that the sacrifice is not in vain given this conversation has just been terrific and engaging. i hate to cut it off, but i off, but i want to give you the opportunity to ask questions. this gentleman right here. >> kirk walters. i have worked in politics reform for quite some time. the question time. the question i want to ask is, has to do with the dangers that you speak out of regulating speech. we're standing in the halls of city hall. at the regular meetings citizens can come up speak their minds and are limited to three minutes. i i think we would all agree that that is consistent with the first amendment. we would all agree it is a regulation of speech. if this were more like the election system the rich might be able to speak for 15 minutes and the less rich maybe for 15 seconds. so do you think that the regulation of speech in this chamber is dangerous? what is the difference with elections? >> first amendment doctrine we have something called time place manner. that is my answer. >> it is an excellent question, of course. within the government speech is intensely regulated, of course. in the house of representatives you give one minute to make a a speech and the time is rigorously divided between the two sides. in the supreme court were so many of our first amendment liberties have been fought, challenge, and expounded finally the rigorous allotment of speech time with reservation of time for a bottle and so on. i believe in a much for your exchange. the irony is the same supreme court which gave us citizens united has been thwarted and attacking free speech. i reject any insinuation that this is a pro-free-speech court. if you look at the decisions with respect to public employee rights, the rights of union members, this court has been savaging real free-speech rights, the opportunity to speak. it is only in the context of money speech that somehow it is unlimited and opens the door possibly to criminal proceeds coming in foreign government money and so on and the theory that the identity of the speaker is irrelevant. what do we do about the specific time place manner of an election. there what we say is that there are reasonable rule that can be put in place so that the election makes sense in everyone's voice can be spoken which was well understood. this court has moved in other directions. for example in the arizona case the court struck down the same five justice public financing mechanism in arizona which said, if you get public financing in your opponent outspend you three to one or four to one we will give you a little extra money in order to create more speech. that shows the free-speech of the wealthy speaker which totally undercuts the argument that all they want is more speech because arizona was trying to promote more speech and instead said he violated the first amendment right of the well endowed, you know well bankrolled candidate which shows that they are not interested in more speech. they are interested in freezing the political inequality that some people have over others. >> in the interest of time i we will not take the time to dissent with the mischaracterization of the roberts court record. you did find out a few cases. i have no disagreement they're. to characterize the jurisprudence, ladies and human, it is not quite accurate. and so i we will say say that in the interest of time. >> thank you both for this lively exchange. this is a specific question for jamie. during the citizens united case, did any of the justices argue for justice marshall's definition of a corporation? if so how did those arguments go? >> it was central to the dissenting opinions in the case. so to mayor was terrific and kagan was terrific. for the 1st time in american history you're your taking for profit business corporations and treating them like citizens. that is not what they are not the way they have ever been treated in law coin that was a conservative dictum for a long time. chief justice rehnquist was emphatic about the issue that there is this while of separation. the problem is it is not constitutional like the first amendment amendment, separation of church and state. we have tried to build it up and statute. and the supreme court is bulldozing the wall of separation between corporate treasury wealth and public collections and somehow whether it is constitutional, and i do not for the shows that in any way, take any joy in it. people talk about a runaway constitutional convention, today we have a runaway supreme court totally divorced from the way that the rest of the public understands politics and understands corruption so somehow we need to reclaim it. if we can do it at the state level, let's do it at the state level. this is the bill of rights we have only amended the constitution 17 times. if you take away prohibition and the repeal of it only 15 times. the vast majority of those amendments have been suffrage expanding democracy and enlarging, democracy deepening amendments like woman suffrage, the 15th amendment, discrimination in voting, the 24th amendment banning poll taxes, lowering the voting age to 16, this is completely within the mainstream of american constitutional development to have the people take back democracy. the 1st three words of the constitution are, we the people. a republican president spoke a government of the people by the people, for the people, right? >> can i just say something about abraham lincoln? i am so glad you mentioned on a state. as you no undoubtedly from reading my book one of the delighted things that came across when researching the book, when he was running in illinois for congress there was a very influential german constituency. and and they were supporting his opponent. .. justice brennan and justice marshall started with a case called buckley, justice brennan played a major role in writing that decision and justice marshall signed on to that and as late as 1986 justice brennan had struck down campaign finance law and defended the rights of corporations. if these guys are terrible and that and what have you, but there are people from our side of the divide who also lend their names to it and any statements to the contrary, that justice brennan changed his view, has never been documented and is not in the biography written about him. as far as we know brennan never changed his view on this and it is quite ironic that an entity that does all sorts of fine work, the brennans centers it is named after him and championing the cause very much at odds with what justice brennan did in buckley. >> my colleague who wrote the biography you are referring to this was about individual rights, it up held reasonable campaign contribution limits upheld public financing. >> the expenditures -- >> it is late years away from what we are seeing in the roberts court. buckley is fine compared to what we have got with citizens united. as you know there are 15 holdings but i basically agree with the decision and there's a lot going on in that opinion but compared to what we have seen in citizens united. >> it was not the first case to hold corporations have first amendment rights. >> i will cut the conversation short. >> i apologize if we were not able to get as many questions from the audience but i think you will agree it was worth it. [applause] [applause] >> one thing i think is true is this is

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