Today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution’s headline article, It’s Deal vs. Carter, admirably gets to the point: “Gov. Nathan Deal heads into his re-election summer and fall bolstered by…campaign checks flowing in from big statehouse interests…[b]ut battling ethics questions.” And what should we know about Carter? He’s “a fresh-faced Democratic opponent with a famous name who can raise money from Georgia millionaires, D.C. lobbyists and Hollywood big shots.” While money isn’t the only thing that matters, the story is an important reminder: without major donors and vested interests on their side no politician stands a chance. Moneyed interests are the gatekeepers. The vote is just a referendum on candidates who are successful in the market for favorable donations and expenditures. If big spenders of one sort or another don’t approve of a candidate, you’ll never get to vote on that candidate. That’s the general rule and a reminder that our system of government is not at all what it claims to be.

Nothing like a coup to make you feel fortunate to have the luxury of facing off against a court not a general. http://nyti.ms/1mdmh8n

Please consider coming to a book presentation in Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Madrid, Barcelona, Minneapolis, or Providence! Updated schedule available here.

It’s a great time to debate McCutcheon, the case that paves the way for unlimited aggregate donations. Even with the prior limits in place ($123,000 per two year cycle), less than 1% of the population supplied 75% of all the money. After McCutcheon, individual donors can give $3.6 million to candidates, parties, and party committees. This will surely make money in politics an even more undemocratic force. To give you an idea of what I mean, consider that just 200 millionaires and billionaires supplied 80% of the total independent expenditures in the 2012 elections. That’s .000063% of the US population controlling outside speech (superPACs and the like). McCutcheon will bring donations further down the same road as independent expenditures.  Decided less than a month ago, the case is already producing something we’ve seen in the criminal law context of harsh mandatory minimum sentences: judges who tearfully administer laws that they find unconscionable. In tonight’s debate in Atlanta, I’ll try to bring to light the reasons that McCutcheon is popular in some circles and to examine those arguments with genuine curiosity.