Griffin Oswald

11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

Defense Paper
In 2010 the United States supreme court made a decision that drastically changed
American politics has changed American politics drastically and has threaten the very fabric of
democracy. , and the scariest part? Over 60% of Americans are unaware of the decision or dont
understand it. (Huskerson, 2014) The decision was on Citizens United v. FEC, and the supreme
court in a 5-4 decision decided that it is acceptable for corporations and labor unions to spend
as much money as they want to convince people to vote for or against a political candidate as
long as the money doesnt go to that candidate directly. The supreme court saw this as an
extension of freedom of speech , and as John Dunbar, a political analyst, put it "Spending is
speech, and is therefore protected by the Constitution even if the speaker is a
corporation."(Dunbar, 2016) It was through this decision that the Super PACs was born were
created. (Wertheimer, 2015)
My goal is to create an interactive exhibit that will explain the corruption caused by
Super PACs to American voters. I have constructed a fake ballot box that will be placed outside
voting centers. These ballot boxes will be duplicated and will be displayed at polling centers all
over the United States. This is a good location to run this interactive exhibit since voters are the
ones who can truly make a difference, and by learning about the issue of campaign donations
voters can make a more informed decision about who they elect, as certain candidates are
more likely to try and overturn citizens united or appoint supreme court judges who will.
To better understand just how much Super PACs have changed and corrupted American
politics it It is important to know understand that an individual can only give up to $2,600 to

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

any individual candidate and these donations are closely regulated by the Federal Elections
Commissions. (Huskerson, 2014) But now any corporation or individual can now donated as
much as they want to a any Super PAC that supports their candidate of choice. Now this fact
alone may not seem like that big of a deal This fact alone does not seem very significant, until
you look at the size of these the donations. Thomas Steyer gave a donation of $66,294,744 to a
Super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, and Sheldon Adelson and his wife gave over $42,700,000
to a Super PAC supporting Donald Trump and these are only 2 two examples out of hundreds.
(Open Secrets, 2016) Over 1.5 billion dollars has has been raised by Super PACs this year
alone, and only 1% of individual donors have contributed over 25% of all money raised. (Open
Secrets, 2016) This brings me to the next aspect of my interactive exhibit. The exhibit looks like
a normal ballot box on the outside, with the addition of flashy colors and graphics to attract
people to it. But once opened the audience will see the ballot box it is filled with money and the
names of the biggest donors in this recent election instead of normal votes. It will also contain
information about Super PACs and Citizens United to better inform voters on this issue. By
actually seeing this issue three dimensionally voters will be able to better understand why there
needs to be change.
This becomes a bigger Another problem with Super PACs is when elected officials are
more obligated to listen to their biggest donors that helped get them elected than the citizens
they are supposed to represent. There was a recent study done that showed lawmakers were
more likely to meet with their biggest donors instead of their constituents. (Terkel, 2014) And
another Another issue with this is how closely this mirrors similar it is to the robber baron era

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

(or gilded age politics) in America during the early 1900s. What happened d During the robber
baron era was campaign donations became were completely unregulated and because of this
politicians would give their biggest donors seats in their cabinet or other positions of power.
And because When the upper class America was getting obtained positions of power because
of the money they were donating, the middle and lower class voters were not being heard or
outright suppressed were ignored and suppressed. (Loomis, 2012) One of the biggest signs of
this becoming a real issue in modern times is Donald Trumps proposed cabinet members, many
of which are billionaire CEOs with very little political backgrounds, like Steven Mnuchin the
former Goldman Sachs executive who is Trumps proposed Treasury Secretary. (Terkel, 2016)
By including this information into the ballot box exhibit, voters will be able to see how quickly
America is reverting back to one of the most corrupt times in our history. The inclusion of this
idea in the exhibit will make lower and middle class voters want to enact change. Adding this
information to the ballot box also shows how serious this problem could become if nothing is
done to fix it.
A lot of thought and effort has already been put forth to try and fix correct these the
problems made created by the Citizens United decision. The fastest f quickest way to fix this
the issue is to have for the supreme court to completely overturn the decisions made in the
case, and with one new justice already appointed by Obama and at least two more seats
opening up soon, this may be a possible solution. But what What is even more probable is fixing
campaign reform on a state by state level first, just like similar to gay marriage legalization,
marijuana legalization, and gun reform control. Campaign reform is already starting to happen

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

has happened in Maine, Connecticut, Arizona, Seattle, and New York City by the voters citizens
in those states voting on smaller bills proposed by lobbyist in those states. The federal
government is much more likely to listen to voters in individual states if this trend keeps
occurring, and with both of the main candidates in this presidential election being procampaign reform this may be a very likely solution to such a big a very large problem. (Cole,
2016) This is why I have made American voters my intended audience. Change in a democracy
starts with the people, and if my interactive exhibit can educate voters and raise enough
interest this corruption could be reversed quite quickly. It is my hope that this ballot box can
expose voters to this problem and demonstrated that as long as the Citizens United decision
and Super PACs exist, you do not have a voice.

With all my research and the fact that so few of the American public know about the
corruption caused by Super PACs I have decided to create an interactive piece to represent this
problem to the voting public. I have constructed a fake ballot box that will be placed outside
voting centers. These ballot boxes will be duplicated and will be displayed at polling centers all
over the United States. This is a good location to run this interactive exhibit since voters are the
ones who can make a difference, and more knowledge about the issue of campaign donations
will allow voters to make a more informed decision about who they elect, as certain candidates
are more likely to try and overturn citizens united or appoint judges who will. The ballot box
will look like a normal ballot box on the outside, but will have flashy colors and graphics to
attract people to it. But once you open up the ballot box it is filled with money and the names

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

of the biggest donors in this recent election instead of normal votes. It will also contain
information about Super PACs and Citizens United to better inform voters on this issue. The
purpose of this piece is to expose voters to this problem and to demonstrated that as long as
the Citizens United decision and Super PACs exist you do not have a voice.

WORK CITED:

Huskerson, Tom. 60% Of Americans Don't Understand What Super PACs Are . IVNus, Ivn.us,
14 Feb. 2014, ivn.us/2014/02/14/60-americans-say-dont-understand-super-pacs/.
Dunbar, John. "The 'Citizens United' Decision and Why It Matters." Center for Public Integrity.
N.p., 14 Mar. 2016. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.
<https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-itmatters>.
Open Secrets . The Center for Responsive Politics. Opensecrets RSS, 1 Feb. 2016,
www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?disp=d.
Open Secrets . The Center for Responsive Politics. Opensecrets RSS, 1 Jan. 2016,
www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/donor_stats.php?cycle=2016&type=i.
Terkel, Amanda. Lawmakers More Likely To Meet With Campaign Donors Than Constituents,
New Study Finds. The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 5 Nov. 2014,
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/campaign-donations-access_n_4941357.html.
Terkel, Amanda. "Donald Trumps Proposed Cabinet Would Bring Some Fringe Figures In From
The Cold." Donald Trumps Proposed Cabinet Would Bring Some Fringe Figures In From The

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

Cold. N.p., 11 Nov. 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donaldtrump-administration-cabinet_us_58249c70e4b01019814da7f9>.

Loomis / AlterNet, Erik. "8 Ways America's Headed Back to the Robber-Baron Era." Alternet.
N.p., 2 July 2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.
<http://www.alternet.org/story/156111/8_ways_america%27s_headed_back_to_the_robberbaron_era/>.
Cole, David. "How to Reverse Citizens United." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 1 Apr.
2016. Web. 04 Oct. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/how-toreverse-citizens-united/471504/>.
Wertheimer, Fred. "Super PACs a Disaster for Democracy." CNN. Cable News Network, 15 Feb.
2015. Web. 01 Oct. 2016. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/opinion/wertheimer-superpacs/index.html>. .