Voter Dollars For Real Power

We dig into why big money donors have become the real constituents in American politics and why voters feel shut out of decisions that shape their lives. We lay out a specific fix called voter dollars that aims to make voters the donors and pull power back from corporations, special interests, and mega-check politics. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hey, I want to thank everybody for tuning in today. I want to really appreciate y'all. Uh, we're we're we're doing a bang up job here. The last three weeks have been a ride that uh I can't tell anybody uh it's hard to explain. Uh we started out with uh leaving we left the radio station and started this uh podcast radio deal, and now it's uh getting bigger and bigger by the minute in the day. Um please join us and uh check us out on TikTok. We're uh approaching a million viewers in uh in first three weeks we're doing this. So we're we're gonna keep on keeping on. So let's get started with tonight's show. The rich rule

Welcome And The Money Problem

SPEAKER_00 1:29

over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. That's Proverbs 22, 7. Good evening, folks. And I'll tell you what, that verse cuts right through the heart of what we're talking about tonight. Because if money controls the system, then who really holds the power? Welcome to the show where we don't deal in talking points, we deal in truth. Tonight's conversation is about something every American feels, whether they can put it into words or not. The sense of our voices don't carry the weight they used to. Campaigns cost millions. One more time, I'm gonna say that. Campaigns cost millions, not thousands, not even hundreds of thousands, but millions. And that kind of money doesn't come from everyday people trying to raise a family or pay a mortgage, it comes from the corporations, special interests, and the wealthy, a few who can afford to write checks big enough to shape the entire conversation. And when that happens, something shifts. Candidates start listening upward, not outward. Politics start reflecting donors, not voters. Uh-huh. And the rest of us were left watching from the sidelines of a system that's supposed to belong to us, uh we the people. But if if there was a way to flip the script, what if instead of chain chasing big money, candidates had to earn your support directly from the people? What if every voter had real financial power in elections? Not just a ballot, but a stake. Tonight we're diving into a bold idea. Amy had doing exactly that. Restoring government by the uh by restoring government by the people by making voters donors. I need to repeat that. Restoring government by the people by making voters donors. Please understand what I just said. Joining us is a man who's spent decades studying history, law, and the consequences of power unchecked. A former prosecutor, turned author, and reform advocate. He's made it his mission to tackle what he sees as a root of our political dysfunction. Maybe I should have said evil. Dan McDam McClellan is here with us tonight to break it all down the problem, the solution, and what it would take to put power back where it belongs. Dan, I want to thank you for joining our show. I uh skipped over a couple words there for you, but uh I really appreciate you coming on and hopefully uh we can explain this, uh, what you're trying to do. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Well, John, first of all, thank you so much for having me and for giving me this chance to uh to put our ideas, to put this idea before the American people and before the people of the state of Pennsylvania. And thank you for that wonderful introduction because you summarized the problem and the solution that we are that we are presenting in a in a very concise and effective way. But let me just sort of spell it out a little bit further. So, you know, we we operate on the on the recognition that the only people with much power in our politics anymore are big ticket campaign donors, because now um to to challenge

Introducing Voter Dollars

SPEAKER_03 4:48

an incumbent in the House, it costs millions of dollars. Senate campaigns run in the tens or even hundreds of millions. The minimum price of admission to the White House is a cool billion or more, and this money does not come from you or me or any kind of sort of you know normal Americans. It comes from a tiny minority of people who can really give it in bulk, who can write checks for 50,000, half a million, five million dollars, or even more. And those donors have become the real constituents of our so-called representatives in Washington. And we, the people, we're we're a necessary evil, you know, we're necessary because they still need our vote to get into office, but we're an evil because any time they spend talking to us uh takes them away from their number one job, which is raising more money from their next for their next campaign and taking care of their donors. But there is a way to maybe not completely solve, but really put a take us a long way toward fixing this problem, and that is to make ourselves the donors. I mean, if only donors count, well, make voters the donors. And the way this would work is a system called voter dollars. Um, the idea has been out there for about 25 years, but uh for reasons that we'll get to, really no one in politics has been terribly motivated to kind of act on it and lead on it. Um, and the concept is simply that when you register to vote, you would get an online account of campaign cash, $100 per voter for a presidential year, $50 per voter for the midterms. And you can't take this money out and spend it, but you log on and you send your voter dollars to the candidates you want to support. And if we fund the system at that level, and it's a lot of money, then candidates who want to represent us can raise enough money from us, from the voters, to run a strong campaign. And no one's gonna have much excuse for taking money anymore for their campaigns from Elon Musk, George Soros, big big oil, big big pharma, labor unions, you name whatever special interest that you don't like. I don't really, frankly, like any of them. And uh what it what it also does is it gives an opportunity for sort of uh normal Americans to to run for public office, just to run for Congress. Because right now, you know, you really have to challenge an incumbent, you you almost have to be a millionaire with millionaire friends, so you can hold a fundraiser at the country club where you all gather. But with voter dollars, you could be, you could be, you know, owner, the owner of a drugstore, or a public school principal, or a teacher, or a fireman, or a fire chief, or um any, you know, Americans from all walks of life would, if you have communication skills and good ideas, you'd be able to get a campaign off the ground with motor dollars and you'd be able to raise enough money um to be taken seriously. Right now, you know, it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, if your ideas are unattractive or even just uninteresting to big ticket donors, you don't attract any money, and you don't get you don't get you don't raise the kind of cash that you need for the media to take you seriously. The voters never even hear your name. So we think in a lot of what, you know, this would really um just do at a bare minimum level the playing field between us and we the people in special interests, but I think it would do a lot more than that. Um I think the one thing I'd like to cut to kind of as quickly as they can is how do we propose to make this happen? Because the fact is that, you know, candidates for public office, the last thing they want to talk about is how beholden they are to the donors. You know, when you're on the campaign trail, you don't say to the voters, you know, look, folks, I'll I'll do my best to get you some crumbs from the table, but my donors come first, and I'm sure you understand. Um, the reality is that no help's gonna come from Washington. I mean, everyone in Congress, they are too dependent on their donors to lead on this issue. We the people have to stand up. And not only do we have to stand up and say that we want this, but we have to find a way to break through, um, to break through all the noise in our politics and to break through the fact that all the people running for office and the national media, too, this is kind of the last thing they want to talk about. And our strategy for doing this is to put all our resources into just three presidential swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. And we figure that if we can organize a critical mass, enough volunteers and voters who support this idea by the middle of 2028, well, once the country pivots to the present to the general election campaign uh in this presidential cycle, then you know the presidential candidates and national media are gonna have to care what Pennsylvania voters and Michigan voters and Wisconsin voters think. And when we get our people going to candidate town halls or telling reporters or telling candidates, it's all wonderful what these candidates are promising us, but you know, their donors are not gonna let them deliver on anything. So where do you, Mr. Candidate or Ms. Candidate, stand on voter dollars? And who owns you, by the way? Now, how many, how many, you know, how many people do we need to support that to really kind of break through and make it a national issue? That I can't tell you. But on the other hand, you know, I just want to pick up on something you said at the beginning when you were introducing me, that we're talking about something that on some level almost every American understands. We understand the system is broken.

How The Plan Becomes Law

SPEAKER_03 10:54

We understand that no one in Washington is listening to us, we understand increasingly more and more of us understand that our government is for sale and we're angry about it, as we should be. And the only thing that's been missing here is a concrete plan for change. And this is a concrete plan. You know, uh for as long as I well, at least going back to 2008, you know, we you see the mileage that candidates have gotten out of just vaguely promising fundamental change, right? You know, you from we got hope and change and change we can believe in from Obama in 2008. And 2016, you had change candidates on both sides of the aisle. You, you know, President Trump uh said he said we need to drain the swamp. Bernie was even talking about a revolution. Uh, Bernie was there with this revolution again in 2020. And I don't say this to attack any of these candidates, but the reality is what most needs changing in our politics is money and how candidates finance their campaigns. And the candidates are too busy raising this money to fight against it. It's kind of at catch-22 that's kept the country stuck in this doom loop. So we think that basically the desire of the American people for fundamental change and the desire to take back our rightful say in how we are governed, to live out the principles of our Constitution, to really to be fully American, to have our country live up to the ideals that make us Americans, that will on the part of the American people is there. The only thing missing is a practical first step. And we think, having spent about 15 years researching what I was what was going to be a book on money and politics, having looked at all the other reform ideas out there, I think this is by far the best place to start. So anyway, I haven't let you get awarded edge wise. So let me see what questions you have.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

The question comes to my mind: where does where does the money come from for the candidates to run with?

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Well, if if you pay federal income tax, that's where it comes from. I mean, this is taxpayers' money, it's part of the federal budget, and it's serious money. I mean, at the money that at the level we're talking about with 174 million registered voters, if the great bulk of them use their voter dollars and we're confident that they will, you're talking about um averaged across four years, two election cycles, between six and a half and seven billion dollars a year. Um, so that's serious money. And here

Who Pays And Why It’s Worth It

SPEAKER_03 13:35

we are running a deficit of $2 trillion a year, which we cannot afford to do, and that is taking our country off a cliff. And so that's the fact that this is taxpayers' money really bothers a lot of people, um, which I understand. But we we we would, I guess my first response to that is that we we see we think that this will uh really do a lot, will make it pay for itself dozens of times over in all the wasteful spending and economically useless tax breaks that corporations get. Because right now, um, you know, big campaign donors and the lobbyists that work for them, they basically they have the muscle to just dictate to Congress and they extract from Congress all kinds of goodies, all kinds of subsidies, um, all kinds of government contracts for for things that we really don't need. You think of weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't itself necessarily even want. So that um this would be that if we can if we can pass voter dollars, we can really get a handle on all kinds of wasteful spending. Uh that should contribute.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, go ahead. I think what we have to do is we have to kind of break it down. Okay.

unknown 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Say I decide I'm gonna run for governor, Pennsylvania. Okay, so where how do I get the how do how do I approach to get the or how how how would I go about being able to tap into the fund or get this money? I mean, uh, do I just say I'm gonna run for governor and then they give me the money and then or I mean how how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Okay, I mean, just to be clear, we're all all our focus right now is on a federal system. Um rather than say state office, but it doesn't matter, it's the same same principle, same difference, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:26

We don't want to run for Congress,

Candidate Eligibility And Donation Limits

SPEAKER_00 15:27

okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

But so so run run for Congress, and I think you're asking kind of eligibility. Um our feeling is that we set the the criteria for eligibility to participate in the system not too high because we don't want incumbents kind of making it difficult for for challengers, people to come in and challenge incumbents. One uh approach that was actually suggested to us um by by someone I met at uh the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania Convention in Warminster back uh in late March was that you you become eligible to get your voter dollars if you can get um, say, 500 or 1,000 voters pledge their voter dollars to you. And once it's clear that you have support from that many voters, then you start getting the voter dollars. Now, to get voter dollars at all, you you also have to agree to accept limits on private donations outside the system that you can get. We don't want to ban all money outside of voter dollars because that would really create an advantage for incumbents that we don't want to create. You know, incumbents obviously would have kind of an advantage because the voters already know them. So if you're trying to get a campaign off the ground, and you know, in order to reach those first voters, you're gonna have to take some private donations, but you'd have to accept limits, not take donations, say bigger than $500 or something like that. Um, but you know, something like that. I think that basically we would set the eligibility criteria, you know, rigorous enough so that someone can't just come in there and as a as a totally frivolous candidate and just try to get, you know, 50 donations in order to raise money to throw a party. Uh, but we don't want to, we basically want to we want to create it, make it as open as possible for people with new ideas and for people who are not professional politicians to break into the system and and get a campaign off the ground if they can demonstrate that they've got an idea that's meeting a need that the voters are feeling.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Well, I've heard I've heard that people running for Congress uh that don't even that aren't even being challenged, they'll spend they'll spend a million, two million dollars, and they're not, and then they're not, then they're not even challenged. And I'm thinking like, why? Where's this money going? Why the what they should have to do is is if they don't get a challenge, they should have to wipe out their the wipe out their account, whatever they have in it, down to whatever, whatever the number might be, say a hundred thousand dollars, and the and the rest of it should have to go to some charity, some designated charity, because they they they bank on this money, uh, it's and it's it's millions and um millions of dollars that are tied up in these campaigns. I mean, when President Trump ran the first time, I'll never forget he made a speech. Um, and I I don't know where I was, but I remember hearing a speech, they uh uh he asked somebody what it would cost to run for president. They said a hundred million dollars. He said, Oh, the price of a yacht. So just think about that. I mean, it's just the price of a yacht to him. So he said, Yeah, we can do that. But at the same token, his democrat uh challenger spent over a billion dollars to try to try to beat him. So it's a it's a it's an awful waste of money that could be used for a lot of different things, a lot of other things. I mean, feeding the poor or educating people, and

Why Campaign Spending Feels Insane

SPEAKER_00 19:09

it it just to me it uh it it's it's way out of hand. And I like the idea that you're you're trying to do something about it, and I know there's got to be some things to work work us through, but I mean it it's a it's a grand idea. I mean why should somebody spend I don't know uh whatever it amounts to, even five thousand dollars uh to run for a school board position that supposedly doesn't pay anything. Think about that. I mean, and how many school board positions do you have uh in your county? Um just in your county alone. I mean, we're talking about a significant amount of money that's being spent for naught, I believe. I mean so I mean when I went to when I went to school, uh uh, of course, a lot I uh there was people ran for school board, but it was it was the businessmen in town. It was uh and I'm not saying there's nothing wrong from the for I'm a we the people person, but uh that's how all this got out of hand. I guess that's what I'm leading to, and that's what you're trying to say too. That's how this got out of hand because the people that were capable of raising whatever amount of money it is, then that then they they control how the money is spent in their school district. I'm just saying school district, county county government's the same way. Uh it's supposed to be about the government, it's supposed to be for the people, by the people. I mean, and we and we've got away from that. So I really like your idea. I really do.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

I'm really glad to hear that, John. And I have to tell you, you know, in the time since I've been working on this, um, this the three-state campaign, the swing state campaign is something that we've only really put started putting together last fall and are are rolling out right now. But I've been working on it for, I mean, I I thought this was actually originally going to be a book about money and politics that I started writing in 2010. But I'll tell you, for the seven years or so that I've been just telling people about this idea, and I've had conversations mostly one-on-one with it's got to be north of a thousand Americans by this point, people from all walks of life, all races and creeds, all political persuasions. I'd say about 95 out of 100 will say to me, that's a great idea. And I just think it really is, because it's it's the biggest thing that's wrong with our political system. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, you interrupted me.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

No, that's okay. But this would this will really eliminate the the the pathy of the two party system because you could get uh you could get third party candidates that that just don't. they they there's just no way to fund it fund them and you would get you would get good candidates out of out of the third uh out of third parties or or independents or or whatever that that might be able to stand a chance to run for something.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Basically any good candidate who's ready to who's ready to offer ideas that meet the needs of the American people now has at a at a minimum a fighting chance and even a good chance to run for office. And yeah the whole right now you do have this monopoly of the two parties. I don't know whether this would lead to more third parties but certainly a far greater chance for a third party candidate or someone who can't break in through the the the apparatus or the the old boy network of one of the two major parties has now got a chance that they didn't have before. What money has done to us in this country it's done a lot of things to

Opening The Field Beyond Two Parties

SPEAKER_03 23:06

us but probably the worst thing is that over time you know candidates have to self-censor to avoid alienating donors. So over time all kinds of ideas just get taken off the table. They're just not talked about and so we the people are just sitting here as you say we're like on this looking at it on this from the sidelines. It's like we're spectators at this conversation that's taking place in Washington that doesn't even really address any of the concerns that we have where there's just no real ideas for um for solving the country's challenges and and making a better life for our people. And it's made a lot of us feel helpless. And the people who work in politics because they spend all their time paling around with donors instead of seeing us as adults that they want to persuade with ideas, they see us as children that they want to manipulate. And they talk down to us like we're children. And of course you turn on TV, the TV news, the legacy media it's one of the reasons why shows like yours are so valuable because you look at the the the big corporate sort of legacy media at the national level they they talk about the

Anger Politics And Lost American Ideals

SPEAKER_03 24:19

American people or about the voters it kind of reminds you of one of those dysfunctional families where they hate each other so much that the husband will talk smack about the wife in front of the children as if the wife's not in the room. You know what I'm talking about? I mean I don't know maybe I'm taking this up on a tangent but I feel like that's that's how they talk about us the people you know and it it's it's kind of rubbed off on us because we're cut out of the action because they don't really listen to us and because they themselves in Washington seem helpless too because you know they they can't even keep the lights on in the government even when you spot them $2 trillion in borrowing a year and keep shutting the government down and there's you know no plan for this and no plan for that that it has made we the people sometimes feel like we're helpless or weak. And the thing is we're not we're not the problem. And the other thing is that yes our vote doesn't count from nearly as much as it should, but they still need our vote to get into office. And if we can at least pull together on this one thing on voter dollars, we can get it. And if we can make that happen then suddenly we open the door to our voice being heard all across the board on every issue that matters to us. And again I'm not you know it's not a magic wand it's not going to solve all you know fix the entire political system tomorrow or next but we don't need to fix the whole system today or tomorrow and next year. We need to take a first step and we need to take a step that Republicans and Democrats can take together. And this I think is one because not only are Americans across the board really alienated from the system and angry at our government being for sale but this is about the ideals that make us Americans you know this was one of the things that I learned um you know I I hope I'm not going on it maybe you have a question.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I'm kind of not letting you get a word in edgewise and I well I think I think we got to get it I think we have to get it to the basic situation to show people what what we're trying to do. We're trying to we're trying to eliminate you're trying to eliminate the big corporate donors and then with the millions and millions of dollars that they can put in I mean into in the in the campaigns and they and they funnel it through all kinds of different situations. I mean and if and if you were say you ran for president and you were told that you only had 10 million dollars to spend to run for president and then you're gonna try to figure out how to get to the people and talk to the people because fancy campaign slogans and and and the uh billboards and signs and things are just going to be out of your reach. I mean you can do you'll be able to do some of these things but you'll be coming on you'll be doing radio you'll be doing TV it'll be it'll limit it to what it'll it'll eliminate the part where I can I can just out money you to the finish line. And I I I really think that's that's that's the key to it. I mean we're in a Senate race here at right now in Pennsylvania and uh and uh what they've done is they've basically the two incumbents have done everything they can to tie up uh the the the people that are challenging them in the primary I mean legally they they they're keeping the one gentleman in court third of the state supreme court even uh which and it's ridiculous uh just trying to get him to spend money uh see just to see how much money he's willing to spend to stay in the race and the other one the other fellow is just a grassroots candidate and he's trying to do everything he can with the least amount I mean he's doing it on a on a shoestring so it it it takes it takes away from the people you're right it takes away the voice of the people so we got to figure out a better way to do this because it's got way out of hand yeah no I I couldn't I couldn't agree with you more um you know I guess one one thing I would kind of like to say a little bit about just is is how because I think the money does a lot to drive the anger in our politics and the polarization.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

And I and I'm not saying like we ought to have some kind of kumbaya moment because we're a big country and we should disagree and to just disagree sometimes you know furiously about all kinds of things. And frankly conflict in politics is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's how we get to better ideas by having my idea get tested against yours or against someone else's. But it's kind of like both parties right now are are milking the issues for anger more than they are trying to find solutions. And I think part of that comes from because they can't really say anything of substance anymore without alienating this or that donor, they don't really have much of a positive program for us that they can really achieve and so they default to negative messaging because anger is all they've got to offer us. And one of the things that I like most about what we're doing is we see this as a way to bring Americans together. I mean not to forget our disagreements about guns or abortion or anything else. We should continue to have those disagreements that's healthy and good. But this is a great way to to remind uh it's also a way to to remind everyone well not that I think the people have forgotten but I think the people in Washington have forgotten that uh it's ideals that make us Americans you know this is the only country on earth where being a member of the nation doesn't depend on race or religion or anything else it's about it's about ideals above all government by the people. And so this is a way for us all to to come together and be Americans on the basis of American ideals. And that's that's also very important to us in our work.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Well I I appreciate you being on uh I I if you if you would have a message that you wanted to get out or or you could send somebody uh a letter or or or I I mean I don't know if if you do that or if you'd be willing to talk well where would be a good way to call for somebody to contact you.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Well the best thing to do is to go to our website which is make votersthedonors.org please sign up for our email list uh if you're willing to consider uh be you know volunteering in some capacity there's a a page for prospective volunteers different ways you can participate if you can give us your contact information in that way our state directors will be following up also you will see on our website events we're gonna be holding in-person events where I'll be speaking or some of our state directors will be speaking or uh events like county fairs um and and other events where we're gonna have a table set up where you can come talk to us. But you know even if you're not ready you may not be ready yet to sort of jump in and volunteer and of course I know people are so many Americans now are under the gun financially and working so hard just to get by paycheck to paycheck

How To Help And Where To Sign Up

SPEAKER_03 31:36

and it's it's kind of hard to imagine volunteering but if you can just go to our website and if you can tell a friend or two about our the conversation that you and I have had John if you can go to our website and share our website on social media or by email with your friends or share one of our videos because the thing is that I, you know, I go on radio and TV and podcasts and I speak in person and I make my best case but the people in the audience don't know me from Adam. But with someone who knows you and trusts you our message about how we're gonna fix the problem of money and politics and restore government by the people our message about voter dollars is always going to be far more powerful coming from you than it's ever going to be coming from me. So don't think you can't move the ball down the field. And especially if you're a Pennsylvania voter because come 2028 we're going to be able to leverage the any the support any support we have from Pennsylvania voters to get this onto the national agenda and force the whole system to face the problem of money and make voter dollars you know uh something that could really become an act of Congress. So uh especially if you're in Pennsylvania you have a tremendous opportunity I think here to help reshape the national conversation please go to our website and check it out well Dan I I thank you so much and uh it's it makes it called make voters the donors dot org and uh you can go to their website and check them out.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I appreciate everybody uh giving Dan the chance to uh form them uh in any way they come uh you're gonna be doing several different county fairs you said maybe there'll be a list of them up there'll be a list of them up there we haven't we haven't yet figured out the the fairs exactly but we already have a few events for example we're gonna have tables set up uh for the Pittsburgh marathon at the the Living Well Expo in the convention center there we're also gonna be uh have a table uh at the Pittsburgh uh vintage grand prix in July is an event that we're gonna be at so we're still sort of sorting out all the events that we'll be at. Maybe we can get you to come down to the Fayette County fair there's usually about uh between eight and ten thousand people go through there every night.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

That right that's one of the yeah what that's well thank you for thank you for mentioning that and uh it's a it's a 10 day fair mic it's a 10 day fair now I know not everybody will walk through the uh all the different buildings the but uh it it might be it might be something for you to consider it's it's something that you know the the one thing is one of some of the some of these events if you're an exhibitor they want you to have to man the exhibit all 10 days so that's we still need I don't know we we we've got to get enough volunteers for that but but thank you for highlighting that for us.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yep okay hey uh I want to I want to thank everybody for tuning in once again and I appreciate Dan for coming on and uh we'll probably have him back on again at a later time to give us an update about what's going on. And like I always close all my shows on this road called life you have to take the good with the bad smile with the sad love what you got and remember what you had. Always forgive but never forget people change things go wrong just remember the ride goes on. God bless each and every one of you and God bless America I am John Marietta and I am the Hillbully