Congress - Raise money now, help people...whenever

hobbling impose has a terrific ah... investigative story about how the democratic congressional campaign committee uh... tells the new uh... arrivals in congress how they have to center schedule now the reason is enormous irrelevant is a disease shows you the tremendous power of uh... money in politics position and great amount of time fundraising in fact they have about financing your let me show you the model bailey schedule that they were dead and remember this is democrats further republicans probably the larger so three hours and inform raising a call time two hours this proactive community immense i was that uh... pleasant what into our gross of reactive community events and now one hour fifty debt which i like that this three hours of fundraising but only one our strategic outreach now it gets better now when they're back at home they have a different schedules four hours of call time so even more fund raising what to do as a constituent visits and by the way they say in one of the notes it's preferable if the constituents or also your don't paid their league as honest truth two hours on the committee of floor you know i'm sorry we have at this inverse actually this is when they're in d_c_ the first one was in the district uh... so when they're in bc they actually have to spend more time raising money they do get to do one hour for strategic outreach though and about one hour recharge time well are they not merciful okay thank you so much now when you get in the details if only gets worse you know when they're calling it with a chronic lung donors the dollar for dollar cost and most of the lake uh... are calling for people who armando ni over a five hundred dollars so they spent four hours ed a when they're in less than three hours a day when they're in their back to the home mysteries trying to go to a beloved one e and want to do stuff so this is crazy so uh... having imposing sports three or four hours are designated for the actual work of being a member of congress hearings votes in meetings with constituents itic assiduous our daughters all the better now they continue to congressional hearings and fundraising duties often conflict and members of congress have little difficulty deciding between the two the case lee even raising money from the industry covered by their hearings they step that's amazing so here's a hearing millicent says whatever mission to get many or the questions that i would ask it's ever instead i would go meet with a donor who cares how i bought about that which way do you think they're gonna vote allot more uh... they play it is considered four four in congress borderline self-indulgent for a freshman to set up length in congressional hearings when the time could instead be spent raising money sample indulgent to actually do the work of being a congressman when you should get back here we'll work which is raising money this system is sick is disease money has taken over the whole system i've got much more this is an anonymous member of congress he says quote one thing that's always been striking to me is even the members play a leading role in specific issues actually could not talk about the issues they didn't have enough knowledge on their own issues the talk about the midwife i'm probably guilty of that thing about that they're pdfs all busy raising money you don't know what they're talking about big into meetings the staffers novice and john depict you know father legislation setter and he says a staffer sometimes they collect will pick up the skill of embarrassing right is there not at the hearings in our time to read morning freighter one points as well then i'm asking you know there's no time to read i i got out of this in our to relieve kisses cuisine at an honest member of congress continues the members were sent around the table having a remarkably uninformed and unproductive discussion as visit brad nellore democratic congressman from north carolina says quote any member who follows that schedule will be completely controlled by their staff heinous things of their staff prepared speaking from talking at once they get emailed from leadership so that's another huge problem says they don't have time to prepare and they're not at the hearings are there not reading the news the issues the legislation avenue at their staff and what leadership tells them they get handed a note was ok all right with where my body okay i apparently believe this i don't know what it is but yeah i'm going for it the leadership says boat this when i get more money but given are booked up does this sound like democracy to anybody yet the role houses and this is fastening before we get back to brad miller so they don't make the calls eddie's row houses because they can't make him in congress 'cause it's illegal to call for money from crimes at did a little what a joke that's cuz they as something of a sis was the royal houses are technically owned by lobbyists fundraisers for members themselves now use recall timings illegal to solicit camping castle official congressional office mango ballplayers off biologics to raise money for their reelection and that's better than staying in their congressional office because if they send their congressional office it would look so bad if you raise money from their does this look better do you get a sense of what actually drives people if you don't want to go back to brad miller cassius was a very clear you end up being nice to people that probably somebody needs to be questioning skeptically it's a fairly disturbing suggested schedule you want to ask tough questions that hearings that might displease potential contributors won't support amendments that might enter them will turn the boat the way contributes want you to a vote this is obvious that if you set up a system where the main thing that gets you elected is not boats in his money i've told you congressional races ninety three percent of the time the person with more money was election them at every democrat a republican liberal or conservative your ideas don't matter the linear matters is money that's why they scheduled a with their time like this because bait though and concentrate on what is most important for their reelection unanimous memo was and this presentation was given to about a week after the elections as soon as they come in they liked what i don't know about legislation priorities but i i'm gonna tell you you're gonna work for the next two years to raise money say here reelected two years from now this system is sick i think the whole country realize that that's why congress is at nine percent congressional approval rating yet who's doing anything about it that was the media out pricing what will look around him at our government we continue arming the postcode uh... explains the quality of the committee assignment is directly related so that amount of dues boat as black and white an admission of the connection between fundraising and policy outcomes as can be found so it only gets worse now it is for the whole time you're not only the royal obvious place by the way in the senate sometimes i think after their car as make calls for hours from the car for fund-raising now i have all of you all that but you're not gonna get the important committee assignments unless you raise more money so the guys who have the most powerful positions are not the ones that represent their constituents best those who is the most money from rich people now do you see what's on the bills that we want in their introduced well we're gonna have more on that a second time parallel and other former represent a firm that the state of virginia says this helps explain white many from very safe democratic districts who might otherwise be pushing the congress even to the left he's willing to be that person take tapos do not because they get their leadership positions by raising from the same donors noted bob barr you'll get nothing for being a good guy you get nothing for representing your votes but if you represent the donors you get great committee assignments positions of power you get the reelected easier so they have jeered the whole system logically so to raising more more money and doing the bidding of those donors if you don't understand that an appellate applies for at least ninety percent of people on television who cover politics and could consider themselves experts miss is not just one of the things that drives politicians again there was never mentioned it on t_v_ this is the primary thing that drives father look at their scheduling you can tell this is the destruction of our democracy this anybody in their right mind seeing their schedule seeing compare not as members of congress currently former members of congress talking about this ono they probably don't listen to those donors they spent the day with they probably listen they're voters anyway you would have to be rediculously naive to believe that there is one that's over a line which is that this is so oppressive and parallel for example says four hours the conservative estimate be probably told the new members that just so they don't scare me away there is a republican as a setter congressman uh... for example read rebel from wisconsin and say look i spent an hour and a half unopposed but you know he's been in congress for a little bit he said uh... if i had to spend four hours a day i don't want this job in the hot knots the want this job and there we go to congressman john larson from connecticut he says it's the most painful thing about raising money and their notes at sooner elected and they're down there making phone calls for the election in twenty four t and this is our damage 'cause these guys yes if they used to dig in their position hate this system to in fact here's the final quote from john lewis what's my experience with it you might as well be putting bamboo shoots under my fingertips so that leads us to war only possible solution we have to get a constitutional amendment that deep actions fundraising from legislation from these politicians be if we do public financing of elections you know 'cause service from time to i was off on well my god will spend more money on these politicians almost money because then these guys won't get away billions and trillions of dollars to their daughters to get reelected sand that why do you want to know i should be congressman they'll actually representatives because the people who got them elected will be arts and not their donors and then it we have to take away corporate president does anything corporations are not driving on limited money he regain your police lee naive they're the ones with the most amount of money and they're the ones that congressmen listen to the most we've got to do an amendment but the ops ideas effin amendment gets enough momenta a lot of these guys who are eggs boston from this fund-raising are getting it all point where they get a break anne s a you know what idon't want those bamboo shoots under my fingernails anymore u_n_ let's actually get the money out of politics and as incumbents l have huge advantage over eggs and then regulation so that's a structural advantage for us we've got to do everything in our power to make sure that we change the system otherwise we will ward by monied interests for the rest of time we have already lost our democracy we've got to gain it back you know how we think we should do it it's a wall that fact dot com you can read the twenty eighth amendment we propose for yourself on that website volunteer review dhoni would do matching donations month appt until january twenty first us citizens united anniversary because i'm sick of the stories i wanna cover actual politics i want to cover actual ideology and policy debates i wanna live in a democracy we should all be second up of this whether democrats or republicans let's flight back and let's win