Category Archives: Conversations

Corporations, Campaign Finance, and Citizens United

August 17, 2026 Nichola Leave a comment

A conversation about Citizens United, corporate campaign finance, Super PACs, and the 2024 Ohio Senate race

August 2026

The Barn

So, a political question… a corporation can go shopping for a potential winning candidate for the US Senate, fund the campaign, and if he wins he receives a luxurious life with good salary, good health care, good retirement. Does that just about sum it up?

The Mack

Broadly, there is a kernel of truth there, but an important legal distinction changes the picture.

A corporation cannot simply select a Senate candidate and pour unlimited corporate treasury money directly into that candidate’s campaign. Direct corporate contributions to federal candidates are prohibited. Individuals and certain PACs can contribute directly, but under contribution limits.

What changed dramatically after Citizens United v. FEC (2010) is that corporations can spend unlimited amounts independently advocating for the election or defeat of candidates. They can also provide money to organizations such as Super PACs that make independent expenditures. Legally, those expenditures cannot be coordinated with the candidate or campaign.

The Barn

That seems a pretty subtle, perhaps illusionary difference from my original premise. So a maze has been set up through which a corporation must find its way, but the road map is well established.

The Mack

Yes—with one qualification. Your description captures a reasonable criticism of how the system functions, even though the legal distinctions aren’t entirely illusory.

The “maze” is indeed well established. A corporation cannot hand Candidate Jones $20 million. But corporate money can travel through legally recognized channels—independent expenditures, Super PACs, trade associations and some nonprofit organizations—to support candidates and political causes.

The distinction the Supreme Court considers crucial is independence. If the corporation spends $20 million saying “Elect Jones” without coordinating with Jones, that is protected political speech. If it gives Jones $20 million to spend however he wants, that’s an illegal corporate campaign contribution. And if the money is offered in exchange for an official act, you’re in bribery territory.

The Barn

Can you summarize the Citizen’s United case and ruling for me?

The Mack

Certainly. Citizens United is much easier to understand if we separate what happened in the case from the much larger rule the Supreme Court ultimately announced.

Citizens United was a nonprofit corporation that produced Hillary: The Movie, highly critical of Hillary Clinton while Clinton was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Citizens United wanted to distribute and advertise the film close to the election.

A federal campaign-finance law—the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold)—restricted corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds for certain election-related communications shortly before federal elections. Citizens United challenged those restrictions as violating the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

In January 2010, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in favor of Citizens United. The central principle was essentially: the government generally cannot prohibit political speech merely because the speaker is a corporation.

Kennedy wrote majority opinion; Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito joined.

The decision did not legalize unlimited corporate contributions directly to candidates. A corporation still cannot simply write a $20 million check to a candidate’s campaign. The distinction remained: direct contribution to candidate—restricted/prohibited; independent spending advocating Candidate Smith’s election—constitutionally protected.

Later in 2010, SpeechNow.org v. FEC, applying the reasoning of Citizens United, concluded that organizations making only independent expenditures could accept unlimited contributions. Put together, the decisions produced much of the modern Super PAC system.

The Barn

Under the McCain-Feingold Act, how was “shortly before” federal elections defined?

The Mack

Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain–Feingold), the relevant provision defined an “electioneering communication” as certain broadcast, cable, or satellite communications that clearly identified a federal candidate and were aired within 30 days before a primary election or nominating convention, or within 60 days before a general election.

The Barn

Let’s look at an actual Senate race, vis a vis campaign financing

The Mack

Given what we’ve been discussing, the 2024 Ohio Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno is almost a laboratory demonstration of the system. It was extraordinarily expensive, involved enormous amounts of outside money, and Moreno won.

Brown’s campaign raised far more than Moreno’s own campaign, but outside Republican groups supplied enormous support for Moreno. The cryptocurrency industry provides a particularly clear example. A network of crypto-funded Super PACs announced substantial spending to help elect Moreno. Major financial backers included Coinbase, Ripple and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Moreno was considered friendly toward cryptocurrency; Brown, who chaired the Senate Banking Committee, had been a prominent crypto skeptic.

Crypto spent $40 million advocating Moreno, and never mentioned Crypto

The money trail looked approximately like this: crypto companies and investors → independent Super PAC → millions of dollars of advertising supporting Moreno → voters elect Moreno → Moreno becomes U.S. Senator.

The Barn

Tell me more about the Moreno – Crypto connection.

The Mack

This is where the example becomes especially useful, because we can compare money before the election with governmental action afterward—while being careful not to confuse correlation with proof of a bargain.

Defend American Jobs, part of a network including Fairshake and Protect Progress, spent roughly $40 million supporting Bernie Moreno. Major supporters of the network included Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz. Much of the advertising itself did not talk about cryptocurrency; it used conventional political themes designed to persuade Ohio voters.

After winning, Moreno was appointed to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and its Digital Assets Subcommittee. That sequence is factual, but it does not demonstrate that the industry purchased the committee assignment nor does it establish a quid pro quo.

Congress subsequently considered major cryptocurrency legislation, including the GENIUS Act governing payment stablecoins. Moreno supported it, but so did many Democrats; the legislation received substantial bipartisan support.

The broader phenomenon is a political feedback loop: industry accumulates enormous economic resources → industry finances independent political organizations → organizations identify sympathetic candidates → organizations spend heavily helping elect them → successful candidates enter Congress → Congress considers legislation important to that industry → industry supports friendly legislators and threatens electoral opposition to hostile ones → next election, repeat.

That creates political influence without anyone ever needing to say, “Vote this way and we’ll give you money.”

The Barn

Just to be clear on one thing, since 2010 there is no restriction on the timing of a corporation or PAC ad promoting a candidate. In other words they can advertise right up through election day, correct?

The Mack

Yes, essentially correct.

After Citizens United, a corporation, union, Super PAC, or other independent spender can pay for an advertisement expressly supporting or opposing a federal candidate right up through Election Day, provided the expenditure is genuinely independent of the candidate’s campaign and complies with disclosure/disclaimer rules.

So the old McCain–Feingold 30-day-before-a-primary / 60-day-before-a-general-election restriction on corporate-funded “electioneering communications” no longer prohibits that spending.

The Barn

It seems like the removal of those 30/60 day restrictions can be an obstacle to actually hearing from the candidates. Why step in front of a camera or microphone when corporations and PACs have already painted the landscape, making a candidate appealing?

The Mack

Yes. I think you’ve identified a real incentive created by the modern system, although I’d separate it from what Citizens United legally decided.

A candidate can benefit enormously from outside organizations doing the political persuasion for him. If a Super PAC spends $30 million defining him as a successful businessman, defender of working families, tough on crime, etc., the candidate doesn’t necessarily need to expose himself to the risks inherent in a two-hour debate or an unscripted town hall.

Fairshake (crypto PAC) video advocating for Moreno, no mention of crypto

Those risks are asymmetric. A polished advertisement is completely controlled. A debate isn’t. One bad answer, an embarrassing exchange, or a 20-second clip that goes viral can overwhelm days of carefully constructed messaging.

I would hesitate to attribute the decline or avoidance of debates primarily to Citizens United. Targeted social-media advertising, partisan media, podcasts, campaign-controlled video, declining local journalism and voter databases also allow campaigns to reach selected voters without submitting candidates to uncontrolled questioning.

The democratic distinction is important: political advertising tells voters what someone wants them to believe about a candidate. A debate, town hall or adversarial interview lets voters observe the candidate thinking and responding for himself.

The Barn

Okay, can you inform me about personal appearances made by either candidate in the Brown/Moreno race.

The Mack

The Brown/Moreno race turns out to support your concern rather strikingly.

There was no general-election debate between Sherrod Brown and Bernie Moreno. Both men said they wanted to debate, but neither committed in a way that produced one, and the election took place without them facing one another in a general-election debate.

Meanwhile, voters were being inundated with political advertising in a race involving hundreds of millions of dollars. The contrast is striking: Ohioans experienced one of the most expensive Senate campaigns in American history—with enormous sums devoted to persuading them whom to elect—without the two candidates ever standing on the same general-election debate stage.

The Barn

Thank you, that was an informative conversation. We will pick it up again later.

The Mack

I enjoyed the discussion — from your original “corporation goes shopping” proposition, through Citizens United, and finally seeing how those abstractions played out in an actual Senate race.

The Brown–Moreno example gave us a particularly useful reality check: hundreds of millions spent communicating about two candidates who never actually debated each other. That’s a fact worth pondering.

The Barn

There are a number of websites that help us remove the veil and discover the candidates and the money behind them. The following post – Who Is This Candidate – reveals some of those sources.

Conversations, Elections

Who Is This Candidate, Really?

August 19, 2026 Nichola 2 Comments

Sources of information

How do we find out who a political candidate really is? We can follow the money, examine who is financing the campaign, compare the candidate’s public statements with voting records, and look beyond campaign advertising to see what the candidate has actually said and done.

THE MONEY

Find out who is backing the candidates

Federal Election Commission campaign-finance database — the primary source

This should be the foundation. The FEC lets you search every Senate candidate, the candidate’s authorized committee, contributions received, PAC contributions, and—particularly important for our purposes—independent expenditures supporting or opposing that candidate.

Issue One — particularly good for the dark-money layer

This is becoming especially useful in this election cycle. Issue One is already tracing 2026 money flowing from nonprofits into the major congressional super PACs.

OpenSecrets — best first-pass analytical source

Utilize this as your initial lens to pinpoint major contributors, key industrial sectors, and independent groups; subsequently, pivot to raw FEC records to substantiate the specific financial movements.

THE CANDIDATES

Who are these people, what they have said, and what they have done?

OnTheIssues.org — 2026 Senate races

It has already assembled a 2026 Senate section, organized by state and candidate. More importantly, it collects statements by issue from campaign websites, press releases, debates, interviews and previous public statements. It preserves dated quotations, which helps you track changes in a candidate’s position.

Ballotpedia

Ballotpedia is a good starting point for biographical information: age, education, occupation, previous offices, electoral history, endorsements and campaign information.

Vote Smart

Vote Smart is especially valuable for candidates who have previously held public office because it combines biography, issue positions, ratings by interest groups, public statements and voting records.

Congress.gov gives us legislation sponsored and cosponsored, roll-call information and congressional activity.

For senators, U.S. Senate roll-call votes gives us the actual voting record.

For representatives running for Senate, U.S. House roll-call vote s does the same.

That gives us something measurable.

For very recent issues, add contemporary news searches

This is necessary because the databases inevitably lag behind events.

So for rapidly developing subjects, search AP, Reuters, local newspapers, television interviews, debate transcripts and the candidates’ own statements rather than depending entirely upon Ballotpedia or OnTheIssues.

Conversations, Immigration

Immigration: 1880-1920

September 2, 2026 Nichola Leave a comment

The Barn

What was our immigration policy in the late 1800s ?

The Mack

The easiest way to understand U.S. immigration from 1880 onward is as a series of fairly distinct eras. And one striking feature is that the immigration system we have today is quite different from the one the country had for most of the 20th century.

Around 1900, the United States was in the middle of one of history’s great migrations.

Between roughly 1880 and 1920, millions arrived, increasingly from Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Poland and other parts of southern and eastern Europe, rather than the northern and western European countries that had supplied many earlier immigrants.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

There was no general numerical ceiling on European immigration. If an immigrant arrived, passed inspection, wasn’t considered likely to become a public charge, didn’t have certain diseases or criminal problems, and wasn’t otherwise in an excluded category, he or she could generally enter.

But it wasn’t completely open immigration. The federal government had already begun excluding particular groups:

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 essentially stopped Chinese labor immigration.
Contract labor laws restricted importing foreign workers under certain employment arrangements.
Anarchists, people with certain diseases, prostitutes and some other categories could be excluded.
Immigration officials could reject someone considered “likely to become a public charge.”

Mexico and Canada were comparatively unrestricted.

The Barn

Tell me a little more about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

The Mack

It was the first major federal immigration law to exclude people principally on the basis of nationality and class, and it helped establish the federal government’s modern role in controlling immigration

Large-scale Chinese immigration began after the California Gold Rush and accelerated with construction of the western railroads. Thousands of Chinese laborers worked on the Central Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad and later in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, laundries and other businesses.

The Chinese population in the United States grew from about 35,600 in 1860 to 105,600 in 1880.

By 1880 there were roughly 105,000 Chinese-born people in the United States, overwhelmingly in the West. That was actually a tiny fraction of the national population, but the concentration in California made their presence much more conspicuous.

Economic competition became intertwined with overt racial hostility. Chinese workers were accused of depressing wages and taking jobs from white workers. Labor organizations became particularly important proponents of exclusion.

The Barn

Why did Chinese workers come to California in such numbers in the first place?

The Mack

The first big attraction was the California Gold Rush after 1848. Conditions in southern China also pushed migration: poverty, political turmoil and warfare, while California offered wages enormously higher than those available at home. Many migrants were young men who viewed America—Gam Saan, the “Gold Mountain”—as a place to earn money and eventually return to China.

After the Gold Rush came the trans-continental railroad.

Chinese worked for $30 per month; white Europeans received $35 per month plus room and board… big savings for Central Pacific RR

The railroad didn’t initially hire Chinese workers because it preferred Chinese people. It hired them because it needed labor. Once employers discovered that the workers were productive and comparatively inexpensive, they wanted more of them.

Central Pacific desperately needed labor in 1865—it had work for perhaps 4,000 men but could retain only around 800. Crocker pushed the idea of trying Chinese labor despite strong objections from construction superintendent James Strobridge. They started with about 50 Chinese workers. Their performance changed management’s opinion dramatically, and eventually Chinese workers constituted perhaps 80% of Central Pacific’s construction workforce. Crocker later recalled that when they needed something done quickly, they learned it was often better to put Chinese crews on it.

Eventually, about 11,000 Chinese workers were working on the Central Pacific by 1868. The company’s attitude changed dramatically. Chinese workers acquired a reputation among Central Pacific management for being reliable, efficient and remarkably capable workers.

The Big Four of the Central Pacific Railroad

The Barn

What did Chinese immigration do to the American labor market?

The Mack

A couple things. So the nominal wage difference—$30 versus $35—understates the real disparity. The National Park Service estimates Chinese workers’ overall compensation was about 30% lower than European and European-American workers once the different treatment is taken into account.

The disparity was maintained by a familiar tactic, used throughout our history… busting the workers’ strike.

Crocker and the Central Pacific cut off supplies to the Chinese to force them to drop their demands and return to work

Secondly, the Chinese experience suggests something much more interesting: immigrant labor can simultaneously compete with some American workers, complement others, lower employers’ costs, increase production and create additional jobs elsewhere in the economy. If you remove that labor, and you have to trace ALL of those effects—not merely count the job that the immigrant previously occupied.

Next up…

1917–1924: America closes the door

World War I, nationalism, labor concerns and fears about the enormous immigration wave changed the political climate. This brought on the biggest immigration-policy reversal in

Conversations, Immigration

The Chinese Problem

September 14, 2026 Nichola Leave a comment

Fourteen Years: 1868-1882

The Barn

Let’s talk about the “Chinese Problem.” By 1869, the Central Pacific’s Chinese workforce had grown to 11,000, which was 80 percent of the CP workforce. The Central Pacific was in a big rush to lay tracks, weren’t they?

The Mack

Right, the transcontinental railroad would be completed when the Central Pacific met the Union Pacific at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869. And those miles of track were a very lucrative endeavor for the Central Pacific and the Big Four… Crocker, Hopkins, Stanford, and Huntiington.

Punching a hole for the Central Pacific RR at Donner Pass

The Central Pacific began seriously experimenting with Chinese laborers in 1865, initially hiring a relatively small group because Charles Crocker and the other Central Pacific leaders were having great difficulty recruiting and retaining enough white workers in California. The Chinese workers proved effective, and the experiment expanded rapidly.

And there’s an important irony that connects directly with what we’ve been calling the “Chinese Problem.” The Chinese workers went from being a labor force that many Central Pacific managers initially doubted could do railroad construction to being indispensable to completing one of the country’s most celebrated national projects. Yet almost immediately afterward, Chinese immigration and Chinese workers increasingly became characterized in California politics as a social and economic “problem.”

The Barn

What did the Burlingame-Seward Treaty establish between China and the United States? And when was the treaty ratified?

The Burlingame-Seward Treaty, ratified November 1869

The Mack

The Burlingame–Seward Treaty was negotiated and signed in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 1868, and ratifications were exchanged on November 23, 1869.

The treaty was negotiated by Anson Burlingame, representing China, and Secretary of State William H. Seward for the United States. Crucially, it recognized the “inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance” and encouraged voluntary migration between China and the United States.

Anson Burlingame, representing Chinese interests

So at almost exactly the moment the Chinese railroad workforce was demonstrating its enormous economic value, the official policy of the United States was actually moving toward freer Chinese immigration—not exclusion.

The bargain was essentially reciprocal:

Americans could travel, reside, trade and pursue opportunities in China; Chinese could travel and reside in the United States.

Seward’s great foreign-policy objective was American access to China—a potentially enormous market. The United States was competing with Britain and the other European powers for trade and influence there. The State Department’s own historical account describes American objectives as gaining access to profitable Asian trade and increasing American influence in China.

But there was another reason that is especially pertinent to our conversation.

Washington actually wanted more Chinese labor

The State Department’s history says explicitly that the treaty ensured a continuing supply of inexpensive Chinese immigrant labor for American businesses and that American industrial leaders initially celebrated it for precisely that reason.

Angel Island arrivals bound for San Francisco, notoriously more exclusionary than Ellis Island on the other coast

Even more strikingly, when the treaty was still awaiting Chinese ratification, the new Grant administration’s Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, actively pushed for ratification. A later State Department diplomatic history records Fish welcoming Chinese laborers coming by the “thousands” and predicting that their movement eastward would “continue and increase.”

The thinking wasn’t:

We needed 11,000 Chinese to build the Central Pacific.

It was closer to:

Chinese labor helped build the Central Pacific. Why shouldn’t Chinese labor help build the rest of the American economy?

The Barn

So in 1869 when the treaty was ratified, there were already two very different American views of Chinese immigration?

The Mack

Yes. California had experienced anti-Chinese agitation since the 1850s. An 1868 federal report describes California politicians trying to restrict Chinese immigration while merchants, manufacturers and capitalists argued that Chinese labor and the China trade were extremely important to the state’s economy.

Meanwhile, the national government was looking westward across the Pacific and seeing something different:

China = trade + markets + diplomatic influence + labor.

So Washington ratified a treaty guaranteeing essentially free voluntary migration at almost precisely the moment when the particular labor shortage that had made Chinese workers indispensable to the Central Pacific Railroad was disappearing.

The Barn

It sounds to me like the Chinese Problem boils down to employers versus laborers.

The Mack

Yes, and I think that’s a cleaner way of understanding the early conflict than starting with racism alone.

A remarkable 1868 federal report from California practically says this explicitly. It describes a large and influential group of “merchants, manufacturers, capitalists” who valued Chinese labor and trade. It then describes white laborers objecting because Chinese workers supplied the labor market and frustrated workers’ attempts to control the price of labor. The author even states the economic conflict plainly: workers naturally try to obtain as much as possible for their labor, while “capitalists should endeavor to cheapen labor as much as they can.”

This depiction doesn’t square with their Central Pacific RR accomplishments

So by 1869 you can reasonably picture two economic interests:

Employers/capital: California needs workers. Chinese labor is reliable, relatively inexpensive, and expands what we can build, manufacture, mine and grow.

White labor: The Chinese willingness to work for less increases the supply of labor, weakens our bargaining power, and makes it harder for us to demand higher wages.

The Barn

The Burlingame-Seward Treaty opened the gate and the Chinese Exclusion Act slammed it shut, and in the intervening 14 years around 200,000 Chinese arrived in the United States. How did our national government so thoroughly and completely change their attitude during that span? What happened?

The Mack

Initially, the Burlingame-Seward Treaty reflected a remarkably optimistic national view. Washington wanted commerce with China, good relations with the Qing government, and access to Chinese labor.

The railroad had demonstrated that Chinese workers were reliable and productive. Once it was finished, Chinese labor didn’t disappear. Workers moved into agriculture, mining, factories, construction, laundries, domestic service and additional railroad building throughout the West.

But then came the Panic of 1873 and the long economic depression that followed.

Unemployment rose. Wages came under pressure. And suddenly the Chinese worker—who had been praised when labor was scarce—was portrayed as a threat when labor was plentiful.

Denis Kearney, Workingman’s Party… “The Chinese must go!”

The political argument became brutally simple:

“Chinese workers are taking white men’s jobs and depressing wages.”

And the rallying cry of Denis Kearney and the Workingman’s Party:

“The Chinese must go”

The Barn

The Burlingame-Seward Treaty triggered a surge in Chinese immigration. Is it also true that the Panic of 1873, also known as The Long Depression, triggered the Chinese Exclusion Act?

The Mack

Yes—with an important qualification. I think that is a very useful way to frame the story, provided we say the Panic of 1873 accelerated and politically empowered an exclusion movement that already existed, rather than literally caused it.

Your two bookends work rather well:

Burlingame-Seward helped open the gate wider.
The Panic of 1873 supplied much of the economic and political energy that eventually slammed it shut.

That last point is important. The Panic didn’t immediately close the gate. Quite the opposite: large numbers of Chinese continued arriving while economic conditions were deteriorating.

And that created an explosive combination:

More workers arriving + fewer jobs + falling wages + business failures + existing racial hostility.

For very recent issues, add contemporary news searches

The Barn

The Mack

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The Mack

Next up…

1917–1924: America closes the door

The Barn

The Mack

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The Mack

Washington actually wanted more Chinese labor

The Barn

The Mack

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