The New School

How to Return Democracy to the People

Today, the need for campaign money affects who runs for public office and who wins our elections. Furthermore, once elected, our leaders must spend more and more time raising campaign funds, which means less time doing the public’s business – The New School

Americans for Campaign Reform, whose honorary chairs are former Senators Bill Bradley, Bob Kerrey, Warren Rudman, and Alan Simpson, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School hosts a panel discussion moderated by Bob Kerrey, President of The New School, and featuring former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire Warren Rudman; Joan Claybrook, lawyer who has served as president of Public Citizen since 1982 and former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the Carter Administration; John Rauh, founder of Americans for Campaign Reform; Dr. Costas Panagopoulos, assistant professor of Political Science and director of the graduate program in Elections and Campaign Management at Fordham University and Michael Waldman, director of the Brennan Center for Justice.

The panelists delve into the impact of money on our political system and weigh different approaches to the problem, including ethics reform, regulation of lobbying activity, and public funding of elections.