It is an expansion of her 2010 article in the New Yorker about the Koch brothers and their funding of various conservative and libertarian causes and candidates. One of these books is a valuable contribution that addresses the history of campaign finance law, the constitutional issues involved in regulating political spending, and the difficulty of creating policies that allow all Americans a voice while protecting free speech.
Nonetheless, Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Radical Right and Hasen’s Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections-both published in the thick of the 2016 election-are aimed directly at the issue. “Dark money” was not supposed to be an afterthought. Charles Koch himself is even speaking of holding his nose and supporting Hillary Clinton. Candidates favored by large contributors, such as Jeb Bush, failed, while candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who explicitly disclaimed large donations during the primaries, ran effective campaigns. A big issue in the 2016 election was supposed to be the Koch Brothers and other purveyors of “dark money.” Except for Bernie Sanders including Citizens United in his list of all things wrong with this country, however, the national discussion has instead been dominated by things like Donald Trump’s fingers and Hillary Clinton’s private server. Jane Mayer and Richard Hasen must feel a little like those graduates. All those years spent working toward a goal, only to see the world change and make it irrelevant. To join the debate, please email us at Studies majors who graduated in 1990 do not get as much sympathy as they deserve.
We also invite responses from our readers.
In this case, the best opposing views can be found in the books themselves, and we accordingly offer links to purchase them, and to positive reviews of them. Whenever we publish an article that advocates for a particular position, as here, we offer links to other perspectives on the issue, including ones opposed to the position taken in the article. Any expressions of opinion are those of the author. Note from the Editor: This book review takes a critical look at two recent books that advocate campaign finance reform. The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public policy matters.
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