Deep and durable and well known by all of us is the influence and place of money in American politics.

If you go to that famous quip by one of the all-time politicos of American history,

Mark Hanna and Ohio Republican, this is what he said, there are two things that are important in politics.

The first is money. And I can't remember what the second one is.

Hanna died in 1904. He did not have superpacks, but we do, and we have a debate.

Two cheers for superpacks. Money in politics is still over-regulated. That is our motion. I'm John Donovan, a debate from Intelligent Squared U.S.

Four superbly qualified debaters, two against two, all of whom have grappled with the question of where money fits into a system that we refer to as democracy.

We debate, as always, in three rounds, then the audience votes to choose the winner and only one side wins.

Let's meet our debaters and welcome first David Keating.

And David, earlier this year, you became president of the Center for Competitive Politics.

It represented a group that you also founded in the landmark case that was SpeechNow.org versus Federal Election Committee.

Citizens United gets most of the credit for the fact that we have superpacks, but without SpeechNow, we would not have them at all.

In addition to that involvement, you also spent a lot of time in your career working on tax policy.

So the question is which is the more twisted set of legislation?

Campaign finance or tax policy?

Well, that's simple. The tax laws are a model of clarity and simplicity by comparison.

Yes, and the IRS is reasonable compared to the Federal Election Commission.

All right. Thank you, David Keating.

Your partner, arguing for the motion, two cheers for superpacks, Jacob Solon.

Jacob, you are a senior editor at Reason Magazine where the motto is Free Mines and Free Markets.

You're also the author of Saying Yes in Defense of Drug Use.

Jacob, you graduated from Cornell University where you majored in both economics and psychology.

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