This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 14th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The new documentary Dark Money presents campaign finance reform as a powerful fix

to corrupt and obscure political machinations, but that's

really less than half the story.

Attorney Steve Klein is of counsel at the Pillar of Law Institute.

We spoke today about the Dark Money documentary and why

campaign finance reform tends to chill speech to the point of freezing out small

speakers. When the media talks about dark money and of course that is a pejorative term that is applied to money that is spent that is aimed at influencing elections,

what do they mean when they say that?

Well, it's a nebulous term that's used to the advantage of the entire campaign finance

reform community.

At least in a, at its most technical, dark money would refer to money that is not subject to campaign

finance restrictions or campaign finance disclosure requirements.

Okay, so that just alone, if that's the operational definition,

that is a huge category of donations people make to,

if they're 501c3s or C4s or groups that are active in politics but not necessarily people who

are attempting to influence any particular election.

Correct.

Everything from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Sierra Club to a number of progressive

causes, including a number of the campaign finance reform groups that are featured in this

documentary are not subject to federal

...