This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 18th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Rules governing campaign finance are often stacked against small parties in more ways

than one. Attorney Alan Gura has launched a challenge to throw out rules that

discriminate against small political parties with small war chests. We spoke yesterday. There is this phrase that is used in campaign

finance literature called quid pro quo corruption, say that three times fast.

And the idea is that you give a contribution,

you expect something of value in return for that contribution,

and that's corrupting.

That is bad for our democratic processes.

This is a guy Joseph Schaeber who left the Libertarian National Committee or the Libertarian Party, almost a quarter of a million dollars, after he died.

So what is the quid pro quo corruption that could potentially be prevented in that case?

There is none and we know that there is no potential corruption because the government actually in this case had the opportunity

to investigate, to look back at his life, to ask questions, to conduct discovery, to say,

okay, who did he know?

What connections did he have to party officials or office holders?

And of course, not to me federal office holders

from the Libertarian Party these days.

What strings, what can we look at in his relationship with a party to show that there's going to be some

sort of ingratiating access that is not going to be allowed. Well,

and gracious is okay, but access is not. Well, let's see.

This gentleman had given small amounts, totaling a little bit over three grand, I believe, over the course of his life.

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