00:01 - The following program is sponsored in part by Customers Bank.

00:13 - We are joined today by Representative Joe Webster.

00:16 - You have proposed legislation to ban corporations from contributing

00:20 - to political campaigns.

00:21 - Why? The, the, the basics of the idea is money has

00:27 - influence, and, and the influence that's ongoing now is actually creating

00:33 - scenarios that are opposite of what any polling or, or common sense would tell you.

00:40 - So, the influence of money is dramatically apparent in Pennsylvania, and, and in issues

00:47 - where, where Pennsylvania's voting constituents want to accomplish certain things.

00:52 - Sometimes leadership, has other influences at stake.

00:57 - And, and Ellen, I would say I always use my personal experience.

01:01 - I'm not a big fundraiser.

01:03 - I don't take enormous big checks, but I can tell you, when someone does contribute and

01:09 - then they call on the phone, you feel that pull, right?

01:12 - So they were nice to me, they helped me get where I wanted to go, I should listen to them.

01:17 - Imagine when someone's writing a $500,000 check, or, you know, checks that have more

01:23 - zeros than that. It's, it's a powerful influence, and frankly,

01:28 - corporations, you know This is the anti-Citizens United bill, right?

01:34 - W- Our, our s- national Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court, somehow said

01:39 - corporations are people.

01:41 - And I think there's a number of states who are arguing they are not people.

01:45 - They don't vote, and, and they should not have the influence that they have.

01:50 - Now, a recent article from the Pennsylvania Capitol Star, says that

01:54 - campaign spending is up.

01:55 - Do we know what is causing this increase?

01:59 - So we just mentioned, you know, money has power and influence.

02:05 - And, and Pennsylvania is a purple state.

02:08 - It is, it is the, part of the national decision process for higher offices,

02:14 - for, control of the majorities in the US House or Senate,

02:21 - maybe e- eventually influential in Supreme Court nominations and decisions.

02:27 - So those, those institutions, corporations, outside influence,

02:34 - and sometimes, you know, completely different bill, but, but in an environment where we have

02:39 - dark money, where people don't have to report where the money's coming from, that creates

02:45 - the opportunity for foreign influence and other things, and that's all at play right now

02:50 - in the politics of Pennsylvania.

02:53 - How common is corporation spending on political campaigns?

02:58 - It's, it's, it's 100% common.

03:01 - I don't, I don't know how to say it any other way.

03:03 - I, I would expect that whatever the political race is, corporations have

03:08 - put money into that scenario.

03:11 - Are there specific types of corporations that contribute to campaigns more so than others?

03:17 - You know, I don't know specifically.

03:20 - Certainly the, the, amount, like, the, this inequality in terms of imagine

03:27 - if, if you're a, a local shop owner, and, and you have a zoning issue or, or whatever that

03:34 - might be that you would petition, like, United States Constitution, right?

03:37 - You petition your, your government leadership to change something.

03:42 - Imagine trying to go up against, you know, literally a $800 billion international

03:49 - corporation that can fund an opposing view.

03:53 - Yeah, the imbalance is, is the issue.

03:56 - Is there an organization or a person who tracks the amount of spending that these,

04:01 - groups put into campaigns?

04:04 - So I, I suspect there's And we-- I'm not sure I can name them off the top of my head.

04:08 - There are many, many of those organizations who are trying to do this, and, and this bill

04:15 - is focused on the, like, the right of a corporation to engage politically with dollars.

04:22 - There are other bills and concerns that, that would sort of speak to the scenario of saying,

04:30 - right now they don't have to report it, right?

04:31 - It's dark money. We don't know where it's coming from.

04:34 - So while organizations are trying to figure it out, it's nearly impossible.

04:40 - Now, the same Capitol Star article that I referenced earlier also reports that this

04:45 - legislation comes as state lawmakers work to enact changes to campaign finance laws.

04:51 - Why are those changes necessary?

04:54 - Yeah. So, so it goes back to sort of those, some of

04:56 - those fundamental things. I think most Pennsylvanians, most Americans

05:01 - learn their basic civics that, you know, each individual of age, you're, you're a valid,

05:07 - certified voter.

05:10 - You're equal to the next person, and, and your vote counts one, and, and the President of the

05:16 - United States, his vote counts one i- in that, you know, in an election that he might be able

05:21 - to vote in. But the amount of money that's now involved in

05:26 - our, in our election cycles is so dramatic that it's no longer on balance.

05:32 - You, you might have, a large body of constituents, of Pennsylvanians who, who are

05:39 - in favor of an item, and, and yet, you know, other Pennsylvanians are being persuaded, not,

05:45 - not by their neighbors, but by big corporations to, to vote a different way.

05:52 - Now, your bill- And sometimes, y- you know, the, the play of that, Ellen, is, And I,

05:58 - I-- W- We're on your, your- your channel, your, your, opportunity to speak.

06:05 - But, le- leadership plays such a role in this, right?

06:09 - So if, if leadership is, is getting a big, big check from,

06:16 - from a Meta or an Amazon or a f- you know, somebody that big, they, they might know

06:23 - that there are 120 votes in the House to pass a bill, but they don't have to run the bill.

06:29 - So it, it, it just corrupts the system where democracy says you, you know,

06:35 - grassroots have, our, our citizens voted.

06:39 - They might elect me as the representative in the House, and I've convinced 130 of my

06:43 - colleagues to do something a- and yet there's a moneyed influence that blocks that

06:51 - impetus to represent the people.

06:53 - Now, your legislation also mentions not only, money towards campaigns, but corporation,

06:59 - contributions towards ballot questions.

07:02 - Can you talk about how that works and why a corporation would want to influence a specific

07:06 - question on the ballot? So, I'd, I'd like to maybe think of an example.

07:12 - Maybe the, the hot button right now would be data centers, and we don't have a ballot

07:16 - initiative in that regard.

07:18 - But, but if there were a ballot initiative like that, you, you would see, you know, a, a,

07:25 - a very, basic response from the population right now.

07:30 - They want to make sure that it's, it's not influencing their local community in, in a

07:36 - negative way. And, you know, and I'm saying that in the

07:39 - least you know, aggressive manner, right?

07:43 - They People don't want that data center right now, and there might be all kinds of

07:48 - accommodations that could be made to make them acceptable, but, you know, what happens is

07:54 - that corporation can flood the market and sort of change the messaging.

07:59 - And, and when it's a ballot initiative, and we don't really have big ballot initiatives in

08:05 - Pennsylvania, or we don't have ballot questions that come from, a, a popular,

08:14 - What's the right term? Like, where, where our citizens actually write,

08:17 - and they get the amount of signatures they need.

08:19 - Pennsylvania doesn't do that.

08:21 - But if it were, It could be, an amendment to our state constitution that comes through the

08:28 - House and the Senate, and then that question would go to the ballot so that the people of

08:33 - Pennsylvania get to vote on their state constitution.

08:38 - Imagine that corporations and, and maybe international corporations and maybe foreign

08:44 - influences can now come to bear on a question that is meant to be for the people of

08:50 - Pennsylvania to decide.

08:52 - Now, if a corporation were to spend money on a political campaign, would there be any

08:57 - penalties under this bill?

09:00 - Oh, good question. So, it should be disallowed, so they shouldn't

09:04 - be able to do that. And, and I'm not going to be able to tell you

09:08 - the specifics, but, I will tell you, and, and, and just because, Like, this is House Bill,

09:15 - I've got to look, 2728, which means there's 2,700 bills right now that, some parts of

09:22 - each one is running around the back of my head.

09:25 - I'm not going to be able to speak directly, but I would say, maybe I can follow up.

09:31 - A Joe Webster bill should be enforceable, right?

09:34 - So the way you enforce it is there's penalties.

09:38 - And I'm not going to be able to answer exactly what those are until I go look.

09:43 - Now, do any other states have legislation like this in place?

09:47 - They do. The, the two that are most notable are Hawaii

09:51 - and Montana. So two completely different states, you know,

09:55 - where, where they're basically saying, "The votes of our, of our citizens matter,

10:03 - and, and need to be prominent." they are, they are different approaches.

10:08 - I think our approach is closer to what Hawaii is trying to do.

10:13 - Now, you are also sponsoring a bill that would ban foreign-owned companies from using their

10:17 - money to influence state elections. Right.

10:19 - What can you tell us about this bill?

10:21 - Yeah, so you mentioned that there are all kinds of campaign finance reform bills at

10:25 - large in the, in the Pennsylvania House, and one of them is my bill on foreign influence.

10:32 - And what's powerful about that in the modern world is, just for an example,

10:39 - if, if a foreign group, could be a government, it could be,

10:47 - you know, investors of some kind that are, that are together, if they owned 1% of Amazon,

10:53 - that would be almost a billion dollars.

10:55 - And, and, and if you own 1% of Amazon, you probably have Jeff Bezos' phone number.

11:01 - That's a powerful amount of direct access.

11:06 - So the question is, if, if a large, large corporation, international corporation

11:13 - all over the globe is, is that prevalent, do we allow a European or an

11:20 - Asian or an African influence to tell Pennsylvania, what they should be thinking

11:27 - is, is in their interests?

11:29 - And, and my answer is, Pennsylvania should decide what's best for Pennsylvania.

11:35 - Now, where are these bills we've been talking about in the legislative process currently?

11:40 - So, you, you know, our, our, our citizens and constituents know and the, and the governor

11:46 - always points it out that we are a divided, you know, chambers between

11:51 - the House and the Senate. A number of these bills have

11:54 - gotten, committee votes.

11:57 - My foreign influence bill, for instance, has passed the House twice.

12:02 - It has received no- You know, recognition whatsoever in the, in the Pennsylvania Senate.

12:08 - And, and so that's why it's important to have this discussion.

12:11 - You know, PCN has a, a great role in making sure people understand what's, what's possible,

12:18 - what might be, on the agenda or just to the left of the agenda or right, you know, like to

12:24 - the side, and, and their push, right?

12:27 - If you m- my take after I've now done this seven years, which, I've never held a job this

12:33 - long before, in my lifetime, what I've learned is,

12:41 - your influence, the, the voters' influence, the constituents, the local engagement has a

12:47 - big movement on individuals like myself, but also on the leadership roles of chairman or,

12:54 - or whip, right? So, so I encourage all, all the visitors to my

12:58 - office, like, you might have me as your ally, I'm on board, but you need to go convince the

13:05 - leadership to move this.

13:06 - You have to help me push it, and in this case, that, that foreign influence bill is sitting

13:11 - in the Senate. We need Pennsylvanians to tell the Senate

13:14 - leadership this is important that, that Pennsylvanians decide the result of our

13:19 - elections, the result of a, of a question on a ballot.

13:24 - It shouldn't be anyone who is representing a foreign interest that, that gets to have that

13:31 - same equal status.

13:34 - Representative Joe Webster, thank you for joining us.

13:37 - It's a great discussion, Ellen.

13:39 - Very important and, and hopefully we can do this again.