MoJo Author Feeds: Monika Bauerlein | Mother Jones

Mother Jones Nominated for 4 National Magazine Awards

Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:26:50 +0000

Today, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) announced the nominees for the 2013 National Magazine Awards. We are thrilled to announce that Mother Jones has been nominated in four categories: general excellence, print; multimedia; video (for the 47 percent video); and feature writing, for Mac McClelland's "I Was A Warehouse Wage Slave" (a.k.a. "Shelf Lives"). These awards, which honor work published in 2012, are considered the Academy Awards of the industry. On May 2, editors will gather in New York City to find out the winners.

The nominees were also notable for the number of women nominated for the writing and reporting categories. For the first time, women achieved parity in the number of such nominations. Hell, it's the first time they've come close. (Clara has more on that here.)

The official release from ASME is below. You can monitor chatter about the nominations on twitter by following @ASME1963 and the hashtag #ellies.

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NEW YORK, NY (April 1, 2013)—The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) today announced the finalists for the 2013 National Magazine Awards. Known as the Ellies--for the Alexander Calder stabile "Elephant" given to each award winner--the National Magazine Awards will be presented on Thursday, May 2, at the New York Marriott Marquis.

The May 2 gala will also include the presentation of the Creative Excellence Award to Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard, whose work as graphic designers has shaped the modern magazine. The Creative Excellence Award was established in 2008 by ASME to recognize writers and artists who have made unique and enduring contributions to magazines.

Sixty-two publications were nominated this year in 23 categories. Twenty-six magazines received multiple nominations, led by National Geographic with seven, followed by Bon Appétit and New York, both with six. GQ and The New Yorker both received five nominations; Esquire, Harper's Magazine, Mother Jones and Texas Monthly all received four.

Magazines with multiple nominations also include The Atlantic (3), Saveur (3), TIME (3), Wired (3), Bloomberg Businessweek (2), Byliner (2), Golf Digest (2) Los Angeles (2), Martha Stewart Living (2), The New York Times Magazine (2), Outside (2), The Paris Review (2), Real Simple (2), Scientific American (2),Slate (2), Sports Illustrated (2) and W (2).

Six publications are first-time finalists: Afar for Website; Bullett for Design; Byliner for Feature Writing and Fiction; HGTV Magazine for Magazine Section; mental_floss for General Excellence, Print; and Pitchfork for General Excellence, Digital Media.

Finalists in the Magazine of the Year category, honoring excellence both in print and on digital platforms, will be announced on Monday, April 8.
Established in 1966, the National Magazine Awards are sponsored by ASME in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Nearly 260 publications entered the National Magazine Awards this year, submitting 1,636 entries. The judges included 330 magazine editors, art directors and photography editors as well as journalism educators.

NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS 2013 FINALISTS:

GENERAL EXCELLENCE, PRINT
News, Sports, and Entertainment Magazines
(Honors large-circulation weeklies, biweeklies and monthlies)
Esquire; Fortune; National Geographic; New York; Wired

Service and Fashion Magazines
(Honors women's magazines, including health, fitness and family-centric publications)
Harper's Bazaar; O, The Oprah Magazine; Real Simple; Vogue; Women's Health

Women's Health Lifestyle Magazines
(Honors food, travel and shelter magazines as well as city and regional publications)
Bon Appétit; House Beautiful; Martha Stewart Living; Saveur; Texas Monthly

Special-Interest Magazines
(Honors magazines serving targeted audiences, including enthusiast and hobbyist titles)
The Fader; mental_floss; MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History; Outside; Scientific American

Literary, Political and Professional Magazines
(Honors small-circulation general-interest magazines as well as academic and scholarly publications)
MIT Technology Review; Mother Jones; The New Republic; The Paris Review; Poetry

GENERAL EXCELLENCE, DIGITAL MEDIA
Chow; Glamour; National Geographic; Pitchfork; Slate

DESIGN
Bon Appétit; Bullett; Details; New York; TIME

PHOTOGRAPHY
Bon Appétit; Interview; National Geographic; TIME; W

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

Harper's Magazine for "The Water of My Land," photographs by Samuel James; September
Martha Stewart Living for "A Pilgrim's Feast," photographs by Anna Williams; November
National Geographic for "In the Shadow of Wounded Knee," by Alexandra Fuller; photographs by Aaron Huey; August
New York for "What We Saw When The Lights Went Out," by John Homans; photographs by Iwan Baan, Pari Dukovic, Christopher Griffith, Casey Kelbaugh, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, Joseph Michael Lopez, Gus Powell, Joseph Rodriguez and Peter Yang; November 12
W for "Good Kate, Bad Kate," by Will Self; photographs by Steven Klein; March

SINGLE-TOPIC ISSUE

Backpacker for "The Survival Issue," October
Bloomberg Businessweek for "Election Issue," October 15-21
Fast Company for "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies," March
Saveur for "The Mexico Issue," August/September
Sports Illustrated for "Olympic Preview," July 23

MAGAZINE SECTION

Bon Appétit for "Starters"
Esquire for "Man at His Best"
GQ for "The Punch List"
HGTV Magazine for "Help Wanted"
New York for "Strategist"

PERSONAL SERVICE

Esquire for "Fatherhood for Men," June/July
GQ for "Marriage: The Most Important, Least Discussed Institution You'll Ever Be a Part Of," May
Los Angeles for "The New Face and Body of Plastic Surgery," October
Outside for "Take Two Hours of Pike Forest and Call Me in the Morning," by Florence Williams; December
Real Simple for "Women and Time: Setting a New Agenda," April

LEISURE INTERESTS

Bon Appétit for "The Incredible Egg," by Carla Lalli Music, April
ESPN The Magazine for "Fantasy Football," August 6
Golf Digest for "Masters Preview," April
Los Angeles for "The Food Lover's Guide to L.A.," edited by Lesley Bargar Suter; November
Wired for "How to Be a Geek Dad," June

WEBSITE
Afar; The Atlantic; Golf Digest; National Geographic; Scientific American

TABLET MAGAZINE
Bloomberg Businessweek; Bon Appétit; Esquire; Money; National Geographic

MULTIMEDIA

Field & Stream for "The Best Days of the Rut 2012," November Print Issue, and "The F&S Rut Reporters" at fieldandstream.com and for iPhone
Mother Jones for "MoJo Labs: Data Journalism and Graphics"
National Geographic for "Cheetahs on the Edge," November iPad Edition
The New Yorker for "Secrets of Edgewood"
TIME for Hurricane Sandy Coverage

VIDEO

The Daily Beast for "How Obama Learned to Kill," June 6, and "The Keys to the Economy," October 25, from the Op-Vid Series
Mother Jones for "Full Secret Video of Private Romney Fundraiser," September 18
The Oxford American for "Tiny Town!," June 8, and "I'll Paint Something Worthwhile," August 15, from the SoLost Video Series
Saveur for "How to Make Salsa Verde with Avocado," August 15, "Martin Yan Makes Scallion Pancakes," October 10, and "How to Make the Perfect Tempura," December 4, from the Master Class Video Series
Sports Illustrated for "Welcome to Friendship Beach," August 21, and "Loud and Clear," September 25, from the Underdogs Video Series

PUBLIC INTEREST

The Atlantic for "The Writing Revolution," by Peg Tyre; October
Consumer Reports for "Arsenic in Your Juice," January, and "Arsenic in Your Food," November, by Andrea Rock
The New Yorker for "The Throwaways," by Sarah Stillman; September 3
Rolling Stone for "School of Hate," by Sabrina Rubin Erdely; February 16
Texas Monthly for "Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives," by Mimi Swartz; August

REPORTING

Chicago for "Lawbreakers, Lawmakers," by David Bernstein and Noah Isackson; January
GQ for "18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque and 1 Man Dead in Ohio," by Chris Heath; March
Harper's Magazine for "All Politics Is Local: Election Night in Peru's Largest Prison," by Daniel Alarcón; February
The New York Times Magazine for "Did You Think About the Six People You Executed?" by Robert F. Worth; May 13
The New Yorker for "The Implosion," February 27, and "The War Within," August 27, by Jon Lee Anderson
Texas Monthly for "Hannah and Andrew," by Pamela Colloff; January
The Texas Observer for "Valley of Death," by Melissa del Bosque; March

FEATURE WRITING (INCORPORATING PROFILE WRITING)

Byliner for "The Living and the Dead," by Brian Mockenhaupt; October
GQ for "The Blind Faith of the One-Eyed Matador," by Karen Russell; October
GQ for "Burning Man," by Jay Kirk; February
Mother Jones for "Shelf Lives," by Mac McClelland; March/April
The New Yorker for "Atonement," by Dexter Filkins; October 29 & November 5
Texas Monthly for "The Innocent Man: Part I," November, and "The Innocent Man: Part II," December, by Pamela Colloff
Wired for "Inside the Mansion—and the Mind—of Kim Dotcom, the Most Wanted Man on the Internet," by Charles Graeber; November

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM

The Atlantic for "Fear of a Black President," by Ta-Nehisi Coates; September
Foreign Policy for "Why Do They Hate Us?" by Mona Eltahawy; May/June
New York for "A Life Worth Ending," by Michael Wolff; May 28
The New Yorker for "Over the Wall," by Roger Angell; November 19
Orion for "State of the Species," by Charles C. Mann; November/December

COLUMNS AND COMMENTARY

Elle for three columns by Daphne Merkin: "Portrait of a Lady," March; "Social Animal," May; and "We're All Helmut Newton Now," October
The Nation for three columns by Katha Pollitt: "Protect Pregnant Women: Free Bei Bei Shuai," March 26; "Ann Romney, Working Woman?" May 7; and "Blasphemy Is Good for You," October 15
New York for three columns by Frank Rich: "Who in God's Name Is Mitt Romney?" February 6; "Mayberry R.I.P.," July 30; and "Nora's Secret," August 27-September 3
The New York Times Magazine for three columns by Adam Davidson: "It Ain't Just Pickles," February 19; "The $200,000-Nanny Club," March 25; and "Caymans, Here We Come," July 29
Slate for three columns by Dahlia Lithwick: "It's Not About the Law, Stupid," March 22; "The Supreme Court's Dark Vision of Freedom," March 27; and "Where Is the Liberal Outrage?" July 6

FICTION

Byliner for "The Boy Vanishes," by Jennifer Haigh; July
Harper's Magazine for "Batman and Robin Have an Altercation," by Stephen King; September
Harper's Magazine for "Train," by Alice Munro; April
McSweeney's Quarterly for "River Camp," by Thomas McGuane; September
The Paris Review for "Housebreaking," by Sarah Frisch; December

Source of 47 Percent Video to Go Public

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:40:57 +0000

On September 17, Mother Jones' David Corn broke a story that became a key factor in the presidential campaign, revealing video of GOP candidate Mitt Romney speaking candidly to donors at a $50,000-a-plate campaign fundraiser. In the video, Romney said that 47 percent of Americans

More MoJo coverage of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks:

The Story Behind the 47 Percent Video

SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters

Romney "47 Percent" Fundraiser Host: Hedge Fund Manager Who Likes Sex Parties

Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video

Obama Strikes Backâ€”With "47 Percent"

Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent" Fundraiser?

"…will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them…These are people who pay no income tax."

The story went global instantly, appearing at the top of news sites and TV broadcasts around the world, with millions of people ultimately watching the video. But amid much speculation about the source of the recording, Corn did not reveal the name of the the person who shot the video, honoring a pledge to protect his identity. Now the source himself has decided to go public: He will tell his story Wednesday night on MSNBC's The Ed Show. (The Huffington Post has also published a couple of pieces about him, without disclosing his name.) We'll have more information then, but for now, we will continue to honor our commitment not to divulge details. You can watch the The Ed Show preview here.

Salute to James Ridgeway

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:31:24 +0000

Jim Ridgeway—who leaves MoJo's staff roster this week to become a contributing reporter—is, though he'd never put it this way, one of the legends of modern muckraking. Back in 1965 he helped establish the nascent field of consumer reporting when he revealed that GM had run a dark-ops campaign against a young Ralph Nader, whose book Unsafe at Any Speed detailed how automakers had knowingly sacrificed safety for sales. He went on to break more stories than we can count, digging into everything from energy politics to national security to the sex industry. MoJo co-founder Adam Hochschild remembers becoming a Ridgeway reader in 1968, when Jim and the late Andrew Kopkind started a newsletter called first Mayday and later Hard Times.

I still remember the yellow paper it came on, how eagerly I waited for each issue to arrive, and the pleasure of instantly knowing we shared a view of the world if I found that a new acquaintance was also a reader. It is sobering, in a way, to see how many of the problems Jim wrote about half a century ago are still with us. But it’s inspiring to see someone keep the faith all these years, especially someone who could have very easily had a successful and doubtless much more lucrative career writing unthreatening stories for the mainstream media. That, in fact, is where more than of few of the dissenters of the 1960s ended up.

Also among Ridgeway's admirers was Rupert Murdoch, who bought the Village Voice (where Ridgeway had become a staff writer) as part of his New York Magazine Co. acquisition in 1977.

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Mother Jones' David Corn Wins George Polk Award

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 05:02:34 +0000

How is MoJo Washington Bureau Chief David Corn like Edward R. Murrow, Carl Bernstein, David Halberstam, Gay Talese, Fred Friendly, I.F. Stone, and Walter Cronkite? So many ways really, but the most notable today is that they have all won a George Polk Award, one of the most prestigious honors in journalism. Corn is the winner in the political reporting category for the 47 percent story—his revelation of a video documenting Mitt Romney's remarks at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser that 47 percent of Americans were "dependent upon the government" and would never "take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

The Polk award, established in 1949 to honor a CBS correspondent murdered while covering the Greek Civil War, is given each year by Long Island University; this year's announcement commends Corn for the "years of high-impact journalism that helped lead him to the source of the recording," and for the "persistent digging and careful negotiation" that made the story possible. Other winners include the staff of Bloomberg News and the New York Times' David Barboza for uncovering corruption among China's elite; a team of McClatchy correspondents (including former MoJo contributor David Enders) covering the war in Syria; Sarah Stillman for her New Yorker piece on teen informants; Ryan Gabrielson of California Watch for a story on abuses in state clinics for the disabled; and the Frontline team behind the documentary "Money, Power, and Wall Street." For David and all of us at Mother Jones, it's a capstone for an amazing year and thrilling recognition for a project that has been widely credited with changing the course of the campaign.

No More Newtowns: What Will It Take?

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:29:44 +0000

As we sat in horror Friday morning watching the details of the Newtown school shootings emerge, one question kept pushing through the anger, the grief, the ache to go hug our own kids: What would it take? What, after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, the Sikh temple shooting, and so many others, what would it take for the nation to grapple with the fact that our gun policy is the equivalent of leaving your gun cabinet unlocked with a "Murderers Help Yourself" sign on it? President Obama is right: We can't say we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, or that the politics are too hard, or that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom. But what then must we do?

Gun control may be famously intractable, but it doesn't take a genius to spot a few key correlations:

There are more guns out there, and fewer controls, than ever before.
There are a lot of people with mental-health problems, and services have been cut.
We have seen a record number of mass shootings this year—more than twice as many victims as in any previous year.
Even if you don't want to stipulate that 1 and 2 are causally related to 3, making it harder for dangerous people to get lethal weapons can only help.

Many Americans are in agreement, in principle, on point 4. So what would it take for that agreement to translate into action in the face of one of the most powerful lobbies the world has ever seen? What has it taken in the past to change the seemingly unchangeable, from slavery and child labor to the disenfranchisement of women and minorities?

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Public Opinion Has Moved on Climate Change. Will Obama Follow—or Fiddle?

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:03:05 +0000

Climate change's single appearance in the presidential debates was, well, anticlimactic. At the end of the second bout, after the candidates sparred interminably over whose love for fossil fuels was greater, moderator Candy Crowley said she'd decided not to call on an audience member who wanted to ask about global warming. "I had that question, all you climate change people," she said. "We just, you know, we knew that the economy was still the main thing."

And there it is, everything you need to know about the Beltway mindset in one compact little diss. Climate change has been demoted to special, you-people interest on the order of, oh, animal testing or nuclear disarmament. Important, sure, but not like the things that grown-ups care about, like whether America can afford another nickel at the pump. Or, for that matter, whether Joe Biden played dirty pool in the VP debate by blinding Paul Ryan with his 500-watt smile. In November, the liberal media watchdog Media Matters took the trouble to count up how much time the major networks (minus MSNBC) had devoted to the vice presidential grin: 91 minutes. Climate change, on those same networks, had taken up a grand total of 51 minutes in the preceding three months.

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Marcus Samuelsson's Harlem Renaissance

Monika Bauerlein — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 10:01:00 +0000

Say "footprint" in a roomful of foodies and heads will nod: ~~Obsessing~~ Thinking about where your food comes from has been the most resilient trend this side of cupcakes. But what about where you eat? That's where Marcus Samuelsson comes in: When he opened his high-end Harlem Restaurant, Red Rooster, he says, he aimed to "expand the dining footprint of New York." Could he get high-end diners to travel north of 96th Street? Could he get the neighborhood to support an establishment where a plate of fried chicken runs $28? Two years in, the answer is yes: Red Rooster (the name honors an old speakeasy) is raking in the critical honors, and it's expanding its own footprint by supporting a neighborhood farmers' market and a culinary-arts training program for local youth.

Food, to Samuelsson, is about families, neighborhoods, and traditions—and about recombining them all in surprising ways. The chef is himself a cultural mash-up: Ethiopian by birth, Swede by upbringing, New Yorker by choice, with culinary training that involved "getting yelled at in English, German, French, and Spanish." His new autobiography, Yes, Chef, recounts his remarkable journey (starting with his birth mother walking 72 miles, with her young kids, to get them treatment for tuberculosis). We sat down with Samuelsson in San Francisco after he joined MoJo staff and friends for what he described as "the best breakfast of my life."

Mother Jones: At Red Rooster, you created the position of "greeter," someone who is specifically not a bouncer, but who stands outside and says hello when you come in, and on your way out might point you to the subway or to a place to have a cocktail. This was in part to make your customers linger in the neighborhood?

MS: We want them to walk around in the community. We made a map, an artistic map, so people can know where else to go from here. If you had corn bread and beer with me and you decided to go to a jazz concert 20 blocks up, I'm fine with that because I brought you up here and now you are in the community. If you’re in the community and are having normal relationships within the community, the way you would behave on 23rd Street, the way you would behave in the West Village—that's what matters. That’s where the greeter was important, not like a big bulky guy, but just a guy that'll say "Hey, welcome back."

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Romney at Bain: How the Story Broke

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Now that the question of Mitt Romney's departure from Bain Capital has blown up into a major subplot of the campaign season, it's worth reviewing how the controversy initially evolved—in part because, even as journalists (starting with MoJo's David Corn) have continued to uncover questions about the timing of Romney's retirement, professional fact-checking shops continue to maintain it's unfair to tie Romney to Bain's outsourcing investments.

June 20:The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" column gives the Obama campaign four Pinocchios—its worst rating—for an ad calling Mitt Romney a "corporate raider [who] shipped jobs to China and Mexico." WaPo notes that it is dinging the ad because two of the three outsourcing instances cited took place after Romney "stepped down from Bain to manage the Salt Lake City Olympics."

June 21: The Washington Post's Tom Hamburger reports that during Romney's tenure at Bain, the company "invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India."

June 29: Factcheck.org publishes its own analysis of Obama's outsourcing ads. It also takes the Obama campaign to task for "stretching" the truth; Hamburger's story, it argues, "revealed that Bain invested in companies that did outsourcing. But the outsourcing resulted in the creation of jobs here and abroad." Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter responds with a six-page letter defending the campaign's assertions.

July 2: Mother Jones publishes the first story reporting that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings indicate Romney was involved with Bain beyond the point when he claims to have departed the firm, in 1999. In a piece on Bain's investments in a medical waste company that disposed of aborted fetuses, David Corn points out that there are

"…questions regarding the timing of Romney's departure from the private equity firm he founded…The SEC documents [reviewed by MoJo] undercut that defense, indicating that Romney still played a role in Bain investments until at least the end of 1999."

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How to Sweep Dark Money Out of Politics

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 22:00:06 +0000

Justice John Paul Stevens had seen a lot of precedent overturned by the time the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in January 2010. Appointed to the court by Gerald Ford after a career as a distinguished Republican jurist, he'd been there for contentious cases on abortion, the death penalty, Gitmo, you name it. But none had prepared him for the way the court's new conservative majority, led by John Roberts, seized on an obscure campaign finance case expected to produce a narrow ruling and used it to shred nearly four decades of federal law.

The majority opinion in Citizens United takes up 57 pages, but it's pretty efficiently boiled down as follows: (1) Money is speech; (2) corporations are people; (3) therefore, under the First Amendment, the government can't stop corporations from spending money on politics pretty much however they choose.

Stevens penned an impassioned 90-page dissent lambasting the "glittering generality" of this construction. "Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it," he wrote. "Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."

Stevens wasn't the only one appalled. Citizens United set off a torrent of outrage, culminating in the high drama of the president (a constitutional law professor, lest we forget) condemning the court in the State of the Union for opening "the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections." Anger spanned the political spectrum (80 percent were opposed shortly after the ruling, 65 percent "strongly") and helped spark the Occupy movement.

But Americans' disgust didn't stop the bagmen, on both sides of the aisle, from seizing the opportunity. Just ask Dan Maffei, a Democrat in upstate New York's 25th District who led Ann Marie Buerkle, a pro-life activist with scant political experience, by 12 points two weeks before the election. Then Karl Rove's American Crossroads buried him with $400,000 worth of attack ads—and Buerkle won by a mere 648 votes.

So how to put elections back in the hands of voters? Here are the four options:

Constitutional amendment: Okay, it takes two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures. Nevertheless, we did just that to bring about Prohibition in 1919 and then to overturn it in 1933, and to lower the voting age to 18 in 1971. That last one wrapped in a mere five months; then again, the 27th Amendment, which regulated congressional raises, was in the works for 203 years. And recall the Equal Rights Amendment: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States." No-brainer, right? The ERA passed Congress in a landslide in '72 (354 to 24 in the House, 84 to 8 in the Senate). It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, included in the Republican Party platform, and ratified by 30 state legislatures within another year. And then Phyllis "Stop Unisex Bathrooms!" Schlafly whipped up a major froth, got enough culture war firebrands elected to state legislatures, and stopped it cold.

So yes, it's technically possible to pass an amendment clarifying that corporations are not quite the same as people and money is not quite the same as speech. (Several organizations, including People for the American Way and a new outfit called Move to Amend, are pushing for this.) But there's also a lot of dark-money groups waiting to underwrite a Schlafly-like play.

SCOTUS deathwatch: How about waiting for a conservative justice or two to die while Democrats hold the White House and the Senate? Yeeaah. Absent the plot devices of a John Grisham thriller, don't hold your breath. Then again, know who's been the master of this kind of waiting game? The folks who brought you Citizens United. When he started flooding the docket with anti-campaign-finance-regulation cases in the 1980s, conservative lawyer James Bopp Jr. was facing a hostile court. But he kept at it until the majority shifted—and slammed the ball he'd teed up.

Let the sun shine in: In the nearer term, there's the option the Roberts court expressly invited in Citizens United—full-monty disclosure. Not long after the ruling, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) introduced the DISCLOSE Act with 114 cosponsors, just two of them Republicans. It would have banned most secret donations, forced companies to report their giving to shareholders, and shut foreign corporations out of electioneering. The bill's life was brief and full of ironies (among the clauses tacked on in the House was one exempting the NRA); it passed the House in an anemic 219-206 vote—36 Dems voted nay—and died, as all good legislation must, when the Senate fell one vote short (RIP Ted Kennedy) of a filibuster-proof 60 votes. Van Hollen has reintroduced the legislation, and with Sen. John McCain back in the reform business, it might just stand a chance.

But Congress is not the only game in town. Court after court has come down squarely on the side of disclosure, and in May, the DC court of appeals ruled that nonprofits like Rove's Crossroads GPS and the US Chamber of Commerce must reveal their donors' names. In another promising step, the IRS has made noises about revoking the tax exemption of dark-money groups.

Taxpayer-financed campaigns: No one likes big money in politics—least of all, perhaps, members of Congress who toil in the Hill's drab call centers, dialing donors to beg for cash. That's why public financing was key to the post-Watergate reforms, and until billionaire Steve Forbes opted out in 1996, every major presidential candidate took it. But the system failed to keep up with the cost of elections; this year, candidates could hope to get about $90 million in public financing, whereas Obama expects to raise up to $1 billion. Nevertheless, public financing can still make a big difference in down-ballot races, from the statehouse all the way to obscure but critical judicial elections. And keep in mind, today's state legislator is tomorrow's US senator.

In the end, all these avenues need to be pursued, and here's why: As Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center told MoJo's Andy Kroll, the right "recognizes something that few on the left recognize: that campaign finance law underlies all other substantive law." In other words, no matter what you care about—climate change, abortion, taxes, net neutrality—it all comes back to who pays for our elections. Need a more selfish reason? Because the 1 percent have bent the system to their advantage, America's median household income—your income—is $40,000 lower than it would have been had incomes continued to keep pace with economic growth. Conversely, as the rich get richer, throwing six-figure sums at presidential campaigns is just like tipping for good service. Snake, meet tail.

So yes, we might agree with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), no stranger to campaign rainmaking, that Citizens United is the court's worst decision since it upheld segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson. But bad law is not without redress—if voters shame reluctant representatives into getting off the dark-money teat. "At bottom," wrote Justice Stevens, the court's opinion is "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding…While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

Ready to explore for yourself? Here's choose-your-own adventure guide to the options, with plenty of links to more resources.

', connects: { 'SCOTUS' : '

You know it!

', 'adelson' : '

No, I think it\'s just dandy.

' } }, adelson : { html: '

Is that you, Karl?

While we\â€™re at it, would you also like to get rid of the remaining limits on campaign contributions to politicians?

', connects: { 'limits' : '

Yes, money is speech!

', 'perfect' : '

Who cares, now that there are super-PACs (and super-duper-PACs)?

' } }, perfect : { html: '

You think our campaign finance system is perfect as it is. May the candidates with the richest supporters win!

Read more of MoJo\'s coverage of
the money behind the 2012 race.

', connects: { 'start' : '

Start over?

' } }, limits : { html: '

You\'re not alone. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and megadonor Foster Friess have said they want to get rid of those pesky limits on how much individuals and corporations can give to candidates. (On the bright side, that might make super-PACs obsolete.) But you\â€™ll have to wait for the Supreme Court to step in again. You may not have to wait too long.

', connects: { 'start' : '

Start over?

' } }, SCOTUS : { html: '

Do you think the Supreme Court will change its mind and reverse Citizens United?

', connects: { 'roberts' : '

Yes. The justices will realize what a mess they\'ve made.

', 'hate' : '

No, the court is a lost cause.

' } }, roberts : { html: '

Reality check: Chief Justice John Roberts is 57. In the meantime, do you want to focus on undoing Citizens United or tweaking the campaign finance system?

', connects: { 'overturn' : '

Undo the whole darn thing.

', 'reforms' : '

Make some tweaks.

' } }, hate : { html: '

Do you want to focus on undoing Citizens United or tweaking the campaign finance system?

', connects: { 'overturn' : '

Undo the whole darn thing.

', 'reforms' : '

Make some tweaks.

' } }, overturn : { html: '

While you\'re thinking big, do you also want to take down the corporate personhood concept that made Citizens United possible?

', connects: { 'personhood' : '

Yes, corporations aren\'t people!

', 'anti-cu' : '

No, let\'s focus on Citizens United.

' } }, reforms : { html: '

Here are a couple of ideas for tweaking the current system while waiting for Citizens United to be undone:

', connects: { 'public' : '

Reduce the influence of big donors.

', 'disclose' : '

Make it harder to hide dark money.

' } }, 'public' : { html: '

Reform advocate Lawrence Lessig has proposed a system in which every citizen gets a $50 voucher to give to any federal candidates who agree to accept only vouchers and small donations. But could these candidates compete with super-PACs?

', connects: { 'disclose' : '

Want to try another reform?

', 'overturn' : '

Want to take down Citizens United?

' } }, disclose : { html: '

Why not shine some light on dark money? Shareholders could demand that companies disclose all of their political spending. The DISCLOSE Act would make shady 501(c)(4) groups reveal their major donorsâ€”but it\'s stuck in Congress.

', connects: { 'public' : '

Want to try another reform?

', 'overturn' : '

Want to take down Citizens United?

' } }, personhood : { html: '

To end the legal concept that "corporations are people, my friend" (as Mitt Romney put it), you\'re going to need a constitutional amendment, like the ones proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Free Speech for People, and Move to Amend.

', connects: { 'person_amendment' : '

Okay, let\'s go pass an amendment.

' } }, 'anti-cu' : { html: '

You\'re going to need a constitutional amendment. Anti-Citizens United amendments have introduced by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-M.D.), and Move to Amend.

', connects: { 'amendment' : '

Okay, let\'s go pass an amendment.

' } }, amendment : { html: '

Fun fact: Only 27 of 11,447 attempts to amend the Constitution since 1787 have succeeded. How do you want to get your amendment passed?

', connects: { 'congress' : '

Go to Congress.

', 'convention' : '

Hold a constitutional convention.

' } }, congress : { html: '

Only Democrats (and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders) have sponsored the current crop of constitutional amendments. Do you really think two-thirds of the current members of Congress will vote for yours?

', connects: { 'states' : '

Definitely!

', 'grassroots' : '

Probably not.

' } }, grassroots : { html: '

A grassroots movement could send a message to Congress. More than 1 million people have signed petitions against Citizens United. Dozens of cities and states have passed resolutions rejecting CU and/or corporate personhood. Eleven state attorneys general want to reverse Citizens United. Will this convince Congress?

', connects: { 'congress' : '

Yes! Congress is on board. What\â€™s next?

', 'bums' : '

No. We need new pols in Congress.

' } }, bums : { html: '

Throw the bums out! Too bad unseating incumbents who benefit from the current system costs a ton of money. You could always form the world\'s most ironic super-PAC. But assume you elect a new Congress that supports your amendment.

', connects: { 'states' : '

Great! What\'s next?

' } }, states : { html: '

Now three-quarters of state legislatures must ratify your amendment. All 27 amendments to the Constitution have been passed this way. Don\'t get too excited: remember the ERA? Does your amendment pass?

', connects: { 'hooray' : '

Yes!

', 'convention' : '

Nope. Let\'s hold a constitutional convention.

' } }, convention : { html: '

Good luck with that! No amendment has ever been passed this way. First, two-thirds of states must call for a convention. At the convention, three-quarters of the states must approve your amendment. Does your amendment pass?

', connects: { 'hooray' : '

Yes, and I just saw a unicorn!

', 'congress' : '

No. Let\'s see if Congress will bite.

' } }, person_amendment : { html: '

There have been more than 11,000 attempts to amend the Constitution since 1787. You can either go through Congress or hold a constitutional convention. Which would you rather try?

', connects: { 'congress' : '

Let\'s go to Congress.

', 'convention' : '

Let\'s hold a convention.

' } }, hooray : { html: '

Congratulations! Your anti-Citizens United amendment has passed, ushering in a new era of sensible campaign spending and grassroots democracy. Well, at least until a new loophole is found.
Read more of MoJo\'s coverage of the money behind the 2012 race.

', connects: { 'start' : '

Start over?

' } } }, {}); apply_choice_heads(); }); });

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery Talk Dark Money With Bill Moyers

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 00:00:50 +0000

Bill Moyers invited us to come on his show this week to chat about dark money, the undisclosed, often untraceable political spending made possible by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. In a wide-ranging (and incredibly gracious) interview, he asked us about everything from the latest super-PAC machinations to the nexus between political money and income inequality. Watch: