CHESTERTOWN, MD—More
than $600 million has been spent on election advertising in the 2012
presidential campaign, most of it in just three swing states. Can special-interest
and corporate money buy an election?
That’s
one question that will be addressed on Tuesday, October 16, in a talk by Trevor
Potter, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, founder of the
Campaign Legal Center and a leading authority on lobbying regulation,
government ethics, and campaign finance issues. The event will take place at
5:30 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, at Washington College.
Potter is
perhaps best known as a regular guest on “The Colbert Report” – in fact,
journalist Bill Moyers has called him “the man who keeps Stephen Colbert out of
jail.” Potter set up the Colbert Super PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow,
Tomorrow,” and appears regularly on the Comedy Central program to explain the
muddy legalities of campaign finance.
The American Bar Association Journal described
Potter as “hands-down one of the top lawyers in the country on the delicate
intersection of politics, law, and money.” He was general counsel to both the
2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Senator John McCain and deputy general
counsel to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign. He also was one of
the leading lawyers behind the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, commonly
known as McCain-Feingold and considered the most significant campaign-finance
law in 30 years.
Potter is featured
in the cover
story of the latest issue of The
Atlantic. The magazine describes him as America’s leading advocate of the
position that “more money, more anonymity, and more spending by noncandidates
are bad things, dangerous to democracy.”
“The Anatomy of
an Election: Money” is the third event in a four-part series on the 2012
presidential election, co-sponsored by Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center
for the Study of the American Experience and the Louis L. Goldstein Program in
Public Affairs.
The series concludes on October 23
with an event on the role of media. Panelists will include Betsy Fischer,
longtime executive producer of Meet the
Press, political reporters James Hohmann and Jonathan Martin of Politico, and Washington College alumnus
Jack Bohrer ’06, who has written about politics for many publications,
including The New Republic and Salon.
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Founded in 1782 under the patronage
of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and
sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the
American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the
American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public
outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to
bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large.
The Louis L. Goldstein
Program in Public Affairs was established at the College in 1990 to
encourage students to enter public service by introducing them to exemplary
leaders, both in and out of government. The Goldstein Program sponsors
lectures, symposia and visiting fellows, student participation in models and
conferences, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with
leaders experienced in developing public policy.
