Law Day Celebration at Dartmouth: Dark Money and Shadow Parties: The Real Problem in Campaign Finance

with Professor Heather Gerken, Yale Law School, specializes in election & constitutional law

Co-sponsored by the Dartmouth Lawyers Association and the Dartmouth Legal Studies Faculty Group.

Most reformers and reporters insist that the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United treated corporations as if they were individuals for the first time and thereby ushered in a new era of corporate spending. That story is wrong. There is a bigger story about the relationship between Citizens United and American politics; it’s just not the story we’ve been telling. The so-called “dark money” trend is a symptom of a deeper shift taking place in our political process, one that is flattening the party structure, altering the political landscape, and erasing an underappreciated source of pluralism in American politics. People are rightly concerned about dark money, but they should be just as concerned about the other problem Citizens United has helped unleash: “shadow parties.”  In describing the role that shadow parties are playing in the American system, Professor Gerken will tell describe the real problem with Citizens United.

This event is free and open to the public.

Please contact [email protected] for more information.