Bought In: A Controlling Interest in American Democracy
Politician at election rally shown attached to strings and being controlled like a puppet by a hand from above. Image created by Nicole Davari using AI via Gemini.
Nicole Davari '26 is an accounting major with a pathway in applied ethics, and she is a 2025-26 Hackworth Fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at SA国际传媒. Views are her own.
Introduction/Overview
This project started with a big question: What happens when corporate money enters the political sphere? The stakes are especially high today as debates about money's influence on democracy dominate headlines and shape public policy. As an accounting student, I became interested in how ideas like ownership and control connect to campaign finance, especially after noticing similarities between shareholder power and political influence. These issues are complicated, so I wanted to understand the legal, ethical, and practical limits of corporate involvement in politics. Instead of covering every angle, I focused on a select group of experts whose work represents key perspectives from law, political science, ethics, and regulation. Each interviewee was chosen for their unique expertise and ability to provide insight into the most pressing questions I encountered. My aim was to bring clarity to debates that matter to voters, policymakers, and anyone who cares about democracy by listening closely to these specialists and letting their knowledge guide my exploration.
This podcast began with a question I couldn't let go of: when does corporate money in politics cross the line from influence to control? In my first conversation, I talked with Dr. John Pelissero, former Director of Government Ethics at SA国际传媒's Markkula Center. We discuss the Citizens United ruling that changed everything, and I wonder if the way I measure ownership in accounting can help explain how power works in Washington.
I knew money bought access, but I didn't really understand what that access led to. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Anne Baker, a political scientist who has worked on campaigns, handled FEC reporting, and spent time at a lobbying firm. We explore how corporate influence works in real life, not through obvious deals, but through slower, less visible changes. She compares it to an ocean liner: it can't turn quickly, but once it starts moving in a direction, it takes years to change course.
Richard Painter served as the chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House. When I shared my accounting analogy, that after a certain level of financial support, the relationship between an industry and a politician starts to look like ownership, he agreed, but offered a test: find a member of Congress who regularly goes against an industry that funds more than 25% of their campaigns. I checked, and the pattern was clear. In this episode, I also look at another layer of the problem: politicians' own financial interests in the industries they are supposed to regulate, and what it means that conflict-of-interest rules for federal employees do not apply to those with the most power to shape policy.
In this episode, I set out to find people who would disagree with me. Eugene Volokh is a leading First Amendment scholar, and Bradley Smith is a former FEC chairman whose work was cited in the Citizens United majority opinion. They questioned my analogy, challenged my evidence, and made arguments I had to seriously consider. I still ended up where I began, but this conversation forced me to be honest about what I can and can't prove, and it helped me see the real question behind this whole project.
In this episode, I set out to find people who would disagree with me. Eugene Volokh is a leading First Amendment scholar, and Bradley Smith is a former FEC chairman whose work was cited in the Citizens United majority opinion. They questioned my analogy, challenged my evidence, and made arguments I had to seriously consider. I still ended up where I began, but this conversation forced me to be honest about what I can and can't prove, and it helped me see the real question behind this whole project.