Good point Mark. Campaign finance does or would lend legitimacy to a process dominated more and more by K street. And as we learn more through science and technology about detrimental side effects of how we use our resources, the regulatory war will continue. It is the true endless war that we need to wage. I think that this particular idea has some merit. It might, and only might, cause some people to think and pay attention, which is the only way I can see of curbing the growing tide.

I'm all for limiting the amount corporations and the very wealthy can use to influence elections, and hundreds of millions of dollars that are wasted producing misleading TV ads every election, and the arms race it causes that detracts from other more worthy causes. However, can't her proposal be circumvented by creating an org that discloses all of its donors that gets money from orgs that don't disclose THEIR donors? Why not just make all nonprofits disclose their donors, which would include pacs and C4s?

Instead of a postscript, why not have a voiceover announcer actually say "“This ad was funded by [name of organization] an organization that does not disclose all of its donors”?
Just as we now get "I am [name of candidate] and I approve of this message"at the end of many candidates ads

Keith, I have to add that the source of the 'power' you discuss, and the biggest corporation of all, is the company that dominates the DC Metro area. 'Campaign contributions' have tracked the extension of federal regulatory power. The average 'large; company, The Economist estimates, has to deal with upwards of 300,000 laws, rules, bylaws, mandates, guidelines, etc. Naturally they have to hire lawyers - which is the idea. The regulatory State is a kind of church, and lawyers are its priesthood. The scam that is 'campaign finance reform' is this establishment's method of protecting itself from competition (by exasperated companies and individuals) in political discourse. The amount of pork spent to make incumbents look good makes the total amount of money spent on campaign ads look like chump change. You and I and everyone else gets far more 'political' information from the media-political echo chamber than from campaign ads. Regulate that.

There is an idea that disclosure can solve corruption. Perhaps so, but not in this limited fashion. Few people read the type at the bottom of commercials or ads, and few would be influenced by this disclosure. The other sad fact is that since both major political parties solicit and accept money from the rich, then do their bidding, selling their office in effect, what is the point of telling the public that this is true. Does anyone think the disclosures would only happen to one party, and that the other party has clean sheets? It's an illusion. They are equal in their corruption. After all, it's well known that Obama sits in the white house mostly because Jamie Dimon supported him. Not the little folk as myth would have it, but the head of a Wall Street cartel.

The truth is, both political parties like this open-bribery system under which we now operate, by which politicians get rich but are expected to do nothing for the citizens. The only way to get money out of politics is to advise both parties that we won't vote for any politician who takes money (more than a $50 contribution, say). Then run independent candidates who campaign online, sign a pledge to not take money and not engage in private communications with anyone on any subject which may come before them while in office. (Bye-bye lobbyists). Also, they must agree they will not accept anything or any promise of anything of value (book deals) and will not work for anyone who came before them while in office for at least 5 years after leaving office.

Justice Stevens' dissent ducked the issue of whether 'media' corporations (The Corporation for Public Broadcsting, The New York Times Company, for instance) should have First Amendment rights to use resources to influence politics, but non-media companies should not have these rights. Most 'legacy' media companies seem to think they have a privileged position when it comes to political speech, which is why they short-sightedly recast the debates as being about 'money'. Stevens accepted the Obama Administration view, stated bluntly in response to questioning from the bench, that the federal government should have the Constitutional authority to regulate all political speech that is produced by a 'corporation', including the ones named above - any book, pamphlet, documentary, website, you name it.

Also unintentionally revealing is the term 'dark money'. Journalists use anonymous sources - is this 'dark journalism'? Ben Bradlee's most famous moment as a journalist depended on an anonymous source. The thinking behind the legality of secrat ballots, anonymous sources, etc., is a right to a measure of privacy and the idea that you should not be retailiated against for political activities. (Civil rights activists in Mississippi in the late 1950s relied on anonymity for this precise reason.) As usual, when the shoe is on the other foot, principle goes out the window.

I like the First Amendment, too. Speech should not be restricted, except in very ratre cases. Money is not speech. Money is power. We can and should restrict political power. Justice Steven's dissent to the Citizen's United ruling says this well.

This is a very naive proposal that simply does not understand how Washington DC works. First coming from Yale law school professor it is surprising that the she doesn't appreciate the degree of unsophisticated ignorance of the public that it will not matter at all and the "voter stunning" moment as predicted here will not materialize. The money in the political process is its blood so getting rid of it will equal its death and the pretense of democratic rule that will go along with it. The people who are close watchers of US political scene already know who is putting the money and to what purpose so naming and shaming of the political and donor class is simply as passe and utterly ridiculous as one can get. If I wouldn't know better I could say that OTM brings it up exactly as solution because it is not going to work and its proposal ridicules the author.

Campaign Finance Laws target insurgent candidates and parties.
The first federal campaign finance law was designed to prevent another Gene McCarthy campaign.
McCain-Feingold was designed to felonize another Ross Perot campaign.
McCain-Feingold forced the Libertarian Party to reorganize itself, to comply with the law's complex ambiguities.
The incumbent legislators won't hamper their own money raising.
Incumbents will use complex finance penalties and ballot access laws to stop non-established opponents.
The Founders anticipated this when the 1st Amendment prohibited regulating speech.
I don't want a regulations, laws, nor a constitutional amendment to repeal the 1st Amendment.

I like the First Amendment. Every statute I've seen to restrict campaign financing has served as an Incumbent Protection Law.
Each has made it harder to organize the Libertarian party, and Libertarian campaigns.