Nov 11, 2026 · 53 min
Listen from 8:04
Listen at 8:04
OpenSecrets traces record spending to political accountability
The Accountability Economy (feat. Hilary Braseth)
The episode connects escalating campaign spending and government power to the transparency tools voters and activists can use to scrutinize both.
- 1Record midterm spending shows how corporate and billionaire money increasingly shapes political contests without guaranteeing electoral success.
- 2OpenSecrets’ campaign-finance data links donations, lobbying, contracts, and policy influence across federal and state politics.
- 3The episode pairs national legal and political controversies with listener stories of election work, protest, solidarity, and community resilience.
Don't miss
Hilary Braseth reframes OpenSecrets’ database as a year-round organizing tool that lets voters investigate money, lobbying, and political influence.
The brief
Allison and Dana survey leadership fights, voter-roll removals, military controversies, ICE hiring, press protections, and lawsuits before turning to the episode’s central question: who can hold power accountable?
Hilary Braseth of OpenSecrets explains how nearly $12 billion in midterm spending concentrated political influence, while expensive advertising still failed to rescue weak candidates or overcome effective grassroots opposition.
The interview makes transparency practical: voters can use campaign-finance and lobbying data year-round to trace corporate and billionaire influence, expose outside spending, and build state-level reform campaigns.
The episode’s standout turn is the move from national money to local agency, as Braseth describes OpenSecrets’ state-and-federal database as a tool for activists, not merely journalists.
Listener submissions then ground the politics in lived civic work, from a first-time poll worker’s long election day to Ukrainian solidarity, protests, victories, and joyful community moments.
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