Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

Then came the controversies.

On the Democrat side, President Bill Clinton got in hot water when his campaign received foreign donations and held fundraising events at the White House.

Meanwhile, Republicans had their fair share of scrutiny for contributions they received.

And then came a senator from Arizona who used these controversies in his 2000 presidential campaign.

When John McCain ran for president in 2000, he emphasized campaign finance reform.

McCain ended up losing to George W. Bush in the Republican primary and was astoundingly outspent.

But in 2002, he introduced the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act.

It was designed to end soft money contributions, which had soared by this time.

And the law forced candidates to stand by their ads with messages like this.

And the McCain-Feingold Act also restricted corporations and unions from running ads or media mentioning federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election.

This was called electioneering communications and was meant to limit a kind of attack ad close to elections.

And it would be this last law that would be at the heart of a case about a movie that would change the way money in American politics works.

So who is the real Hillary Clinton?

Is she a brilliant trailblazer poised to make history as the first female president?

Or is she ruthless, cunning, dishonest, willing to do anything for power?

Coming up, Hillary, the movie.

Hi, I'm Carolyn from Tallahassee, Florida, and you're listening to Throughline from NPR.

Part 2.

The Floodgates Opened

In the 2000s, Jim Bopp had already made a name for himself in conservative legal circles.