How is money reshaping American politics? Take our quiz.

Since the American Republic's founding, money has had a role to play in politics right along with candidates, voters, and election laws. The debate over the influence of lobbyists and political donors over government policies is now amplified in an era of increasingly unlimited contributions, the obscurity of "dark money," and the growing wealth gap between the ultra rich and ordinary Americans. Here's a quiz where you can test (and expand) your knowledge.

18. But giving money to politicians doesn't guarantee they'll love you back. Which senator (to whom Comcast has contributed funds) used a 2014 hearing to voice concerns about its proposed merger with Time Warner?

Susan Walsh/AP/File
A protester takes part in a demonstration outside the Supreme Court in Washington as the court heard arguments on campaign finance in 2013.

Al Franken (D) of Minnesota

Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee

Jon Tester (D) of Montana

Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi

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About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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