Voters have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending big money to influence our vote and our government to rig the political system in their favor, but looking at the 2024 elections, it is clear that a case decided by the United States Supreme Court more than a decade ago, continues to threaten this fundamental right.
On January 21, 2010, in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC)The Court ruled to strike down a ban on independent corporate spending, which has since allowed corporations and other outside groups to engage in unlimited campaign spending.
In Citizens unitedthe Court upheld certain disclosure provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), reasoning this timely disclosure would be enough to prevent wealthy special interests from dominating the political process, because voters would be able to see who was paying for ads and “give appropriate weight to different speakers and messages.”
The Court assumed that unlimited corporate election spending would pose no threat of corruption or appearance of corruption because it would be “independent.”
However, it has become clear over the years that voters are not given enough information about the true sources of election spending and that these supposedly independent expenditures intended to support candidates or their campaigns are often intentionally coordinated.
So we are left with a campaign finance system in which wealthy special interests can use unlimited secret spending to drown out the voices of ordinary Americans.
This has notably occurred thanks to the increased use of super PACwhich can accept unlimited contributions from almost any non-foreign source and spend unlimited sums to influence the outcome of federal elections.
Super PACs are theoretically required to be transparent about where their money comes from by reporting their fundraising and spending to the FEC. But that transparency is undermined when super PACs report contributions from secretly funded “dark money” groups, which themselves keep their donors hidden from the public.
Simply knowing that a super PAC is largely or entirely funded by a vaguely named group that does not disclose its funding deprives voters of crucial information.
This is a bipartisan issue. Large super PACs aligned with leaders of both parties have received tens of millions of dollars, and in some cases most or all of their funding, from groups that hide their donors from the public.
It has also become a growing problem, as each respective election cycle has seen record spending. Campaign spending by corporations and other outside groups increased by almost 900% between 2008 and 2016. In 2020, total election spending was $14.4 billionfrom $5.7 billion in 2018, and more than a billion dollars in the dark the money was spent.
Moreover, even if it is illegal for outside groups to coordinate election spending with candidates or political parties, many do so because, by and large, the FEC failed to crack down on candidates and super PACs working hand in hand.
The prevalence of this practice shows the extent to which the Court’s assumption in Citizens united that unlimited election spending would be carried out independently was a mistake.
For example, supporters of Carly Fiorina created the super PAC “Carly for America” in the run-up to the 2016 presidential primary. “Carly for America” had almost the same name as her official campaign committee “Carly For President” .
By signing up event attendees for the super PAC mailing list, distributing campaign stickers and portion Through pre-event setup, “Carly for America” maintained an active presence at most of Fiorina’s campaign events and performed functions traditionally performed by campaign staff.
Although this case is brazen, “Carly for America” is far from the only one. Super PACs are regularly established by former close aides to the candidates, who often contract with the same consultants as the campaigns they support, and the candidates regularly appear at fundraising events for their supporting super PACs.
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has filed complaints against several Democratic And affiliated with the Republicans candidates and groups for violating illegal coordination laws in the years following the Citizens united decision.
Throughout the 2024 election cycle, the Citizens united The move once again enabled record campaign spending, including large sums of dark money, much of which was coordinated by the candidates and their super PACs in new and inventive ways.
The primary way we could mitigate the negative effects of this decision is to have Congress approve legislation to create stricter disclosure and traceability requirements and address FEC dysfunctions to make the The agency is better able to crack down on illegal coordination, thereby protecting voters’ rights. find out who is spending a lot of money to influence their vote.
To give voters a voice in our democracy, we need real transparency about who is spending big money on elections, so that politicians can no longer receive unlimited secret money from wealthy special interests to support their campaigns.