Getting Big Money Out of Elections

The amount of big money that has flooded into political campaigns and super Political Action Committees (super PACS) since the Supreme Court’s narrow 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission in 2010 is downright obscene and it has resulted in the core of our democracy, elections, being dominated by very wealthy interests. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, in the 2024 Presidential campaign, three donors gave gargantuan donations to Pro-Donald Trump super PACS: banking heir Timothy Mellon donated $150 million, tech mogul Elon Musk donated $119 million, and casino owner Miriam Adelson donated $100 million. Pro-Democratic Candidate Kamala Harris super PACs received a $38 million donation from Dustin Moskovitz, from the tech industry, and $136 million from Future Forward USA Action, a nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors, of which $50 million has reportedly come from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. : 

According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), campaign spending has ballooned since 2008 mostly in the area of independent expenditures. In 2008 independent expenditures amounted to $168.8 million with about $1 billion spent by the Presidential candidates. In 2024 Presidential candidates spent $1.8 billion, while independent expenditures amounted to $4.4 billion. 

This explosion of big money in elections is undoubtedly having a negative effect on our democracy, giving very wealthy interests undue influence over elections. What can we do to limit the influence of money in campaigns and elections and level the playing field for ordinary American voters?

In a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, the court “found a compelling governmental interest in preventing ‘the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.’”  While that decision focused on corporate donations, the language also could easily be applied to individual very wealthy donors. This ruling just goes to show that the Supreme Court has before acknowledged a compelling governmental interest to limit the anti-democratic influence of “immense aggregations of wealth” in elections.

Already the FEC regulates the size of political donations to candidate’s campaigns, special PACs, and certain campaign committees. Individuals can only donate a total of $3,500 to a candidate’s campaign committee. However, in 2010 not long after the Citizens United decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in SpeechNow.org.v. FEC that limits on independent expenditures (super PACs) violated the First Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling found that, drawing on the opinion in Citizens United, “contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures cannot corrupt or create the appearance of corruption,” thereby clearing the way for super PACs to accept unlimited individual and corporate donations. However, corruption or the appearance of corruption is very different than the exercising of undue influence or the propagation of the grossly unequal speech that is possible with massive donations to a super PAC. 

A 2023 Pew Research Center poll found that 72% of Americans think there should be limits on the amounts individuals and organizations can spend on political campaigns.  And 80% think that the people who donated a lot of money to political campaigns have too much influence when it comes to the decisions that members of Congress make.

Last year, Representative Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives, “The Free and Fair Elections Amendment,” that proposes an amendment to the Constitution that would strictly limit individual contributions to any effort to influence a candidate’s election to the House, Senate, or Presidency to $100 and to a total of $1,000. The proposed amendment would also bar corporations from donating to political campaigns and would provide for public financing of candidates’ campaigns.

This would be done to “advance democratic self-government and political equality, and to protect the integrity of government and the electoral process.” This constitutional amendment would overrule the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org rulings and would bring an end to unlimited donations to super PACs. 

Other past attempts at campaign finance reform have included a proposal to match donations 6-to-1 with public financing, similar to the current system in New York City. Now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani took advantage of this system for both his primary and general election campaigns for mayor. The current New York system matches donations up to $250 8-to-1 with public financing, and then-candidate Mamdani, who received many small donations to his campaign, eventually received the maximum $7 million in public financing. However, candidates can choose to opt-out of public financing, and if such a system were applied to federal elections, it still would not affect the unlimited donations to super PACS.   

Since 2008, public financing of presidential campaigns has become disfavored by candidates: then-Presidential candidate Barak Obama refused $84 million in public funding of his campaign because he thought he could raise three times as much privately (His opponent, John McCain, did accept $84 million in public financing). Since then, Presidential Candidates raise so much private money for their campaigns and affiliated super PACs that they’re not interested in public funding. There is still a $3 check box on your federal tax return to donate to the Presidential Campaign Fund – but no Democrat or Republican candidate is taking advantage of it.  

At the state level, Montana has put on its November 2026 ballot an initiative that would ban corporations, which are chartered by states,from donating to campaigns. If passed, the law would undercut the Citizens United decision, but would still leave open massive individual contributions by very wealthy people to super PACs. 

Getting the obscene money out of elections will likely require either a Constitutional Amendment or a new decision by the Supreme Court that acknowledges the harm that big money, its undue influence, and the grossly unequal speech it permits, imposes on American democracy. With the current makeup of the Supreme Court, with six conservative justices, a new decision that would overrule Citizens United and SpeechNow.org. v. FEC is very unlikely. A Constitutional Amendment that significantly limits super PAC donations by very wealthy individuals may be our last best hope to get the influence of big money out of elections.

 

David Fine

Toledo, Ohio

Freelance Writer

www.davidfine.org

Iran’s Overly Militant Regime Irresponsibly Clings to Nuclear Enrichment at Expense of its Battered Economy

The U.S. and Israel’s dominant war against Iran has left Iran desperate, where its only recourse was to lash out at neighboring Gulf states as well as Israel and to take the Strait of Hormuz hostage.  President Trump, probably determining that U.S. and Israeli bombing has achieved, beyond toppling the regime’s previous leader, its primary objectives of destroying much of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, as well as laying waste to some Iranian industry, decided it was time for a cease-fire. This, despite Iran’s continued overly militant and egregiously irresponsible desire to safeguard its right to nuclear enrichment, as relayed in its 10-point cease-fire proposal.

Iran’s leadership steadfastly denies any pursuit of a nuclear weapon.  But the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that Iran had 440.9 kg of 60% enriched uranium when Israel and the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in June.

According to the U.S. Energy Department, most peaceful nuclear reactors used for the purposes of generating energy use low enriched uranium at 3% to 5% enrichment or 5% to 10% enrichment. Any uranium enrichment over 20% only serves the purpose of attempts to create a nuclear bomb or warhead.

Iran’s leadership is likely guilty of boldface lying about its nuclear bomb aspirations – and its continued irrational, irresponsible, and militant desire to continue its uranium enrichment program after being devastated in this most recent war would come at the expense of Iran’s economy, which is already in tatters. Iran faces significant inflation, lost jobs and damaged industry from the war, it has alienated Gulf trade partners by launching missiles at them, and presides over an economy that was already struggling before the war which led to mass protests in the country. Iran has been operating under U.S. Sanctions for many years, which have contributed to the country’s economic challenges. But Iran’s militancy, represented in part by its support of proxies Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, largely anti-Israel support, also comes at the expense of investing in the Iranian people and Iran’s economy. Iran’s irresponsible militancy, and its hatred for Israel, has been causing Iran to shoot itself in the foot.

Since Iran’s leadership is so irresponsible, if self-destructive, clouded in its political and economic judgment by its militant passions, the U.S. and Israel, which already were so bold as to launch this unprovoked war of aggression against Iran, probably should consider efforts to truly topple this Iranian regime and replace it with a new responsible leadership.  Otherwise, Iran’s current leadership seems unchanged politically, and resolutely hard-line, and will presumably invest its precious monies earned largely from oil sales to rebuild its ballistic missile and drone supplies, will continue to support its proxies, and may still be consumed by a desire to attain a nuclear bomb, all at the expense of its faltering economy and the living standards of its citizens.

Indeed, after Iran’s devastation in this war, the country’s leadership may now view it imperative that the country obtain a nuclear weapon, to protect itself from any future attacks.  

We will have to see where the upcoming negotiations between Iran and the U.S. lead, and whether the U.S. and Israel can truly achieve their goal of preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear bomb. But whatever comes of the negotiations, this irresponsible Iranian regime seems prepared to sacrifice its economy on the alter of its militancy and its hatred of Israel.