[[link removed]]

CITIZENS UNITED UNLEASHED THE DARK MONEY SURGE THAT SHAPED THE 2024
ELECTION  
[[link removed]]


 

Marina Pino, Julia Fishman
January 14, 2025
Brennan Center for Justice
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The influence of wealthy donors and dark money was unprecedented.
Much of it would have been illegal before the Supreme Court swept away
long-established campaign finance rules. _

, Douglas Rissing/Getty

 

_Citizens United [[link removed]] v.
Federal Election Commission_, the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010
decision
[[link removed]]
that swept away more than a century’s worth of campaign finance
safeguards, turns 15 this month. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
called it
[[link removed]]
the worst ruling of her time on the court. Overwhelming majorities of
Americans have consistently expressed disapproval
[[link removed]]
of the ruling, with at least 22 states and hundreds of cities
[[link removed]] voting to support a
constitutional amendment to overturn it. _Citizens United _reshaped
political campaigns in profound ways, giving corporations and
billionaire-funded super PACs a central role in U.S. elections and
making untraceable dark money a major force in politics. And yet it
may only be now, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, that we can
begin to understand the full impact of the decision.

_Citizens United_, while purporting to address the specific issue of
corporate speech,effectively invalidated almost all limits on
so-called independent political spending (i.e., money that doesn’t
go directly to a candidate or party, although it is often spent in
close cooperation with them). The decision ushered in an era in which
super PACs—outside groups that can fundraise and spend without limit
as long as they maintain some notional separation from campaigns—now
deploy massive amounts of money to influence American elections. Most
of it comes from a minuscule group of the wealthiest donors and
special interest groups, whose political influence has greatly
expanded, as has the potential for political corruption.

The court’s decision and others that followed shaped the 2024
election to a greater degree than any that came before it. Most
notably, President Donald Trump
[[link removed]] substantially trailed
former Vice President Kamala Harris
[[link removed]] in traditional
campaign donations, which are subject to legal limits and must be
disclosed. Yet he was able to compensate for this disadvantage by
outsourcing
[[link removed]]
much of his campaign to super PACs and other outside groups funded by
a handful of wealthy donors. While such groups
[[link removed]]
had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ads in previous cycles,
this was the first time they successfully took on
[[link removed]]
many of the other core functions of a general election presidential
campaign, such as door-to-door canvassing and get-out-the-vote
efforts. Their activities unquestionably would have been illegal
before _Citizens United_.

Roughly 44% ($481 million) of all the money raised to support Trump
came from just 10 individual donors.

The donors who funded the president’s campaign and leveraged other
resources to help him—most strikingly Elon Musk
[[link removed]], the world’s richest
person and owner of the social media platform X (formerly
Twitter)—have played an unprecedented role
[[link removed]]
in his transition, including shaping policy and meeting with world
leaders. Musk in particular was instrumental
[[link removed]]
in derailing a bipartisan budget deal in Congress in December, weeks
before the president took office. And he and other major donors are
now poised to be pivotal players
[[link removed]]
in Trump’s administration.

The Trump campaign is just part of the story, however. Candidates’
reliance on big money and donor secrecy that accelerated in the wake
of _Citizens United_ continued to grow. Outside spending on
congressional campaigns, also mostly coming from a select few major
donors, broke records
[[link removed]].
Funds from groups that do not have to disclose their donors at all,
known as dark money, kept proliferating
[[link removed]]
and became even harder to track. And candidates and parties continued
to bend even traditional fundraising rules to raise more big money.

To be clear, the Supreme Court is not solely responsible for the legal
changes that made these activities possible; a dysfunctional federal
regulator—the evenly divided Federal Election Commission (FEC)—and
Congress have also played important roles. But none of it would have
been possible without _Citizens United _and related decisions, which
have played an enduring role in putting the very wealthiest donors at
the center of U.S. campaigns and governance.

Citizens United and Related Cases Explained

In the _Citizens United_ case, a conservative nonprofit group
challenged campaign finance rules that ostensibly prohibited it from
promoting a film that criticized then presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton shortly before the 2008 Democratic primaries. The Supreme
Court could have issued a narrow opinion ruling on that specific
group’s activities, but instead a 5-4 majority took the opportunity
to rule that virtually all limits on “independent” political
spending from corporations and other outside groups violated the First
Amendment.

This conclusion doubled down on the reasoning of a 1976 decision,
_Buckley v. Valeo_. _Buckley_held
[[link removed]]
that campaign expenditures, money spent to influence voters, were akin
to political speech and could not be subject to legal limits (although
campaign donations—money given to fund the expenditures of another,
such as a candidate—could be limited). The only permissible
justification for any limits would be the prevention of quid pro quo
corruption (i.e., bribery).

After _Buckley_,the court upheld
[[link removed]]
some campaign safeguards, most notably in _McConnell v. FEC _(2003),
in which it approved new restrictions on corporate and union campaign
spending as well as the stricter contribution limits for political
parties in the bipartisan McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, passed
in 2002. Only a few years later, however, after a change in the
court’s ideological composition, _Citizens United _reverses these
decisions in key respects. The court’s ruling then set the stage for
lower courts
[[link removed]]
to hold that anygroup purporting to be independent of candidates
cannot be subject to contribution limits.

While the chances for meaningful reform in the next Congress appear
slim, state and local governments can and should lead the charge to
make funding elections fairer and more inclusive.

The court did not stop there. In 2014’s _McCutcheon v. FEC_
[[link removed]],
another 5-4 majority struck down overall contribution limits on
individuals’ donations to candidates, parties, and PACs, known as
aggregate limits. Because such groups often fundraise jointly,
_McCutcheon _allowed them to directly raise contributions that far
exceed the maximum that any individual can give to a single candidate
per election (a little more than $3,000 in 2024).

Through each decision, the court purported to preserve certain
safeguards—most notably, transparency rules and independence
requirements for outside groups like super PACs. But these protections
are increasingly illusory because of weak rules and lax enforcement.
The result has been torrents of political spending from a small group
of the very wealthiest megadonors via super PACs
[[link removed]],
as well as steadily increasing amounts of untraceable dark money
[[link removed]].
Indeed, while _Citizens United_, like _Buckley_ before it, claimed
that independent spending carries no substantial threat of corruption
so long as it is truly independent and disclosed, the 2024 election
dispensed with that illusion forever.

As noted, the Supreme Court is not the sole cause for this changed
landscape. Congress or the FEC could theoretically fill or at least
mitigate many gaps in transparency rules and other laws. But the
evenly divided FEC, which oversees campaign finance in federal
elections, has usually done the opposite and instead created more
loopholes. It almost never enforces
[[link removed]]
laws prohibiting coordination that are supposed to keep candidates
independent from allied super PACs and similar groups. Nor has it
acted on numerous complaints related to untraceable money
[[link removed]].

Congress, too, has repeatedly failed to implement safeguards. In the
past 15 years, lawmakers have tried to pass meaningful reforms several
times but have not succeeded. These efforts included bills that would
ensure voters receive information about the large donors who spend
money on campaign advertisements, improve FEC enforcement
[[link removed]],
shore up requirements to ensure that super PACs and other outside
groups are truly independent of candidates and political parties, and
create a viable public financing system for all federal elections.

In short, the other branches of government could do much more to
update U.S. laws in light of the court’s decisions. Those decisions
themselves, however, were the catalyst for the most critical changes
that shaped the 2024 race.

The Ramifications of Citizens United in 2024

Here are some of the key ways _Citizens United _and other decisions
shaped the 2024 campaign.

A HANDFUL OF MEGADONORS HELPED TRUMP NARROW THE FUNDRAISING GAP WITH
HARRIS, AND ONE OF THEM ESSENTIALLY HELPED RUN HIS CAMPAIGN. The most
striking consequence of _Citizens United _continues to be the expanded
influence of the very wealthiest donors. Last year, donors who gave at
least $5 million to super PACs in the presidential race spent
[[link removed]]
more than twice as much as they did in 2020. Roughly 44%
[[link removed]]
($481 million) of all the money raised to support Trump came from just
10 individual donors. The top 10 donors supporting Harris accounted
for nearly 8% ($126 million) of her campaign. For both candidates,
most of this money came from outside groups like super PACs.

Of course, super PACs closely aligned with major candidates aren’t
new. What made 2024 different was that campaigns were able to rely on
these megadonor-backed, purportedly independent groups for core
campaign activities. That was possible in part because of _Citizens
United _and in part because the FEC—which already permitted
significant cooperation between campaigns and super PACs—effectively
eliminated [[link removed]]
most restrictions on the campaigns’ ability to outsource core voter
outreach to these groups.

These changes set the stage for Musk in particular to play a central
role in the election. He gave
[[link removed]]
at least $277 million to two super PACs that supported Trump and other
Republicans and effectively became part of the Trump campaign,
frequently appearing center stage at rallies. One super PAC, to which
he donated roughly $240 million
[[link removed]],
funded direct mailings, canvassing, and “spokesperson consultants”
in swing states for Trump. The second, pointedly named RBG PAC after
Justice Ginsburg, ran ads in swing states apparently intended to blunt
criticisms regarding Trump’s record on abortion (and did not
disclose who had funded its spending until after the election).

Musk was far from Trump’s only billionaire backer. Others included
venture capitalist David Sacks, who hosted
[[link removed]]
a fundraiser in Silicon Valley where the cheapest ticket was $50,000
($300,000 bought a more intimate dinner with Trump); casino owner
Miriam Adelson, who put
[[link removed]]
more than $100 million into her own pro-Trump super PAC; packaging
supplies magnate (and major donor
[[link removed]]
to the election denial movement) Richard Uihlein, who sent
[[link removed]]
$49 million in last year’s third quarter alone to his pro-Trump
super PAC; and many other Big Tech billionaires
[[link removed]].
Collectively, these funders helped Trump make up much of his
fundraising disparity with Harris.

Strikingly, while Trump relied heavily on super PACs, his actual
campaign operated with a skeleton
[[link removed]]
staff of only a few hundred people (compared with Harris’s more than
2,500 employees across
[[link removed]]
battleground states alone) and little other infrastructure.

Of course, Harris had her own billionaire backers, most of whom also
donated through super PACs and dark money groups, including tech
moguls
[[link removed]]
Dustin Moskovitz, Reed Hastings, and Ben Horowitz and Microsoft
founder
[[link removed]]
Bill Gates. In general, they do not appear to have taken on the same
sort of central operational role in her campaign, however.

Megadonors also spent heavily in other federal races. Overwhelmingly,
they had no ties to the states where their money landed, significantly
exacerbating a trend in which more and more out-of-state money is
flowing into congressional races. In marquee races in Arizona
[[link removed]],
Pennsylvania
[[link removed]],
and Ohio
[[link removed]],
for instance, national super PACs fueled by wealthy donors outspent
several candidates’ campaigns and heavily influenced close primaries
and general election races. Ohio’s Republican Senate primary
attracted more than $20 million from nationally funded independent
groups (with the two biggest donors hailing from Pennsylvania and
Illinois), and Arizona’s Democratic primary for the Third
Congressional District lured in $5.3 million from outside
groups—twice as much as the campaigns themselves did.

Massive spending was not the only way that billionaires were able to
shape the 2024 race. Most notably, Musk leveraged
[[link removed]]
his ownership of the social media platform X to support his preferred
candidates. X amplified Musk’s activity, including his pro-Trump
posts, so that they appeared in the feed of every subscriber, and took
other
[[link removed]] actions
[[link removed]]
that likely benefited Trump and other candidates, such as hosting
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s announcement of his own presidential
campaign. Prior to _Citizens United_, the direct use of corporate
resources to advocate for a candidate was typically limited to
traditional press activities, which are exempt from most campaign
finance rules. Now, however, a corporation like X—which, had it
existed prior to _Citizens United_, would likely not have been
categorized as engaging in press activity—has much broader leeway to
harness its resources in support of its owner’s preferred
candidates.

DARK MONEY CONTINUED TO DOMINATE FEDERAL CONTESTS. While final numbers
are not yet available, in 2024 anonymous sources directed
[[link removed]]
more than $1 billion, at a minimum, to independent political
committees supporting candidates on both sides of the aisle. The
largest outside group supporting the Harris campaign was a super PAC
funded
[[link removed]]
by dark money groups. The Trump campaign also benefited from such
secret spending
[[link removed]],
including by one group that reportedly raised $100 million over four
years.

Dark money also played a pivotal role in many Senate and House races.
The four dark money groups associated with House and Senate Democratic
and Republican campaigns gave
[[link removed]]
$182 million to their sister super PACs through the end of last
September. These purportedly independent groups were, in practice,
effectively
[[link removed]] part
[[link removed]]
of each party’s campaign apparatus. This strategy is certainly not
novel—for a decade, both parties have had shadow party
[[link removed]]
super PACs through which they have been able to raise unlimited
contributions. Still, while the numbers are not yet final, the flood
of dark money likely broke
[[link removed]]
records in 2024.

Thanks to legal loopholes and lax enforcement of current rules,
tracking this surge of secret cash is becoming ever more difficult.
Dark money groups are required to report spending for only certain
activities, including independent expenditures
[[link removed]]
and electioneering communications
[[link removed]],
which they increasingly do not run themselves. They are not required
to disclose donations to other groups (although the recipients may
have to disclose these donations) nor many types of campaign
advertising, including most online ads, which surged
[[link removed]]
last year.

CANDIDATES AND PARTIES TURNED TO JOINT FUNDRAISING COMMITTEES TO FOOT
THEIR BIG BILLS IN NEW WAYS. Joint fundraising committees are PACs
formed by multiple candidates, parties, and PACs to raise money
together. These groups took on a much more significant role for
campaigns last year. Because _McCutcheon_ invalidated aggregate
contribution limits, joint fundraising committees can raise enormous
amounts in direct donations. In theory, participants are supposed to
allocate donations pursuant to a prearranged formula.

In 2024, however, an FEC deadlock
[[link removed]] created a
new loophole, allowing these fundraising entities to themselves run
campaign ads without allocating their costs, effectively allowing some
participants to subsidize others. Both parties availed themselves of
this loophole, but Republicans in particular exploited
[[link removed]]
it. The National Republican Senatorial Committee spent millions of
dollars through joint fundraising committees, mostly in battleground
states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. Democrats, who
originally urged the FEC to crack down on this practice, responded
[[link removed]]
by saying they would use the same tactics for ads going forward.

Opportunities for Reform

Fifteen years after _Citizens United_, federal campaign finance rules
are more porous than at any time since Watergate
[[link removed]].
And with just a sliver of donors spending tens (even hundreds) of
millions of dollars apiece, the opportunities for corruption are
overwhelming. The Supreme Court has played a central role in eroding
safeguards, but the other branches of government have done nothing to
shore up rules in response.

While the chances for meaningful reform in the next Congress appear
slim, state and local governments can and should lead the charge to
make funding elections fairer and more inclusive. At the most basic
level, states and large localities should require transparency for all
political spending and specify that super PACs and other outside
groups must be truly independent from candidates. They should
eliminate loopholes that allow joint fundraising committees and
similar entities to circumvent contribution limits. More states and
localities should also join the many
[[link removed]]
jurisdictions that already offer some form of public financing for
elections, the most
[[link removed]] powerful
[[link removed]] solution
[[link removed]]
to the problem of big money in politics. And state lawmakers can pass
laws calling into question the legitimacy of _Citizens United_ and the
Court’s approach to campaign finance more broadly—as many
antiabortion legislatures
[[link removed]] did
with _Roe v. Wade_.

The expanded influence of wealthy donors and untraceable money draws
opposition from the vast majority
[[link removed]]
of Americans across virtually all political and ideological divides.
With the Supreme Court unlikely to change course anytime soon, it will
fall to other branches of government, including state and local
policymakers, to enact commonsense reforms to help ensure that every
American has a meaningful voice in the decisions that govern all of
us.

===

Marina Pino serves as counsel in the Brennan Center’s Elections and
Government Program, focusing on issues related to money in politics,
election administration, and election security.

Julia Fishman is a program associate in the Brennan Center's Democracy
Program, focusing on money in politics.

===

* Election 2024; Citizen's United; Super PACs; Megadonors;
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]