Blame SCOTUS — The Super Rich Flood Elections With Billions In Contributions

In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in Buckley v. Valeo that “contribution ceilings were a necessary legislative concomitant to deal with the reality or appearance of corruption inherent in a system permitting unlimited financial contributions.” [emphasis added]

Thus, the Court upheld the limits on campaign contributions to candidates enacted in response to the Watergate scandals.

In 2002, Congress banned unlimited soft money contributions to political parties, closing a massive loophole being used to evade the limits on contributions to political parties that were established in 1976.

That was then. This is now.

These contribution limits for candidates and parties were eviscerated by two decisions issued by a very different Supreme Court.

In 2010, in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court majority declared unconstitutional a ban on corporate independent campaign expenditures that had been upheld by the Court 20 years earlier.

In 2014, in McCutcheon v. FEC, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the limit on the total amount of contributions that an individual could give in an election cycle to candidates and political parties. That limit had been upheld by the Court nearly 40 years earlier in Buckley.

(In these and numerous other recent cases, it appears that today’s extremely ideological majority of Justices must have skipped their law school classes on the importance of adhering to precedent and the concept of stare decisis.)

These two decisions opened the door for the establishment of Super PACs and dark money nonprofits, and for the return of corrupting, unlimited campaign contributions.

Richard Posner, a nationally recognized, conservative Court of Appeals Judge (now retired), wrote about the Citizens United decision that it “is difficult to see what practical difference there is between super PAC donations and direct campaign donations, from a corruption standpoint.”

Posner was correct. The Supreme Court has given the Super Rich the ability to flood federal elections with unlimited contributions, reviving a system in which corruption and the appearance of corruption is “inherent,” in the words of the earlier Court’s Buckley decision.

Since Citizens United and McCutcheon, the Super Rich have poured billions of dollars into federal elections like free-flowing sewer water.

In this election alone, Super PACs have spent nearly $2 billion in unlimited contributions.

The latest campaign finance reports show the absurd amounts of money being provided in this election by the Super Rich, who have become the oligarchs of our political system.

In the three-month period, July through September 2024, according to The New York Times:

⮞ Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, gave $75 million to his own Super PAC to support former President Donald Trump. The PAC had no other donors.

⮞ Miriam Adelson, the widow of Sheldon Adelson, who headed a gambling empire, gave $95 million to a Super PAC supporting Trump.

⮞ Trump supporter Dick Uihlein, billionaire owner and CEO of a shipping company, gave $49 million to a Super PAC he directs.

That’s some $220 million from just these three donors.

The problem, of course, isn’t limited to Republican donors and Trump supporters.

Vice President Kamala Harris raised, according to The Times, a staggering $633 million during the July-September period for her joint fundraising committee that can accept large contributions of as much as $929,600 per individual donor.

Donors who gave as much as or close to that amount include Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, crypto billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, philanthropist Melinda French Gates, and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs.

In addition, during the full 2024 election cycle, through September 21, Open Secrets reports that billionaire Michael Bloomberg gave more than $41 million, businessman Fred Eychaner gave nearly $26 million, and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman gave more than $24 million to support Democrats.

Chief Justice John Roberts’s Supreme Court majority would have you believe these huge amounts  are just a form of First Amendment free speech.

If so, the Supreme Court has created first-class citizenship for the relatively tiny handful of Super Rich, many of whom seek access, influence, and results with their wealth, and second-class citizenship for the rest of the more than 340 million Americans who can’t afford “not-so-free” speech.

I believe most Americans see it for what it is – that the Supreme Court has created a corrupt political system.

Huge campaign contributions do not represent First Amendment free speech.

Rather, they represent vehicles for corrupting influence over our officeholders, government decisions, and elections. These huge amounts have created a class of political oligarchs who threaten our system of representative government.

This is not the democracy envisioned for our country. We must find a way to return to a fair and non-corrupt political system that represents all Americans.

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