Six Donors Bought 2024. The Court Ruling That Made It Legal.

The case is Citizens United v. FEC (2010). Decided 5-4. The court ruled that corporations and unions could spend unlimited money on independent political expenditures because money is speech. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority. Justice Stevens, in dissent, called it a 'rejection of the common sense of the American people.'

From the Gilded Age until the 1907 Tillman Act, corporate money owned American politics. From 1907 until 2010, we built a campaign-finance system that — imperfectly — kept the worst of it in check. Citizens United didn't invent the problem. It restored it.

Six donors with $100M each can now drown out every party committee, every union, every grassroots small-donor program. Polling consistently shows that 70-80% of Americans across both parties want this overturned. It hasn't been, because the people who benefit are the people with the power to fix it.

Any candidate, in either party, who will publicly commit to (a) a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, (b) public financing of federal elections, and (c) lobbying reform with real teeth. There aren't many. The ones who do are worth tracking.