All posts tagged "citizens united"

Exclusive: Republicans get staggering boost from mystery donors as 'arms race' heats up

The main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans saw a “huge spike” in dark money contributions in 2025, a sign of the massive arsenal the GOP is building to protect its hold on Congress in November’s midterm elections, according to a new report from political reform group Issue One first reported by Raw Story.

As Democrats aim to capitalize on the growing unpopularity of President Donald Trump and his Republican party and regain control of Congress, the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund skyrocketed dark money contributions by 581 percent in 2025 compared to 2023.

Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, said: “When you see an infusion of money like this, that usually means that these big money groups want to make sure that they have all of the resources they can muster to defend seats, to defend candidates, to defend their majority.”

At the same time, Senate Democrats saw a drop in dark money donations, Issue One said.

‘Arms race’

Dark money is money donated to political groups without disclosure of the source, as enabled by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial Supreme Court decision from 2010.

According to Issue One's analysis of campaign finance reports, in 2025 the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC brought in $35 million from its affiliated dark money group, One Nation, representing $1 out of every $3 raised.

In 2023, that number was $5.18 million, Beckel said.

Dark money graphic Four major super PACs increased 2025 dark money contributions by 65 percent, according to a new report. Graphic: Issue One)

This indicates “just a surge of dark money coming into the main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans at a time when, clearly, there's a lot of political winds blowing that say Democrats have a fighting chance to win the U.S. House of Representatives and maybe even pick up seats in the Senate,” Beckel said.

The four main super PACs focused on electing Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate raised a combined $71 million from dark money sources in 2025: up 65 percent on the same point in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Issue One said.

“Both sides see this as an arms race where they don't want to put down any weapon, and when you see just huge sums of money coming in to influence elections from unknown donors, that raises serious questions about who's trying to buy access and influence in Washington,” Beckel said.

Republican and Democratic super PACs focused on the House maintained steady growth in dark money contributions, while the Senate Majority PAC, benefitting Democrats, received fewer dark money contributions in 2025, according to the report.

For every $4 raised for the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund, nearly $1 came from dark money group American Action Network, which totaled $17 million in 2025, according to Issue One.

On the Democratic side, about $1 of every $6 raised by the House Majority PAC and about $1 out of every $7 raised for Senate Majority PAC came from dark money group Majority Forward, totaling $11 million and $8 million in 2025.

“We continue to see this escalating arms race, and it's deeply concerning when you've got so much money from unknown donors coming in on both sides of the aisle,” Beckel said.

All four super PACs did not respond to Raw Story’s interview requests or declined to comment.

‘Massive war chest’

Beckel said he anticipates seeing significant amounts of dark money continuing to flow into these super PACs, especially around Senate races.

“There's going to be a huge battle over control of not just the House but the Senate, and wealthy donors who are evading the spotlight are helping Senate Republicans raise a massive war chest through their super PAC to defend those seats,” Beckel said.

Dark money graphic. Super PACs received massive dark money contributions ahead of 2024 election. Graphic: Issue One.

Among Senate seats not up for re-election this year, Democrats hold 34 and Republicans 31.

Two Democratic seats, held by Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia and in Michigan by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, and two Republican seats, held by Sen. Susan Collins in Maine and the North Carolina seat held by retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, are true toss-ups, according to the Cook Political Report.

Democrats’ narrow path to regain the Senate majority would require picking up seats in Alaska, North Carolina, Ohio and Maine, according to Cook.

During the 2023-24 election cycle, the four super PACs raised about $1 of every $5 from dark money groups. Dark money accounted for 21 percent of contributions to both parties’ Senate-focused PACs for the 2024 election, according to Issue One.

Issue One supports the DISCLOSE Act, legislation focused on increasing transparency and curbing the influence of dark money, which House and Senate Democrats reintroduced on Wednesday.

But with such a deeply divided Congress, Beckel said Issue One is focused on state-level reforms to reel in unlimited spending on elections by corporations and outside groups enabled by Citizens United.

“The warning here is that money from anonymous sources continues to play a major role in our elections, and I think voters all across the political spectrum are … deeply concerned and fed up about the amount of dark money that they're seeing in elections,” Beckel said.

This monstrous right-wing ruling may have finally met its match

Good news.

You may remember that back in November I mentioned that Montana was considering a bill that would effectively negate the Supreme Court’s awful Citizens United decision, which held that corporations are people under the First Amendment and therefore entitled to spend unlimited amounts of corporate money in elections.

A similar bill has just been introduced in California.

Montana is a great and beautiful state. Some 1,145,000 people live there. But California! Almost 40 million people live in the Sunshine State. If California were an independent country, it would have the fourth-largest economy in the world (behind Germany and ahead of Japan).

So the possibility that California might pass this legislation is a very big deal.

As you know, corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to the unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money we suffer from today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark money groups spending millions influencing the 2024 election.

Most people assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United (we could wait a very long time) or amend the U.S. Constitution (which is extraordinarily difficult).

But there’s another way, and there’s a good chance it will work. It will be on the ballot next November in Montana. And there’s now a chance California could enact it!

As I’ve pointed out, individual states have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because states determine what powers corporations have.

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privilege has belonged only to the states.

Corporations have no powers at all until a state government grants them some. In the 1819 Supreme Court case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Chief Justice John Marshall established that:

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence … The objects for which a corporation is created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant.”

States don’t have to grant corporations the power to spend in politics. In fact, they can decide not to give corporations that power.

This isn’t about corporate rights, as the Supreme Court determined in Citizens United. It’s about corporate powers.

When a state exercises its authority to define corporations as entities without the power to spend in politics, it will no longer be relevant whether corporations have a right to spend in politics — because without the power to do so, the right to do so has no meaning. (Delaware’s corporation code already declines to grant private foundations the power to spend in elections.)

Importantly, a state that no longer grants its corporations the power to spend in elections also denies that power to corporations chartered in the other 49 states, if they wish to do business in that state.

And what corporation doesn’t want to do business in California?

All a state needs to do is enact a law with a provision something like this:

“Every corporation operating under the laws of this state has all the corporate powers it held previously, except that nothing in this statute grants or recognizes any power to engage in election activity or ballot-issue activity.”

Sound farfetched? Not at all.

The argument is laid out in a paper that the Center for American Progress published last fall. (Kudos to CAP and the paper’s author, Tom Moore, a senior fellow at CAP who previously served as counsel and chief of staff to a longtime member of the Federal Election Commission.)

Which is exactly what the new California bill does. Here it is: AB 1984. (I kind of like the name.) You can find the text and status of the bill here.

The heroes of the day are Assemblymember Chris Rogers and Senator Mike McGuire, who have stepped up to sponsor and co-author the measure, respectively.

I hope Gavin Newsom gets 100 percent behind this effort. If he has his eye on the White House in 2028, this would be a feather in his electoral cap. The Citizens United decision is enormously unpopular. Some 75 percent of Americans disapprove of it.

It’s time to make Citizens United history. California (and Montana) can lead the way.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.or

The corrupt Supreme Court gave us this horror — but there's a way to end it

America’s 465th mass shooting in 2025, this one at Brown University in Rhode Island, should remind us all that it’s insane that the GOP passed and George W. Bush signed into law the so-called Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in 2006 that largely gives immunity from liability lawsuits to the gun industry (and only the gun industry).

It’s time to end the predator-state coalition in America, of which this is just one glaring example.

Ever since five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled that “money is free speech” protected by the First Amendment and “corporations are persons” protected by the entire Bill of Rights, pretty much every industry in America has poured cash into politicians’ and judges’ pockets to be able to freely rip us off. Or, in the case of the gun industry, kill our children.

Even though a clear majority of Americans want stronger gun laws, our politicians have colluded with the gun industry to give us the exact opposite, as I detail in The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment.

But it’s not just the gun industry.

When greedy banksters crashed our economy in 2008, Bush made sure not a single one went to prison, in stark contrast to the S&L scandal/crash in the 1980s: between 1988 and 1992 the Department of Justice sent 1,706 banksters to prison and obtained 2,603 guilty verdicts for fraud in financial institutions.

In 2008, however, after Bush and his cronies cashed their “contribution” checks, hundreds of banksters walked away with million- and even billion-dollar bonuses. Steve Mnuchin, who allegedly threw over 30,000 people out of their homes with robo-signed documents, was even appointed Treasury Secretary by Donald Trump and later given a billion dollars by the Saudis to invest.

Are you regularly hearing about these horrors on social media? Probably not, because prior to 1996, social media companies (then it was mostly CompuServe and AOL) had to hire people like me and Nigel Peacock to monitor their forums, make sure people followed the rules and told the truth. Nobody was the victim of online predators, and the company didn’t run secret algorithms to push rightwing memes at you and shadow-ban progressive content.

That year, however, after generous contributions to both parties, Congress passed a bill that gave Zuck and his buddies almost complete immunity from liability, which is why social media is now so dangerously toxic that Australia just banned it for kids.

Similarly, every other democracy in the world does your taxes for you and then lets you know their math so you can check it. In several European countries it’s so simple it’s basically a postcard; you only respond if you think they’re in error. The US is the only developed country on Earth where there’s a multi-billion-dollar industry preparing people’s tax returns for them.

For example, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland returns are pre-filled and can be approved via text message or an online portal in minutes. In Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and France tax forms are similarly filled out in advance by the government; you just sign and mail them back. And in Estonia, widely seen as a digital government pioneer, filing taxes takes minutes and is done with a simple online form that a fifth grader could complete.

Here in the US, Democrats thought this was a fine idea — it would save time and money for both taxpayers and the IRS — and so Biden rolled out a program where people with few deductions could simply file their taxes online for free.

Republicans, however, being on the take from the billion-dollar tax preparation industry, objected; they didn’t want the financial gravy train to stop because that would mean less of the money charged us for tax prep would end up in their campaign coffers, not to mention the fancy vacations, meals, and other lobbying benefits they can get.

So, the Trump administration announced — after tax prep company Intuit “donated” $1 million to Trump’s “inaugural” slush fund — that they’re killing off the free filing option; going forward, pretty much everybody must either learn enough tax law to deal with the IRS themselves or pay a tax preparation company.

And then there’s the health insurance industry, a giant blood-sucking tick attached to our collective backs that made $74 billion in profits (in addition to the billions paid to its most senior executives) last year by denying us payments for doctors’ visits, tests, procedures, surgeries, and even organ transplants.

Most Americans have no idea that the United States is quite literally the only country in the developed world that doesn’t define healthcare as an absolute right for all of its citizens and thus provide it at low or no cost.

That’s it. We’re the only one left. We’re the only country in the entire developed world where somebody getting sick can leave a family bankrupt, destitute, and homeless.

A half-million American families are wiped out every year so completely that they lose everything and must declare bankruptcy just because somebody got sick. The number of health-expense-related bankruptcies in all the other developed countries in the world combined is zero.

Yet the United States spends more on “health care” than any other country in the world: about 17 percent of GDP. Switzerland, Germany, France, Sweden and Japan all average around 11 percent, and Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia all come in between 9.3 percent and 10.5 percent.

Health insurance premiums right now make up about 22 percent of all taxable payroll (and don’t even cover all working people), whereas Medicare For All would run an estimated 10 percent and would cover every man, woman, and child in America. And don’t get me started on the Medicare Advantage scam the Bush administration created that’s routinely ripping off seniors and destroying actual Medicare.

And if disease doesn’t get us, hunger might. One-in-five American children live in “food insecure” households and frequently go to bed hungry at a time Trump and Republicans are cutting SNAP and WIC benefits and grants to food banks.

The amount of money that America’s richest four billionaires (Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg) added to their money bins since 2020 because of the Reagan/Bush/Trump tax cuts is over $300 billion: the cost to entirely end child poverty in America is an estimated $25 billion.

And, because of the body and brain damage hunger and malnutrition are doing to one-in-five American children, child hunger in the US is costing our society an estimated $167.5 billion a year in lost opportunity and productivity.

So, why do we avoid spending $25 billion to solve a $167.5 billion problem? Because of the predator-state coalition, which was legalized and enabled by five corrupt on-the-take Republicans on the US Supreme Court.

The predators don’t want you to know this stuff, of course, which is why they’ve bought up or started over 1500 radio stations, hundreds of TV stations, multiple TV networks, multiple major and local newspapers, and thousands of websites to bathe us in a continuous slurry of rightwing bullshit and pro-industry talking points.

And then there are the monopolies that Reagan legalized in 1983 and the Bush and Trump administrations have encouraged. Before that, we had competition within industries, and most malls and downtowns were filled with locally-owned businesses and stores.

Grocery stores, airlines, banks, social media, retail stores, gas stations, car manufacturers, insurance companies, internet providers (ISPs), computer companies, phone companies, hospital chains: the list goes on and on.

All — because of their monopoly or oligopoly status — cost the average American family an average of over $5,000 a year that is not paid by the citizens of any other developed country in the world because the rest of the world won’t tolerate this kind of predatory, monopolistic behavior.

Trump has even managed to turn immigration into a predatory scheme, transferring hundreds of billions of dollars from social programs to a masked, secret police force and Republican-aligned private prison contractors, as he gleefully inflicts brutality on dark-skinned immigrants and American citizens alike.

It’s time to roll back the predatory state, and it’d make a hell of a campaign slogan for Democrats running next November and in 2028. End Corporate Personhood and the legal bribery of politicians and judges.

This grassroots rebellion can decapitate Supreme Court's catastrophic mistake

Several of you have told me that the first step out of the mess we’re in is to get rid of the Supreme Court’s bonkers Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, which held that corporations are people — entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the rest of us.

Corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to the unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money we suffer from today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded by more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark money groups spending millions influencing the 2024 election.

Most people I talk with assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United (we could wait a very long time) or amend the U.S. Constitution (this is extraordinarily difficult).

But there’s another way! I want to tell you about it because there’s a good chance it will work.

It will be on the ballot next November in Montana. Maybe you can get it on the ballot in your state, too.

Here’s the thing: Individual states — either through their legislators or their citizens wielding ballot initiatives — have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because they determine what powers corporations have.

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privilege has belonged only to the states.

In fact, corporations have no powers at all until a state government grants them some. In the 1819 Supreme Court case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Chief Justice John Marshall established that:

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence … The objects for which a corporation is created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant.”

States don’t have to grant corporations the power to spend in politics. In fact, they could decide not to give corporations that power.

This isn’t about corporate rights, as the Supreme Court determined in Citizens United. It’s about corporate powers.

Delaware’s corporation code already declines to grant private foundations the power to spend in elections.

All a state would need to do is enact a law with a provision something like this:

Sound far-fetched? Not at all.

In Montana, local organizers have drafted and submitted a constitutional initiative for voters to consider in 2026 — the first step in a movement built to spread nationwide. It would decline to grant to all corporations the power to spend in elections.

Called the Transparent Election Initiative, it wouldn’t overturn Citizens United — it would negate the consequences of Citizens United. (Click on the link and you’ll get the details.)

The argument is laid out in a paper that the Center for American Progress published several weeks ago. (Kudos to CAP and the paper’s author, Tom Moore, a senior fellow at CAP who previously served as counsel and chief of staff to a longtime member of the Federal Election Commission.)

Note to governors and state legislators: The Citizens United decision is enormously unpopular. Some 75 percent of Americans disapprove of it. But most of your governors and state legislators haven’t realized that you have the authority to make Citizens United irrelevant. My recommendation to you: Use that authority to rid the nation of Citizens United.

Hopefully, Montanans will lead the way.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.

Ex-Supreme Court justice ripped for bemoaning election threat he helped create

Two analysts have hammered former Justice Anthony Kennedy for bemoaning a threat they say he helped create.

In an essay excerpt published Tuesday by Slate, adapted from "Master Plan," the new book from David Sirota and Jared Jacang Maher based on their award-winning podcast, the writers focus on how Kennedy's look back at his legacy might have come too late.

The authors focus on how Kennedy's memoir "Life, Law & Liberty" and its timing might indicate how he's trying to salvage what is left of his imprint on American life, namely how "Kennedy is now trying to shape his legacy on his own terms, and he says he’s worried about the survival of democracy—but democracy is in crisis in no small part because of the decision he authored," the analysts write.

In his opinion under Citizens United v. FEC, Kennedy wrote:

“Political speech is indispensable to decision making in a democracy,” he wrote, “and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual.”

This decision has come back to haunt Kennedy, the analysts argue.

"Kennedy’s new memoir may celebrate a life of moderation and pragmatism, but his most defining act is the radical and delusional Citizens United opinion, in which he unironically asserted that 'independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption' and insisted that 'the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy,'" according to Sirota and Jacang Maher.

In the end, the opinion changed the future of politics.

"That ruling was the culmination of a decadeslong plot to turn elections into auctions, and transform political discourse into a one-way monologue by those wealthy enough to buy a megaphone to drown out the rest of us," Sirota and Jacang Maher add. "The story of how corruption became legal in America isn’t just about memos, movements, and legal strategies. It’s also about seemingly technical moments inside the chamber, when a single justice fused his maximalist vision of free speech to the raw power of cold, hard cash."

‘Deep trouble’: The right's secret ‘master plan’ exposed by author

Two authors are warning that the right has a secret "master plan" to help billionaires buy elections.

In a Rolling Stone commentary piece published Monday and adapted by David Sirota and Jared Jacang Maher's upcoming book "Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America," the authors describe how two lawsuits heading to the Supreme Court could eliminate "the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery."

One of those lawsuits is led by Vice President JD Vance, "aiming to reverse a 2001 Supreme Court ruling and eliminate restrictions on political parties’ coordinated spending with candidates."

The high court's Citizens United decision set the "precedent that empowers oligarchs to buy elections," which conservative groups hope to expand, even though many Americans would argue that money can corrupt the political process, the authors argue.

"If those rules are killed off, party committees could become pass-through conduits for big donors to circumvent donation limits and deliver much larger payments in support of lawmakers who can reward them with government favors," the authors write.

"As we recount in our new book 'Master Plan,' the Citizens United case was the culmination of conservatives’ 50-year master plan to deregulate the campaign finance system and legalize corruption. What started as an incendiary memo from soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell became one ruling equating money with constitutionally protected speech and another extending personhood rights to corporations," the authors write.

This "master plan," according to the authors, would further make it "increasingly impossible to prosecute public corruption cases."

"In essence, they’re asking justices to believe a bank CEO’s donation to a political party coordinating with a lawmaker’s campaign can in no way influence how that lawmaker drafts banking legislation," according to the authors.

The authors also argue there are still a few ways for "this nightmare to be stopped," and that's by making anti-corruption a focus in politics.

"Yes, in buying elections, packing the courts, and eliciting precedents legalizing corruption, the master planners have created the democracy crisis, pushing America one step closer to the kleptocratic death spiral of history’s collapsing empires," the authors write.

Trump isn't the sole cause of our deepening divide

It’s too easy to accept the conventional view that the widening polarization of our society, and the decline of democracy, are due to the demagogue in the Oval Office.

That conventional view is way too simple. Follow the money. The underlying cause is the tsunami of legal bribes flowing from huge, wealthy corporations (and their oligarchic CEOs and major investors) into American politics.

That tsunami has grown dramatically over the last 40 years. It underlies the crisis of democracy. It is fueling polarization. Democracy and social cohesion are impossible to sustain when big money is dictating political outcomes.

Over the last four decades, corporate political spending has more than quadrupled, adjusted for inflation.

Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union PACs contributed about as much as corporate PACs. In the 2024 election, corporations outspent labor by more than 3 to 1.

According to a landmark study published in 2014 by Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups, and average citizens. Their conclusion:

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Gilens and Page found that lawmakers listen mainly to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals — those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.

It’s far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002 — before the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super PACs, before “dark money,” and before the Wall Street bailout.

Decades before Trump, corporations were already getting a high return on the money they invested in politics. I know. I was there. I had a front-row seat.

Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers, small investors, and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.

Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations, such as universal health care and paid family leave. They’ve attacked labor laws — reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a 35 percent 40 years ago to just over 6 percent now.

They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Ag, Wall Street, and the largest military contractors now dwarfs welfare for people.

The profits of big corporations have reached record highs, and the ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to nearly 300-to-1 now.

Most Americans, however, are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago when adjusted for inflation.

The biggest casualty has been public trust in democracy.

In 1964, only 29 percent of voters thought government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.” By 2013, 79 percent of Americans thought so.

A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy that they believe the blatant lies of a self-described strongman and support a political party that no longer stands for democracy.

Capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.

Ironically, the CEOs of many large American corporations are now finally confronting this reality. Despotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.

My message to every CEO in America: You need democracy but you’re actively undermining it by polluting it with big money and throwing much of your support behind a tyrant whose arbitrary and capricious decisions are threatening your businesses. It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement.

This is not only about economics. Widening inequality and a weakening democracy take a toll on the moral wellbeing of the nation, on the implicit social contract that binds us together, on the trust and cohesion we need to accomplish anything worthwhile.

In one of his first interviews, on Sept. 14, Pope Leo XIV — history’s first U.S.-born pope — talked about the causes of the deep polarization he sees in America and elsewhere:

“Very significant is the continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive. …Yesterday the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world. What does that mean and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”

Trump is not the cause of the growing cynicism about democracy and the deepening polarization of our society. He’s the consequence and culmination of decades of neglect. We could not have remained on the road we were on toward ever-widening inequality and ever-greater political corruption.

If there’s a silver lining to this darkening cloud, it is that Trump may finally force us to confront this long-term crisis.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.

How John Roberts pushed Trump and Musk into public wrestling ring

The alpha-male d--k-measuring contest between Trump and Musk isn’t entertainment: it’s the inevitable outcome of America’s complete surrender to oligarchy.

After centuries of democratic progress, we’re watching the World’s Richest Man® and the World’s Most Powerful Man® battle for supremacy on social media like feuding warlords. How did the land of Lincoln and Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Kennedy, become a playground for billionaire sociopaths?

The answer has a name: John Roberts.

Back in the day, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned us:

“We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

In 2010, Chief Justice Roberts made his choice: He chose the billionaires. He chose oligarchy. He chose to detonate 240 years of American democracy.

The case was supposed to be simple: Could a right-wing group funded by fossil fuel billionaires show their anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda film within a month of an election? The Federal Election Commission said no because it violated a ban on corporate electioneering.

But Roberts wasn’t satisfied with just allowing the movie.

At Justice Anthony Kennedy’s urging, Roberts pulled off a judicial coup. He ordered both sides to re-argue the case, but this time on the broader question of corporate and billionaire election spending, something that wasn’t even part of the original lawsuit. This was judicial activism on steroids, the kind of power grab that would make a third-world dictator proud.

The result, as I lay out in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America, was an all-Republican-appointee 5-4 decision, Citizens United, that legalized political bribery and unleashed an avalanche of billionaire and corporate cash that has, in the years since, largely buried American democracy.

Justice John Paul Stevens was so furious that he read his 90-page dissent aloud from the bench, forcing his five bought-off Republican-appointed colleagues to listen in awkward discomfort.

Stevens said the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”

In a prescient moment of outrage, he added:

“A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold,” pointing out that Roberts and Kennedy had “changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

The result of this bizarre decision, one embracing a theory no other advanced democracy in the world tolerates, has been an explosion in billionaire and corporate money flooding our election system. It’s made a mockery of Roberts’ and Kennedy’s assertion that transparency requirements would guarantee that “citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”

As a result, Musk is now claiming — almost certainly correctly — that:

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. … Such ingratitude.”

In other words, “I’m the rich guy who bought the White House for you, Trump, and you owe me.”

Of course, Musk isn’t the only one saying such things. The entire GOP knows how fossil fuel billionaires — particularly the Koch brothers — have been so instrumental in building and maintaining a national messaging infrastructure that there’s not a single Republican politician at the federal level who’ll acknowledge the importance of stopping global warming even as it regularly kills Americans.

Thus Stevens, it turns out, was absolutely right.

Outside spending exploded from $574 million in 2008 to $4.5 billion in 2024. In 2024, eight of the top 10 largest donors supported Republicans, with Musk dumping over $290 million. Dark money spending surged from less than $5 million in 2006 to more than $1 billion in 2024. Just 21 billionaire families contributed $783 million in 2022, easily outspending millions of small donors combined, and in 2024 a hundred billionaire families poured $2.6 billion into electing mostly Republicans.

Musk isn’t just boasting when he claims he single-handedly delivered the White House to Trump. The world’s richest man dumped over $290 million into electing Trump, including $238 million to his America PAC, $20.5 million to the deceptively named “RBG PAC” that dishonored Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memory, and arguably illegal $1 million daily “lottery” payments to swing-state voters.

This isn’t political participation: it’s a hostile takeover of the American government by the biggest money in America.

Musk’s America PAC became one of the most prominent get-out-the-vote efforts for Republicans, essentially functioning as Trump’s campaign while pretending to be “independent.”

The Federal Election Commission's toothless “coordination” rules have become a joke since Roberts and his four corrupt colleagues ruled that billionaires and corporations can simply buy entire campaign operations.

And the corruption doesn’t stop with Musk. The cryptocurrency industry alone poured $238 million into the 2024 elections, more than oil, gas, and pharmaceuticals combined. Crypto money accounted for 44% of all corporate political spending in 2024.

The payoff was immediate: Trump ordered the SEC to drop lawsuits against crypto firms, signed an executive order establishing a national Bitcoin reserve, pardoned a bitcoin fraudster after he directed millions into Trump’s personal pockets, and appointed crypto insider David Sacks as White House AI and crypto czar.

This is corruption so blatant it would embarrass a banana republic.

Citizens United didn’t just corrupt presidential elections: it’s also systematically destroying Congress. Crypto super PACs alone spent $134 million targeting 67 congressional races, successfully defeating crypto-skeptical Democrats like Katie Porter with $10 million in attack ads.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg called Citizens United “the worst ruling” of her time on the Court. At least 22 states and hundreds of cities have voted to support a constitutional amendment to overturn it.

The American people know their democracy has been stolen.

Billionaires Musk and Trump are now locked in a dirty battle with Trump claiming Musk read and loved the “Big, Beautiful [Billionaire Tax Cut] Bill” while Musk implies Trump was regularly boffing teenage girls at Jeffrey Epstein’s home just down the street from Trump Tower.

While Trump and Musk trade insults about who’s more corrupt, they’re both symptoms of the same disease.

Trump sold us out to Middle Eastern potentates and Vladimir Putin, and is making billions with the bitcoin bros.
Musk gutted federal investigations into his companies while forcing taxpayers to subsidize his businesses and demanding South Africa and several other poor nations adopt Starlink. And he gleefully destroyed the one US agency most responsible for ending apartheid in South Africa: USAID.

This is what happens when five unelected judges — several of them nakedly on the take from billionaires at the time — decide that the morbidly rich should rule America.

We now have what the Brennan Center for Justice calls “a fusion of private wealth and political power unseen since the late 19th century.” It’s the Gilded Age robber barons’ wildest dreams made real.

The sordid spectacle of Trump vs. Musk isn’t just embarrassing; it’s the death rattle of American democracy. Two oligarchs are publicly fighting over who owns our government, while Republicans on Roberts’ Supreme Court uneasily pretend this is “free speech.”

We’re not witnessing a democratic election cycle. We’re watching the final consolidation of American oligarchy.

Unless we overturn Citizens United and reclaim our democracy from billionaire sociopaths, the Musk-Trump cage match is just the opening act. Coming soon: President Bezos vs. President Zuckerberg (or their proxies), brought to you by Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court’s pro-oligarchy majority.

The choice Brandeis warned us about in 1919 has been made: Roberts and Sam Alito chose wealth concentration. Clarence Thomas chose oligarchy. Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy chose to let billionaires buy our democracy.

Now we’re living with the consequences, at least until we all decide to do something about it. And that starts with voting out of office every possible Republican and all of the corporate so-called “moderate” Democrats who have enthusiastically embraced Citizens United and the corruption it’s brought us.

The work, in other words, falls to us. Pass it along.

Inside the Democratic National Convention corporate interest moneyfest

CHICAGO — In ballrooms, barrooms and backrooms this week, the business of big business is getting done with Democrats out of public view.

Yes, Bernie Sanders on Tuesday railed before Democratic National Convention delegates about how “millionaires and billionaires” should “not be able to buy elections.” And sure, curtailing “the corrupting influence of money in politics” is a plank in the 2024 Democratic Party platform.

But most Democrats in Chicago are ignoring the socialist senator and stepping over and around that party plank while pursuing cash that corporations and moneyed special interests are all too keen to contribute.

Foremost, there are those who are asking for money.

Take the California Democratic Party, the home state party committee of 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

For $250,000, a corporation, union, trade association or individual can this week claim a “California gold” sponsorship that entitles the giver to a bevy of benefits, according to a brochure obtained by Raw Story.

Among the perks: membership on the party’s finance committee, "private VIP receptions," eligibility for “special” convention credentials, “priority” lodging and the “opportunity to include items in California delegates' tote bags." One's corporate or organization logo will be “displayed at the California Bash” — a tony party on Aug. 21 at the House of Blues Chicago — and “all four California Delegate breakfasts.”

The Texas Democratic Party similarly offers a $50,000 “Longhorn” package.

In part, it buys a taker “recognition as a title sponsor at our delegation breakfasts & Texas reception,” “one suite in our room block (4 nights)” and “4 guest passes for all Texas delegation breakfasts” and “2 VIP passes to the States Party with access to the Foundation Lounge,” according to a party document appropriately titled “sponsorship opportunities for the 2024 Texas Delegation.”

The Maryland Democratic Party features a $75,000 “Chairman’s Sponsor” package.

For that price, you’ll get “recognition in the Maryland Delegation Hotel and at all 14 Maryland Celebration events” along with a host of other items and honorifics.

And the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit organization led by former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), is promoting its “exclusive landmark event space” to “network with global political leaders” and “400 high-level guests” to “build relationships as they address pressing challenges to democracy,” according to an invitation obtained by Raw Story.

Sponsorships of the National Democratic Institute’s week of Democratic National Convention-themed events in Chicago begin at $10,000 and top out at $250,000 — with a top-tier sponsorship landing the “presenting sponsor” a veritable public relations campaign, ranging from “inclusion of corporate materials at events and in registration packets” to an “invitation to meet Senator Tom Daschle and other high-level leaders.”

Sponsors from past Democratic National Conventions include Facebook, Visa, AT&T, oil company Chevron and pharmaceutical company Amgen, according to the invitation.

Raw Story reviews of more than 20 other convention-themed invitations from political committees, political consulting firms, state delegations and politically focused nonprofits yielded similar offers.

Sunlight dims

Democrats don’t want to talk about this lesser-known side of their national convention, where all manner of special interests have a standing invitation to shmooze with party brass and tour the party’s inner sanctum — for a price.

Officials for the California, Texas and Maryland Democratic committees did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls from Raw Story. Nor did officials from the Democratic National Committee.

Why such secrecy?

Accepting big money is inconvenient for Democrats, who have rhetorically railed against the era of unlimited election spending by corporate, union and certain nonprofit interests, which the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission animated.

But just as it does for Republicans, big money keeps Democratic committees competitive in the age of permanent political campaigns. It fuels politicians’ ambitions and helps keep them in power.

Where exactly this Democratic National Convention-adjacent money goes after everyone leaves Chicago often depends on the individual campaign finance laws of each state. It might end up in a federal, or state or ballot measure account. Maybe all of the above. Or somewhere else entirely.

Some of this money will be publicly disclosed, eventually, just as the Democratic National Convention and its host committee must disclose its funders, eventually.

However, some of the money — particularly if it comes from a politically active nonprofit group that may legally avoid disclosing its own funding sources — will remain unknown to average Americans, just beyond the “dark money” realm’s event horizon.

Since the high court’s seminal decision, Democratic leaders have often argued that they cannot “unilaterally disarm” and simply let Republicans bludgeon them with fat stacks of corporate cash. So they’d play the game in hopes of ending the game.

Advocates for good government are decidedly unimpressed at what they consider pay-to-play political ickiness.

"Sponsorship and events funded by corporate interests during both major political party conventions is yet another way that industry is able to peddle influence and overshadow the voices of real people,” said Donald K. Sherman, executive director and chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“Until Congress actually attempts to do something about this, the conventions will remain the same,” said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “I don't see either party willing to step up and take measures to reduce influence peddling if they are not required to do so.

The givers

At most, Democrats’ approach to political money is of academic concern to the givers who, for a relative pittance, snag something far more precious than their five- or six-figure contribution: access.

Proximity to power, while never a panacea, is nevertheless a ticket to emails answered, phone calls returned, meetings scheduled and honored. It’s a tool for favorable regulations and prod for advantageous legislation. In a pinch, it’s a weapon against naysayers.

Invest a little now, get a lot later. Make friends, influence people, plan for a rainy day when the government seems more against you than with you.

Raw Story contacted more than 40 corporations and trade associations that, according to federal data compiled by nonpartisan research organization OpenSecrets, spent at least $1 million on federal-level lobbying efforts last year or are on pace to do so this year,

The vast majority of them did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether they, in any form or fashion, supported the 2024 Republican or Democratic national conventions, or sponsored any political committee, state delegation or policy organization participating in convention festivities.

Chicagoland-based corporate giants McDonald’s Corporation and Allstate Insurance Company had nothing to say. Nor did Microsoft, Boeing, Pfizer, Apple, Comcast, Visa, Verizon, CVS, UPS, FedEx, Honeywell, The Walt Disney Company, Salesforce, TikTok, defense contractor RTX and Facebook parent Meta.

ExxonMobil co-sponsored a Democratic National Convention side event staged by Punchbowl News — one disrupted by climate activists. (The oil giant did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

“We don’t have any comment,” said Megan Ketterer, a spokesperson for AT&T, whose logo could be found on kiosks, credential lanyards and signage in and around the Democratic National Convention.

ALSO READ: ‘Absolutely essential’: Son of Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes is all in for Kamala Harris

Lockheed Martin responded to a Raw Story inquiry that included several detailed questions about the defense contractor’s participation in the 2024 convention.

Sort of.

A company spokesman, who declined to be named, first had questions for Raw Story: How many companies and special interest groups did Raw Story contact? Which ones? Did they respond?

In the end, Lockheed declined to answer most of Raw Story’s questions and emailed a statement: “We plan to attend both the Democratic and Republican conventions as part of our long-standing approach of non-partisan political engagement in support of our business interests.”

Raw Story persisted: “Are you able to offer any specifics on how you plan to support your business interests at the conventions? How much money does Lockheed Martin plan to spend between the two 2024 national party conventions?”

“We don’t have anything else to share,” the spokesman replied.

Chicago-based United Airlines — namesake of the United Center, where the Democratic National Convention is being conducted — said in a statement that the company “supported both the Milwaukee and Chicago Host committees” and increased the number of flights between Washington, D.C., and the two 2024 national convention cities.

Asked for additional details, United demurred: “We won’t have any further information to share.”

Similarly, a Google spokesperson, who declined to be named, noted that the company did not donate to either the Democratic or Republican convention committee, but helped “both the Republican and Democratic committees livestream their conventions on YouTube – like we have in previous elections.”

The Google spokesperson declined to comment on support Google did or did not offer state delegations, political committees and the like in conjunction with the Democratic or Republican national conventions.

A Walmart spokesperson said the company didn’t donate to either the Democratic or Republican convention funds but declined to comment further.

Some of the nation’s top lobbying forces were a bit more forthcoming.

“GM will sponsor the Democratic National Convention,” General Motors spokesperson Liz Winter confirmed. “We have supported both conventions for many years and aim to provide equivalent support to both the RNC and DNC. Through continuous bipartisan engagement with organizations like the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee, we have an opportunity to build an understanding of the issues important to our industry, our people and the communities we support.”

She added: “Our presence at the conventions does not represent an endorsement of a candidate.”

A few said they simply sat the 2024 national political conventions out.

Wells Fargo “did not contribute to either convention,” bank spokesman Robert Sumner said, adding, “no events, either.”

“We have not contributed for activities at the political conventions,” said Brian Dietz, spokesperson for trade group NCTA – The Internet & Television Association.

The National Federation of Independent Business has “not contributed any money / sponsorships or in-kind contributions to either the RNC or DNC conventions,” spokesperson Jon Thompson wrote in an email.

But the party never ends

When the Democratic National Convention ends Thursday night, and the final Democratic revelers stagger back to their downtown Chicago hotel rooms, there will have been hundreds of individual events and opportunities for wealthy special interests to leave their mark.

To take one: Invariant, a government relations and communications firm that lists Home Depot, H&R Block, Toyota, Marriott International and Cigna among its clients, hosted an “exclusive brat brunch” on Tuesday attended by “media personalities, influencers, administration honchos, Members of Congress, campaign staff diehards, and your friends at Invariant," according to an invitation shared with Raw Story.

Among those personally invited: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), per an invitation.

It’s unclear whether the congresswoman attended. But as Politico would report afterward, a roster of other federal lawmakers sure did, mingling with lobbyists and activists and lots of folks with political agendas.

Invariant did not return requests for comment. But based on a question it poses on its website to potential clients, the event appeared to accomplish the firm’s mission.

“There are only two questions when it comes to lobbying,” Invariant posits. “Do you want to find Washington, or do you want Washington to find you?”

Koch network’s flagship super PAC pours big money into 2024 elections

This article originally appeared in OpenSecrets. Sign up for their weekly newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The Koch network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity, has spent two decades pouring money into influencing U.S. elections.

As the group celebrates its 20-year anniversary, its hybrid super PAC ranks third in outside spending in the 2024 cycle.

Americans for Prosperity Action, a hybrid PAC affiliated with the group, has spent over $257 million since 2004 to support conservative congressional and presidential candidates.

The organization is known for supporting reduced government spending, opposing collective bargaining, curbing environmental regulations, and backing the oil and gas industry.

Its website calls Americans for Prosperity “the premier grassroots advocacy organization transforming policy around the country.”

Americans for Prosperity has spent approximately $62 million to bolster Republican candidates and $10 million to oppose Trump in the 2024 cycle, as of August 6. Despite pledges to reach across party lines and work with Democrats in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s election, not a single penny has been spent in support of Democrats during the 2024 cycle.

Court decisions such as Wisconsin v. Right To Life in 2007, Citizens United v. FEC in 2010 and Speechnow v. FEC in 2010 spurred the proliferation of “dark money,” enabling organizations like Americans for Prosperity to legally raise and spend unlimited sums of money through 501(c)(4) nonprofits without having to disclose the original source of funding behind their donors’ network.

One out of every $5 fueling the Americans for Prosperity Action committee comes from nknown sources. Americans for Prosperity’s hybrid PAC has received large donations from Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, a dark money group that is part of the Koch network and gave the hybrid PAC $25 million.

ALSO READ: 21 worthless knick-knacks Donald Trump will give you for your cash

Heir to oil giant Fred C. Koch and his multinational company Koch Industries, Charles Koch founded Americans for Prosperity and spearheaded the Koch network along with his late brother, David. Charles Koch is ranked by Forbes as the 24th richest man in the world, with a family net worth of $67.8 billion as of August 2024.

His own company, Koch Industries, gave another $25 million to Americans for Prosperity Action in 2024. The hybrid PAC has also received contributions from Alice and Jim Walton, heirs to the Walmart fortune.

But since the hybrid PAC’s top donor is a dark money group that does not disclose its donors, millions of dollars come from donors whose identities remain undisclosed.

Americans for Prosperity was Nikki Haley’s second largest outside supporter in the 2024 presidential election, spending over $31 million to back her campaign during the GOP primaries. In a memo released in November 2023, the organization justified its decision to support Nikki Haley, writing, “Haley is more viable amongst GOP Primary voters to take on Trump.”

The presidential campaign of Ron DeSantis, who has since withdrawn from the race, responded to Americans for Prosperity’s decision to support Haley, arguing, "Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley's candidacy should be reported as an in-kind [donation] to the Trump campaign.”

ALSO READ: Tim Walz's personal finances are extraordinarily boring — and that may help Harris

Americans for Prosperity’s hybrid PAC has spent approximately $10 million to oppose former President Donald Trump and over $9 million to oppose President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race and has since handed over his campaign to Vice President Kamala Harris.

The political giving of employees of Americans for Prosperity tends to be in line with their organization’s viewpoints. Since 2010, a total of $150,000 has been contributed to Republicans and a mere $286 to Democrats.

Although Americans for Prosperity steers millions toward outside spending on elections, it has also been active on the lobbying scene for a decade — hiring 28 different lobbyists since 2014.

In 2023, Americans for Prosperity spent over $1.9 million between 17 lobbyists — setting a record for the most it has ever spent on lobbying fees in one year.

Lobbying firms working for Americans for Prosperity reported lobbying around 131 bills in 2023 filings, including companion bills in both the House and Senate.

A key issue that Americans for Prosperity lobbied on in recent years was immigration, including the Protecting Children of Long-Term Visa Holders Act, the Integrating New Technologies to Empower Law Enforcement at Our Borders Act, and the DIGNIDAD Act.

“Congress’s failure to strengthen our border and streamline lawful migration pathways created a system that undermines the rule of law and fails to meet the needs of American families, workers, and entrepreneurs,” Americans for Prosperity states on its website.

In addition to spending on lobbying, Americans for Prosperity’s foundation files amicus briefs weighing in on court cases.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation filed 23 amicus briefs last year, 14 of which were for cases heard by the Supreme Court. The foundation has submitted 20 amicus briefs in 2024, as of August.

Recently, it submitted an amicus brief for a Supreme Court case No On E v. Chiu, which addresses “Whether requiring political advertisers to name their donors’ donors within their advertisements advances any important or compelling state interest.”

Americans for Prosperity argued that the requirement to disclose donors’ donors would abridge their First Amendment rights to “speak anonymously” and “associate freely,” and would “driv[e] civil society further into tribalism.”

OpenSecrets Editorial and Investigations Manager Anna Massoglia contributed to this report.