With the flow of campaign spending without deterrence, some countries try to impose limits
Fifteen years after the United States Supreme Court ruling in unified citizens, companies have the rights to freedom of constitutional expression to spend money that affect the elections, almost all federal efforts to curb political spending. Most elected officials are now dependent on external groups, such as Super Pacs that accept unlimited donations, to help finance their campaigns.
But in this way, the collection of donations breaks new records – Super PACS spent about $ 2.7 billion In the 2024 electoral session – the advocates of reform decline in two states. Min and Montana are a challenge, in various ways, the interpretation of the Supreme Court of Campaign Financing Laws. Whether they succeed in future elections – not only in these cases. The reformers hope to develop a plan for how to organize states on companies, unions, and “dark money” groups that play a major role in determining who is elected to public positions.
These efforts come to reform the financing of campaigns against the background of what many scientists call the deterioration of American democracy, which was recently embodied in the partisan battle to redraw legislative maps before 2026. For the Republican match, Democrats abandon the previous obligations towards the most fair maps that were defended by good government groups.
Why did we write this
The role of foreign funds in the elections has grown greatly since the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that political spending is a form of speech. Now, some defenders hope to repair the financing of campaigns are hoped to impose borders through the states, where Min and Montana leads the road.
For candidates, to save PACS and dark money groups that do not reveal donors to unilateral disarmament in the arms race. “Both parties are dependent on these funds,” said Robert Boaterett, professor of politics at Clark University in Worsester, Massachusetts, who is studying the campaign financing.
Professor Boaterett adds that external groups are technically allowed in coordination with the campaigns, but this has proven to be a meaningless discrimination. “the [Supreme] The court’s theory was that independent spending was completely over the control of the candidate, but what we have seen over the past fifteen years is that it is not necessary for people who spend this money to speak to the candidates about what they are doing. “It is clear what will benefit the candidate.”
Strong support for political spending
United citizens were controversial from the beginning. During his 2010 speech in the case of the union, a week after the announcement of the ruling, President Barack Obama warned that he “will open the flood gates for special interestsIncluding foreign companies, to spend without limits in our elections. “Supreme Court judge, Samuel Aleo, who was in the audience, was seen and he was eating” incorrect “in response.
The latest voting shows that voters are concerned about the impact of money on politics and that The majority in both parties support the limits of the amount of wealthy people and companies spending it In campaigns.
Last November, voters in Maine supported an overwhelming majority SUPER PAC’s polling initiative to 5,000 dollars per person. The limit applies only to the state elections. Defenders say the maximum of $ 5,000 was chosen because it was well surveyed; Voters considered the risk of corruption much greater when the donations were at this level or higher. The law also requires the disclosure of all donors, regardless of the amount, to external groups.
A month after the procedure, Alex Tikomb joined Federal lawsuit to prevent law. Mr. Titcomb, who runs the dinner table, a conservative organization at the level of the popular base in Maine, says it is unconstitutional for federal organizers or federal organizers to obtain donations for groups like him who participate in political issues.
“The campaign’s contributions are the issue of freedom of expression,” he says. “People gather to influence their government, and this is what is about the first amendment.”
In July, a federal judge in Maine agreed with Mr. Titcomb, The ruling that the voter -backed law was unconstitutional And arranging a permanent judicial order.
But the ruling did not deter Lawrence Lesij, a law professor at Harvard University who helped formulate the polling initiative in Maine. A long -term preacher to fix the financing of campaignsThe case is expected. He wants to listen to an appeal in the Court of Appeal in the first circle, and in the end the US Supreme Court. His goal is to show that federal courts “made a mistake” in the interpretation of United citizens to allow Super Pac to collect unlimited funds on political campaigns.
Professor Lesij notes that the Mine State Law limits contributions, not expenditures, and does not challenge the right of companies to spend political speech. What challenged it is the legal basis for Super Pacs, and the entities that are supposed to be separate from the campaigns, and unlike them, unlimited donations can be accepted, including from dark money groups.
In citizens of United, the Supreme Court said that the government cannot limit the political discourse of some groups to settle the stadium for all, an argument that legislators used to justify the hats on donations. The only justification for restrictions on companies and unions, as the court, was to prevent pro -corruption or the emergence of this corruption.
Professor Lesij says that this last point is the reason that states should have the right to short donations to PACS: have become channels of political corruption. When Senator New Jersey Robert Menendes, a democratic, was condemned last year to accept bribes and obstruction of justice, The court heard that Al -Rashawi was pushed by directing him to Super Pac. While the super PACS is supposed to be independent of the campaigns, the pioneering candidate Donald Trump Ilon Musk and Super Pac To operate the ground campaigns in 2024 the battlefield. Mr. Musk was later given an unintended position in the Trump administration.
“No one stops [wealthy donors] “From spending money on an issue,” says Professor Lesij.
He does not seek to fluctuate the United citizens, but is a relevant resolution known as prolemit.org. In 2010, the Appeal Court ruled the capital, citing citizens, Independent groups can accept unlimited contributions To produce attack ads and other political communications as long as it did not work directly with the candidates. This referee lit up the valves to explode in Super PACS and other “independent spending” groups.
Mr. Titcomb admits that the Mine State Batch was common for voters. But he says that this was not because of concerns about corruption, but because they are “tired [political] TV and text messages. They believe that the maximum will reduce “size.
Who is the next Montana?
Professor Boaterett says Maine is not the first state trying to target the flow of foreign funds resulting from the United citizens. But in the absence of the Supreme Court’s arrangements, which have been right since 2010, he sees government financing laws as similar to the ban on abortion approved by the states run by the Republican Party before. The court canceled ROE V. Wade In 2022, it is stipulated that the campaign financing restrictions pass, he says, “He has mainly made a statement and put out a sign of the future.”
Montana may be the following: The suggested polling initiative 2026, if passed, will be passed, the state constitution to end the authority of companies and dark money groups to spend unlimited amounts on politics. The “Montana Plan” would effectively unite citizens by changing the corporate law, which is the law – not the federal – the law. Supporters say it can be a plan for other countries to regulate the financing of campaigns. It also applies to companies registered in other states.
“We have a history to lead this,” says Jeff Mangan, a former legislator in the democratic state and a former commissioner for political practices, a unique government agency for Montana that supervises the campaign financing lists.
In 1912, Montana was a pioneer in legal funds on companies ’funds in politics as a reaction to the intervention in the strong copper industry in the state. About a century after a century, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that Montana was not bound by United citizens because of its history of restricting spending on companies, a ruling issued by the Supreme Court in 2012.
Mr. Manjan heads Transparent election initiativeThe Montana plan initiative and presented to the organizers. The plan is characterized by the rights that companies must spend on the funds on the elections, which were supported by United, and the authorities given by states to companies. He says that depriving companies of spending authority, and rights that do not apply after that. “It is a different way to consider the problem,” he says.
Even some experts in financing the campaigns who oppose the United citizens They wondered whether this would stand on the Supreme Court review. Critics calls it a political trick, supported by very smart special interests. “People scratch their heads and wonder how it will work,” says Brook Lauris, a Republican Party worker of Montana who was the director of independent spending of the National Senator in the Senate in 2024.
Former Senator John Ter, a Democrat Montana, lost his seat last year, He is among the supporters of the proposed polls. Former state governor Mark Racicot, the only Republican who publicly supports him, His party broke to vote for Joe Biden In 2020.
Mr. Manjan says what he hears from ordinary voters in Montana is frustration with the external money that flows to the state, including groups that hide donors. “We need to do something about money in politics, regardless of who is in power,” he says.