Since the disastrous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court in 2010, unlimited amounts of money have poured into our elections, undermining faith in our government and essentially putting our elected officials up for sale. A case in point: the last presidential election two years ago saw candidates raise $2.7 billion, which is triple the amount that presidential hopefuls raised just 20 years earlier in 2004. And while money in elections has gone up, faith in our government has gone down. According to the Pew Research Center, only 17% of Americans trust the federal government to do the right thing. Compare that number to 2001, where over half, 54%, had faith in the government.
That’s why voters in Maine approved a ballot measure in 2024 that would limit contributions to PACs involved in state races to $5,000. A conservative organization, Dinner Table Action, that claims it is dedicated to “advancing limited government” immediately sued to have the law thrown out. Last year, a federal magistrate judge agreed with the group, finding that the law unconstitutionally denied donors their First Amendment freedom of speech. A number of groups that have been committed to campaign finance reform have appealed to the First Circuit.
Hopefully the First Circuit will hear the case sooner rather than later. The sooner they hear the case, the sooner it can move up to the Supreme Court, which will probably be where this suit ends up if the First Circuit upholds the Maine law. In the perfect scenario, the Supreme Court could hear and uphold the law next term, which would put it in place for the 2028 election cycle.
Now those of you who follow the court are currently asking if the conservative court would uphold such a law. After all, the current chief justice, John Roberts, also presided over the court that decided Citizens United, which found that political spending by corporations and labor unions was protected speech under the First Amendment. The court then argued that as long as the contributions weren’t made directly to the candidate, there wouldn’t be quid pro quo corruption. Three months after the Citizens United decision, the Second Circuit found that the federal government also couldn’t restrict donations to committees that were independent of candidates and super PACs were born. Super PACs have no limit to the size of donations that they can accept.
That decision, SpeechNow.org v. FEC, combined with Citizens United, has created the current status quo which is unlimited money in our politics. In the first federal elections after those decisions, super PACs raised $828 million. Two years ago, the most recent federal elections saw super PACs raise $5.1 billion, most of which was given by the wealthiest Americans. In fact, in 2024, just 100 people donated 73% of super PAC funds. That means that almost three-quarters of all super PAC funds came from .0000003% of Americans. That trend is sure to continue in 2028 unless something is done to curb it.
But supporters of the Maine law, led by a group called Equal Citizens, believe that they have an argument that can win over some of the conservative justices on the court. Equal Citizens argues that the SpeechNow decision misinterprets Citizens United. Their argument claims that while Citizens United prohibited limiting spending by PACs, it did not prohibit limiting donations to the PACs, leaving the door open to limiting donations.
Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and the founder of Equal Citizens, has been a longtime critic of Citizens United. I highly recommend his “Lesterland” TEDtalk, available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g, the numbers are outdated but the information is still good), if you want further information about the corrosive effect of money in politics. Lessig believes that the genius in Equal Citizens’ argument is that it isn’t asking Roberts or the court to change their minds about Citizens United, just that the decision be applied as he believes it was originally written.
Members of Congress spend 30 or more hours a week fundraising. And when they are fundraising, they are fundraising from the top .0000003%. When we wonder why the only bills that can get passed are ones that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest of us, we need look no further than this simple truth. Congress’ approval rating is currently at 10% and faith in our democracy is at an all-time low. We are facing an existential crisis that has, in large part, been created by unlimited money in our elections. The Maine law may be our last chance to save our republic from becoming a plutocracy. If the Supreme Court believes in the republic that the Framers gave us, they will uphold the Maine law and give us an off-ramp from the current insanity.