Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), a 2010 Supreme Court case involving the regulation of political campaign spending by organizations, is one of the Court’s worst decisions of all time.

 

The Court made a grave error with the Citizens United decision, and we should work hard to see it overturned.

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In the decision, the Supreme Court held, in a 5–4 vote, that the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by nonprofit corporations, for-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations – meaning these organizations can now spend unlimited amounts of money on political activities as long as they don’t give money directly to political candidates and their spending is not coordinated with any candidate (a “prohibition” that is a total joke).

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This decision – together with another awful federal court decision, SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission – gave rise to so-called Super PACs. Super PACs, or “independent expenditure only” committees, can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against political candidates.

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The Citizens United decision is deeply flawed in part for its unintended consequences, because the FEC's interpretation of it has caused even more damage than the decision itself. The Supreme Court held that independent expenditures should be “totally independent” of candidates and made it clear that corporate spending should be fully disclosed.  However, neither is being properly enforced, to say the least.

 

Super PACs are legally required to report where their money comes from but, naturally, they have devised ways to undermine any transparency by funneling money through secretly funded “dark money” groups – which are, for some strange reason, allowed to keep their donors hidden from the public.

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These groups channel money to elections typically though donations given to 501(c)(4) social welfare groups or 501(c)(6) trade associations. While Super PACs do have to disclose these groups, they are only required to disclose the name of the group, not who gave money to the group – so the true source of the money remains a secret.

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In total, $5.3 billion was spent on the 2024 presidential election by presidential candidates, political parties and independent interest groups. If you count Senate and House candidates, that number jumps to $14.8 billion. Dark money groups accounted for over $1.9 billion of that number. Since Citizens United, these groups have spent at least $4.3 billion on federal elections.

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The Citizen United ruling included this statement: “We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

 

Let’s check to see if that’s actually true…​

 

A 2021 report by Issue One, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, found that “twelve political megadonors – at least eight of whom are billionaires – are responsible for $1 of every $13 in federal elections since Citizens United and 25 percent of all giving from the top 100 ZIP codes – a total of $3.4 billion.”

 

These numbers only increased in favor of the billionaires as, over the past five years alone, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion.​

 

In 2025, a Washington Post analysis found that “billionaires are spending unprecedented amounts on U.S. politics. Dozens have stepped up their political giving in recent years, leading to a record-breaking surge of donations by the ultrarich in 2024. Since 2000, political giving by the wealthiest 100 Americans to federal elections has gone up almost 140 times… roughly 1 in every 13 dollars spent (in the 2024 national elections) was donated by a handful of the country’s richest people.” The Post further discovered that “overall, billionaires have rallied behind Trump’s Republican Party. More than 80 percent of the federal campaign spending by the 100 wealthiest Americans in 2024 went to Republicans.”​

 

Twelve billionaires – who had a combined net worth of $390 billion – held roles in the Trump administration in 2025. According to analysis by The Washington Post, excluding Elon Musk, “the billionaires in the Trump administration, along with their spouses, gave more than $52 million to Trump, pro-Trump PACs and the Republican National Committee in the 2024 campaign alone.”​

 

It just cannot be denied that Super PACs and dark money are the perfect way for corporations, unions, and rich people to influence elections and gain political influence and access. There is no better example of this than Elon Musk, who famously spent $294 million to support Donald Trump and other Republicans in the 2024 election. Next thing you know, he’s waving around chainsaws, became a permanent fixture at Mar-A-Lago, and was given free rein to almost destroy the framework of our entire federal government through his failed DOGE experiment.

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​This has to stop.