All posts tagged "citizens united"

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.

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.

All a state would need 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 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.

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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.”

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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.

A criminologist explains how Americans achieve a post-Trump democracy

Now that the first criminal trial of Donald Trump is underway in a New York courthouse and is potentially the only one that will be decided before people start voting around Labor Day, there are two political objectives that I believe are necessary to implement if the United States is ever to “fix” what ails or troubles our American democracy:

Defeat Trump’s third attempt to become president and re-elect President Joe Biden to a second term of office. This will require aggressive election campaigning and coordination by anti-Trumpers, never Trumpers, Democrats and independents and has everything to do with saving our multiracial pluralistic democracy from its imminent demise should Trump and his minions retake control of the White House.
The second goal involves changing the anti-democratic elements of our political system, such as the Electoral College, which have been in the works since after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat. These political efforts will have to be expanded and more organized than they have been up to now. They are also predicated on the defeat of Trump and possibly the implosion of the Republican Party.

By no stretch of the political imagination will these objectives be easy. The first of these will be comparatively a lot less difficult to achieve than the second. However, the second of these will be impossible to accomplish without achieving the first.

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Regarding the 2024 election: To counter Trump and to establish a blue wave this fall, Biden and his re-election campaign should pivot and lean into anti-establishment populism that has increasingly attracted blue-collar workers. Much of the legitimate anger felt by such Americans has been captured by the propagandistic America First/MAGA movement. In turn, most of this anger has been successfully misdirected at the rule of law, the Democrats and Biden.

This same anger was also captured by the genuine ways in which Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did so in the Democratic primaries of 2016 and 2020. Unlike Trump and his cronies, Sanders was not gaslighting his constituents to win them over.

If “Middle Class Joe” can successfully recapture this anger like Bernie did, then the anger can be redirected back at Trump and GOP, where it justifiably and overwhelmingly belongs.

‘Make ends meet’

Most people in our body politic — Republicans and Democrats — understand that neither our political or economic systems are as healthy or as fair as they could be. At the same time, most Americans of both parties do not understand why these unhealthy and unfair realities still persist in the richest country with the strongest economy and the lowest inflation worldwide.

Similarly, because average Americans are better off today than they were four years ago according to the available measurements, many voters do not appreciate that millions of Americans are still suffering.

For example, millions of people — from families, to the elderly to single men and women experiencing homelessness — are struggling to “make ends meet.” And they are being stymied, paradoxically, by the relatively higher wages in more than a generation coupled with the higher costs of student debt, childcare, rent, mortgages, food and so on. Higher costs of entertainment, leisure activities and even going out for dinner factor in, too.

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On the one hand, Biden and the Democrats need to confront these realities. They need to explain what they have been doing to improve these social conditions such as canceling student debt. They must also explain what they’ll continue to do to improve these social conditions should Biden be re-elected, like establishing universal childcare for all families.

On the other hand, the Democrats need to emphasize what the Republicans have never done and will continue not to do to address these social conditions. In fact, it is Republicans’ lack of policies and resistance to improve these social issues in the past, present and foreseeable future that will continue to exacerbate them.

As political scientist Damon Linker wrote in an April 8, 2024, opinion piece for The New York Times, “Biden needs to meet the people where they are.” Because if America is not exactly broken as Linker claims, or is only half broken as I argue, there are still plenty of legal reforms that need to be realized across the political economy of the United States.

Hence, Biden — the idealist, the institutionalist, and middle of the road centrist — should continue to celebrate our vibrant economy as well as those bipartisan accomplishments during the first two years of his administration.

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That includes the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021 that has already funneled billions of dollars into blue and red states alike. And the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law in August 2022, the most comprehensive climate legislation in U.S. history.

It must also include repeated mention of the bipartisan foreign aid bill passed by the House for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan over the weekend.

At the same time, Biden should also be underscoring all the negativity, chaos and counterproductive activities of the do-nothing and obstructionist Republican majority since they recaptured control of the House back in January 2023.

For example, Republicans have not passed any legislation whatsoever to run on, as Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) put it. Moreover, as obstructionists, House Republicans even tanked the toughest bipartisan bill in decades on “border security” introduced by the Senate earlier this year — for no other reason than Trump wanted it unaddressed so that he could have one issue of substance to talk about.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are forming yet another circular firing squad in what could lead to their third House speaker in seven months if the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) get their way.

Highlight Trump's idea void

To re-accentuate: Whether we are talking about lowering the costs of education, childcare, and medicine; protecting the rights of ordinary workers, consumers, or women’s reproduction; or expanding the basic necessities of health care and social security for all, Biden should be stressing what he has been doing. And what he intends to do when re-elected by focusing attention on a concrete Democratic platform with a reform agenda to address the broken parts of our political and economic systems.

The Biden campaign should further emphasize how neither Trump nor the GOP have ever had any ideas whatsoever, let alone an affirmative platform — recall that the Republican National Convention of 2020 had no new party platform at all — to address even one of these anti-establishment populist grievances. Besides deregulation of all things and tax breaks for corporations and the richest Americans, they have no other agenda other than feebly trying to cut medicare and social security for all.

With or without Trump, Republicans do have Project 2025. This not-very-covert authoritarian agenda to control the government Trump-style recommends repealing both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

And should the insurrectionist-in-chief, who is facing 88 felony counts across four criminal cases, be elected to POTUS for a second time, both the agendas of the far right and the Supreme Court majority of gutting the Constitution of many of its checks and balances will continue as they have been doing officially since at least 2010.

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In sum, with a soon-to-be-criminally-convicted Trump back at the helm in the White House, corruption and lawlessness will run rampant. With a strongman presidency, the nation will become a legal oligarchy creating a nearly bullet-proof immunity for the morbidly rich, fuller personhood for corporations and less-than-equal rights for individuals.

Post-Trump, but not post Trumpism, there are several efforts that are already underway with the goal of countering the anti-democratic and rule of law authoritarianism. If incorporated as a whole, then they would transform our democratic political system from a “tyranny of a minority” to a “tyranny of a majority.”

This is the only way to overcome the duopoly of political power in the United States that is at the root or heart of what currently ails and threatens American democracy.

Institutionally, and in no particular order, these aspirational reformist changes include:

Doing away with the undemocratic Electoral College, political gerrymandering and all forms of bicameral filibusters.
Overturning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, privately financed elections, Supreme Court decisions that facilitate political and economic corruption, and those parts of our legal infrastructure that are increasingly enabling, for example, regressive taxation, the lack of universal health care and the inadequate ecological protocols, debt relief, and international humanitarian engagement.
Expanding the number of the U.S. House of Representatives from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the eight U.S. territories.
Employing the same types of dynamic practices of change, revision and innovation characteristic of the 50 state constitutions as a means of reforming our U.S. Constitution which comparatively has been largely static, if not stagnant, and which has not been meaningfully amended for more than one-half of a century.
Establishing a multi-party and proportionately representative democracy to replace our antiquated two-party or bipartisan representative democracy.

A tyranny of the majority — or direct rule by the people, which has nothing to do with mob rule or rule by the masses — in conjunction with the other constitutional and legislative reforms would expand the democratic representation of the people at the federal level not unlike at the state level. Where, for example, people have direct rather than indirect representative power by way of referendums and initiatives.

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To not institutionalize these political and economic changes, or to remain a tyranny of a minority as we have been for the last 250 years, will only perpetuate the dysfunctionality and extreme partisanship that has become synonymous with American democracy and its body politic.

If not countered or checked, our tyranny of a minority will also allow for future wannabe authoritarian presidents to pursue any of their uninhibited dreams of an illiberal democracy, at best, or a fascist regime, at worst.

Gregg Barak is an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice and the author of several books on the crimes of the powerful, including Criminology on Trump (2022) and its 2024 sequel, Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy.

EXCLUSIVE: Congress raids presidential campaign fund in surprise reversal

Congress quietly drained hundreds of millions of dollars from a largely unused presidential campaign fund to provide a jolt of cash to the United States Secret Service and election security grants, Raw Story has confirmed.

The massive raid of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund was included late last week in Congress’ latest government funding package, which President Joe Biden signed into law.

Raw Story could not confirm which member, or members, of Congress are responsible for inserting language in the middle of the 1,012-page bill that tapped the fund to the tune of $375 million.

But the ramifications are clear: The Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which publicly funded White House aspirants’ campaigns from the 1970s to late 2000s, will now provide $320 million to the Secret Service and $55 million for election security grants as a part of the $1.2 trillion funding package that averted a partial government shutdown, according to a Raw Story review of legislation.

The $320 million will be directed to “operations and support” for the U.S. Secret Service, according to the legislation, which provided 11th-hour funding to major government departments through September.

The Secret Service, which provides security for the president, vice president (and such candidates), along with foreign heads of state, can use the funds for a variety of purposes — from purchasing vehicles to overtime pay to travel accommodations. Former President Donald Trump, in particular, has refused to reimburse local law enforcement at his presidential campaign rallies, and the Secret Service has previously stated that it cannot reimburse municipal governments for these public safety costs because it hasn't received money from Congress to do so.

The Secret Service acknowledged questions sent by Raw Story, including those about how the agency would use its new funding windfall. But, it did not respond by the time of publication.

The $55 million designated for “election security grants” will be distributed to states within 45 days by the Election Assistance Commission to “improve the administration of elections for Federal office, including to enhance election technology and make election security improvements,” the bill said.

The Election Assistance Commission, a small federal agency that has faced threats by congressional Republicans to its very existence, has experienced drastically dwindling federal funds since 2018, according to Votebeat, who first reported on the use of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund for Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) grants given to states.

Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission told Raw Story that federal funding for HAVA grants was $380 million in fiscal year 2018, $425 million in fiscal year 2020, $75 million in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, and now $55 million for fiscal year 2024.

“When you look at that number, that's less than we've seen in recent years, but I think that one of the things that is important about it is that it shows continued federal investment into election security and election administration,” Hovland told Raw Story in a phone interview. “We regularly hear from election administrators about the need for additional federal funds and then we hear about the need for consistent federal funds.”

The grants have been used by states to update voting equipment, create cybersecurity training programs, enhance physical security “to protect our election officials from physical threats” and to combat artificial intelligence disinformation, Hovland said.

The latest balance of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund was just over $404 million as of Feb. 28, according to figures from the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Election Commission has not approved matching funds for any 2024 presidential candidates, said Myles Martin, a spokesperson for the Federal Election Commission.

“The Commission will continue to evaluate submissions for either primary matching funds or general election funding for candidates who choose to apply for them, as well as continue to provide updates on the balance of the fund, which are received on a monthly basis from the Department of the Treasury,” Martin said.

The United States Treasury did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment. The Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Services acknowledged Raw Story’s questions but did not respond by the time of publication.

‘Modernized, not gutted’

Thank then-candidate Barack Obama for effectively rendering the Presidential Election Campaign Fund obsolete when he opted out of using it during the 2008 presidential election.

While the fund showered presidential candidates with public money, it also placed restrictions on how much they could raise overall — restrictions that Obama initially said he’d accept before changing his mind.

Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, accepted money from the fund. He was the last major party presidential nominee to do so.

Sen. John McCain was the last major presidential candidate to take public matching funds from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. (AFP Photo/Chip Somodevilla)

Since then, presidential candidates of any stature have largely declined public funding for their campaigns, whether during presidential primaries or general elections.

This is due in large part to the general loosening of campaign finance restriction during the past 15 years, including the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed corporations, unions and certain nonprofits to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against candidates. It also gave rise to super PACs — political committees that may do the same.

The lack of use caused the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to balloon to $445.6 million last year.

For years, members of Congress, nonprofits and government watchdogs have called for campaign funding reform or reallocation of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which is fueled by cash from Americans selecting a voluntary $3 check-off box on their annual federal income tax forms.

The Presidential Election Campaign Fund had been “rotting on the vine due to the failure to update both the amounts and the timing of the grants” for at least a decade, said Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program.

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“Major party candidates know that they can raise more money and have a better primary strategy without it,” Vandewalker said. “Nothing more needs to be done to kill it legislatively. What needs to be done is to have it updated to make it viable for major party candidates to use.”

Some government reform groups say decimating the Presidential Election Campaign Fund is the wrong move.

“While no major party presidential candidate has used it for a number of years, this system should be updated and modernized, not gutted,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at nonprofit government reform group Common Cause.

Scherb said Congress should reform the fund to meet the realities for campaign fundraising today, “not divert the money for other uses.”

“For taxpayers who check the box to have a small portion of their tax allocations go to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, they did it specifically for this fund, not for some other reason,” he said.

As the government faces a $828 billion deficit and ongoing hyper-partisan battles threatening government shutdowns over the past year, it’s not surprising that the Presidential Election Campaign Fund got pulled into budget negotiations, Vandewalker said.

“It would be great if the presidential public financing funds were updated and made useful to candidates and used for its intended purpose,” Vandewalker said. “Obviously, it's understandable that as it's not getting used for its intended purpose, that it's going to be a ripe target in budgetary planning.”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) previously told Raw Story the Presidential Election Campaign Fund would be better used to close the nation’s budget gap.

“It's just sitting there … This is just a small effort on many other efforts that we have in trying to tackle this budget,” Ernst said in 2023. “You’ve just got to get out there and raise money if you're gonna play, so why do we do this?”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has advocated for a repurposing of Presidential Election Campaign Fund money. (WHO)

Ernst did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Common Cause and the Brennan Center both support small-dollar donor match systems for funding presidential elections and the Freedom to Vote Act, which aims to curb partisan gerrymandering and the influence of big money in politics.

“Too often big and dark money calls the shots in politics,” Scherb said. “Certainly, money will always play a role in politics, but this Presidential Election Campaign fund kind of provides an alternative path to give more of a megaphone to nurses and teachers and firefighters in the political system to make sure that their voice can be heard at the presidential level.”

Another bill that’s stalled in Congress, the Empowering Mass Participation to Offset the Wealthy’s Electoral Role (EMPOWER) Act, would support a small donor match system and “revitalize presidential campaign public financing,” according to a February press release.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) reintroduced the bill alongside Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). None responded to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) called for the complete elimination of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund in January 2023. He has sponsored the Strengthen the Pediatric Research Initiative Act, which if passed, would transfer the remaining funds into pediatric research.

Cole’s congressional office did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who serves as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which oversees federal elections, did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Prior to this month, the last expenditure from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund occurred in July, providing nearly $47.5 million to the National Institute of Health for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, a 10-year initiative funding pediatric research.

In 2014, Obama signed legislation that eliminated the use of the fund for national political party conventions, diverting the money that would have otherwise been used for that purpose toward research supporting childhood cancers and diseases.

Supreme Court cowards are hiding behind a hollow ethics code. Here’s how to fix that.

Justice Samuel Alito claims Congress has no power to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court.

And the high court’s embarrassing new “Code of Conduct” seems to concur. The court’s newly adopted code is notable for its permissive tone and lack of teeth, and confirms that justices answer to no-one.

Instead of mandating, directing or using the word “shall,” as most judicial canons do with directives, the code grovels before its own authors, flattering them with deferential suggestions that justices “should,” “should not” and might “endeavor to” act in certain ways.

The code also only looks forward, not back, dismissing very recent and serious ethical transgressions and gross conflicts of interest by some of the nation’s most powerful jurists, most notably Justice Clarence Thomas.

Meek and submissive, the code provides no penalties or provisions for investigating justices’ misdeeds and breaches. Utterly lacking any kind of enforcement, the code fails to create an entity or panel with oversight authority, like an inspector general, and instead invites justices to remain their own judges.

SCOTUS claims it’s all a misunderstanding

Another sore defect is the code’s lack of recusal, a matter raised consistently after Justices Alito and Thomas ruled in favor of their benefactors and self-interests, and after Thomas flat out refused to recuse himself from a case involving Trump’s efforts to stay in power, a cause in which his wife, Virginia, was deeply involved. While federal law mandates judges’ recusal in conflicts like these, SCOTUS’ adopted code merely suggests that the justices “should” disqualify themselves.

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Even the opening statement is self-deferential: “The absence of a Code has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”

Someone should hand up the memo: America’s “misunderstanding” didn’t form in a vacuum. Justices Alito and Thomas don’t just “regard themselves as unrestricted” by ethics, they have so egregiously violated the rules of fair play they shouldn’t be allowed to serve. They certainly have no moral authority to impose their 18th century religious views on 350 million Americans.

Thomas luxuriates in a conservative donor’s uber-wealth

Gifts lavished on Thomas and his crusading wife, Ginni, taste, feel and smell appropriately lux: island hopping on staffed superyachts; pampered vacations worth millions over two decades; bougie boarding school tuition; a free refurbished home for mom; disguised provocateur “fees” for Ginni, and exclusive travel on private aircraft meant for heads of state.

The Thomases have luxuriated in conservative Harlan Crow’s uber wealth for decades. Meanwhile, most judges won’t even accept a free lunch, scrupulously avoiding any appearance of conflict. Clarence and Ginni Thomas show us how it’s done: not just the free lunch, but also the chef, the estate he toils in and a private jet, yacht and custom RV to travel to the secluded island it sits on.

These modern-day ermine furs have been bestowed on a Supreme Court justice who, in return, grafts unyielding conservatism onto a 230-plus-year-old founding text that was never meant to be static.

From his perch on the high Court, Thomas has advanced putative “originalist” 1791 values — as he selectively curates them — from an era when women had no vote or voice and humans were legal chattel.

According to Thomas and his federalist friends, the meaning of the U.S. Constitution must be fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it. Where advancements in modern science or technology over 200 years interject pesky ambiguity — as they will — Thomas meets the moment by spinning history, pronouncing his own views as “original” to the founders.

Clarence Thomas: Marriage for me but not for thee

Thomas’ originalist ruse has put a gun in every hand, while threatening Americans’ right of privacy. In Dobbs, the Court’s results-driven departure from Roe v. Wade, Thomas wrote a concurring opinion that questioned the entire right of privacy, saying he would go further — much further — than the majority.

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Thomas suggested that the Supreme Court ‘reconsider’ its prior substantive due process cases because the right to privacy, he says, is not supported by the Constitution. Specifically targeting Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell decisions, Thomas says citizens have no protected privacy right to contraceptives, same-sex sex, or same-sex marriage.

Analysis supporting the Constitutional right to same sex marriage in Obergefell flowed directly from Loving v. Virginia, the landmark case that struck down anti-miscegenation laws under the 14th Amendment. Thomas saved for another day how he would protect his own mixed race marriage to his wife Virginia under Loving while outlawing marriage for others under the same analysis.

Alito preserves his own fossil fuel wealth

As for fossil-fuel darling Alito, he accepted an expense-paid Alaskan fishing retreat with Paul Singer, a billionaire fossil fuel investor, major GOP donor and hedge-fund manager with cases before the court. The exclusive junket was arranged by Leonard Leo, a Federalist Society extremist who fights climate science and works to put conservative jurists with similar views on the federal bench.

Around the same time as the 2008 fishing trip, a not-for-profit called Citizens United released a film designed to hurt Hillary Clinton, who was then running for president in the Democratic primary.

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When the film was challenged under limits set by the Federal Election Commission, a judge granted summary judgment to the FEC, and the Supreme Court took up the case. Alito then joined a 5-4 majority to change 100 years of election law, striking key aspects of federal law’s century-old limit on corporate campaign expenditures, opening the floodgates for special interests and corporate dark money to buy the outcome of national elections.

In the decade following Citizens United, according to TruthOut, entities animated or enriched by the decision, such as “social welfare” nonprofit organizations, nonprofit business leagues and super PACs, have together spent several billion dollars to influence federal elections.

Samuel Alito Samuel Alito (Photo by Nicholas Kamm for AFP)

From a baseline of $32 million in 2010 (the year Citizens United was decided), billionaire spending on elections rose exponentially to $232 million in 2014, $611 million in 2018, then $881 million in 2022.

No SCOTUS decision — not even Dobbs — has been more controversial than Citizens United, which allows high wealth donors to spend hundreds of millions in “dark money” — cash that’s difficult if not impossible to trace back to a root source — to protect fossil fuels, the National Rifle Association and other lucrative and destructive right-wing causes.

Alito intentionally blurred the record

Responding to criticism about his trip with Singer and his failure to report it on his financial disclosures, Alito hasn’t addressed campaign finance or the pernicious effects of Citizens United. Instead, Alito delivered a misleading rebuke wrapped in entitlement.

On his failure to recuse, Alito claims he was unaware of Singer’s interest in at least 10 cases before the Court, even though Singer’s role was heavily covered by the media. He explained, “Mr. Singer was not listed as a party … The entities that ProPublica (which broke the story) claims are connected to Mr. Singer all appear to be either limited liability corporations or limited liability partnerships.”

Corporate entities, Alito well knows, do not typically include the names of directors, investors or major shareholders in case captions except in rare cases asserting personal liability, so this excuse was deliberately deceptive.

Alito also said he’s reviewed “hundreds of thousands” of petitions for certiorari review, falsely suggesting there were just too many cases for him to know about his fishing buddy’s cases.

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The exceptionally well-staffed Supreme Court hears only 100 to 150 cases each year, so Alito has heard 2550 cases at most over his entire 17 years on the Court, not “hundreds of thousands.”

He also invoked Supreme Court Rule 29.6 to legitimize his claim that staff — not he — checks for conflicts of interest, and that it is “utterly impossible” for his staff to search filings with the SEC to identify individuals with financial interests before the court.

Rule 29.6 requires disclosure of company interests, not individuals’ like Singer’s, and his staff didn’t go on a personal junket with Singer, Alito did.

Even if his misleading explanation(s) on recusal somehow passed the sniff test, Alito also recently voted to dismantle EPA climate protections, while his wife was profiting from fossil fuel sales on family land.

Right after Mrs. Alito leased her Oklahoma land for oil and gas production, negotiating profits of 3/16ths of the sales for the Alito household, Alito voted in West Virginia v. EPA to kneecap the EPA’s efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Failure to recuse costs lives

Alito and Thomas are in bed with donors protecting the deadly NRA and fossil fuel agendas. Justice Amy Coney Barrett comes from oil, too. Her father was heavily involved with the American Petroleum Institute for decades.

These justices, and any others with NRA or oil and gas connections, should automatically recuse from climate and gun cases. Their refusal to do so has had and will continue to have enormous life and death implications.

Over 600,000 Americans have died by gunshot since SCOTUS re-wrote the 2nd Amendment in the Heller decision.

As for fossil fuels, no industry has benefited more from Citizens United than oil and gas, whose expenditures on federal elections — including a massive decades-long disinformation campaign — quadrupled from 2010 to 2020 according to OpenSecrets.

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Even as the planet burns, Alito continues to double down on Citizens United; he regularly delivers speeches defending the nefarious outcome, while simultaneously disputing climate science. The oil-funded Federalist Society, equally dismissive of climate science and enamored of Citizens United, features a YouTube video on their website explaining how allowing corporations to influence elections is a matter of “free speech.”

Fossil fuel origins of climate destruction are scientifically irrefutable, even in oil-well Texas. When coastal cities are underwater and Midwestern crops refuse to grow, it will be up to a Supreme Court of the future to serve justice on “dark money” and its gilded beneficiaries such as Alito, Thomas, Singer and Leonard Leo, whose destructive legacy will be sealed in the history books.

Or… justices could consider their grandchildren, break the guns-and-oil suicide pact, and adopt a legitimate code of ethics.

As for Congress, which Alito says has no power over the Supreme Court when it comes to mandating strict ethics codes? One justice does not decide what the law is.

But don’t for a moment get your hopes up: In 2023 alone, 26 members of Congress have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, according to a Raw Story investigation, and financial conflicts among lawmakers are widespread. Attempts for Capitol Hill to get its own House in order have so far stalled.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25-year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Follow her on Substack.