The Long Shadow of Citizens United
Sixteen years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the effects of its campaign-finance rules are hard to miss. Billionaires, corporations and industries including crypto, AI and sports betting are pouring money into elections through a system that can make it difficult to see who is really behind the spending. But the fight over political money isn’t happening only in Washington. States are testing new approaches to limit corporate influence — and reshape who gets a say in American elections.
How Big Money Took Over American Elections
Through a series of cases, including the recent Watson v. Republican National Committee, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has enabled a flood of unregulated dollars into elections. But the landscape that emerged after Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010), in which the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on campaign spending by outside groups, laid the groundwork for unchecked corporate spending seen today. Written by former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Citizens United decision gave way to the age of super PACs and a complex web of other “intermediary organizations” that don’t disclose their donors.
From the Reporter’s Notebook 📓
It’s easy to paint the country’s current slide toward technocratic authoritarianism as a departure from the status quo of American democracy. But built into the framework of American democracy lies a series of moral conflicts and contradictions that claim to promote fairness but have done the opposite. Every major decision this country has faced has always come down to money, power, and respect.
Corruption and chaos from the regime make it clear that we cannot simply repair or restore systems that have been overrun and broken down. These issues do not exist in a vacuum and will not be solved through siloed approaches. Getting big money out of politics remains one of the most important fights to move the promises of American democracy from aspiration to sustained reality. We need a broad cultural shift that moves the American default away from accepting economic exploitation as a matter of right.
Next Up in the Series: Mental Health Care
For Americans, getting mental health care can mean navigating inaccurate provider directories, months-long waits, denied claims and out-of-network restrictions. Next week, Repairing America looks at how those barriers have become embedded in the health care system — and what patients, advocates, and lawmakers are doing to change it.
Read More From the Series
How Congress Can Take Back Its Power Over the Courts
Congress has the constitutional power to expand the lower courts, reshape the Supreme Court, limit its jurisdiction and restore checks on an increasingly powerful judiciary.
Read Lisa Needham’s feature here.
What If We Treated Housing Like a Human Right?
America’s housing crisis is the product of decades of underbuilding, restrictive zoning, rising costs and policy choices. There are ways out — if we’re willing to think differently about housing.
Read the reporting from Ryan Biller here.
The Student Debt Crisis Needs More Than Another Repayment Plan
As borrowers face rising payments and an increasingly chaotic loan system, experts and advocates are pushing for solutions that address the cost of college itself — from stronger grants to free college and debt cancellation.
Read the feature from Rainesford Stauffer here.
America’s Child Care Crisis Was a Political Choice
For decades, the U.S. treated child care as a private responsibility instead of a public good. States are now testing a different future.
Read the full piece from Elliot Haspel here.
America’s Public Health System Was Too Easy to Break
Replacing Trump’s health officials won’t be enough. Rebuilding America’s public-health system means restoring scientific expertise—and creating safeguards that can survive the next administration willing to ignore it.
Read the rest from Kavin Senapathy here.
About the Series: What Would It Take to Actually Fix This Country?
Our new series looks past the churn of daily news to interrogate the systems shaping American life, and offers tangible fixes to the problems we collectively face.
Read the full introduction to the series here.