Each issue, The Progressive poses one question to a panel of expert voices—writers, thinkers, politicians, artists, and others who help shape the national conversation. For our October/November 2024 issue, we asked: How Can We Get Big Money Out of Politics?
Tiffany Muller
President of End Citizens United and Let America Vote
We must elect leaders who are committed to bold, decisive action on democracy reforms. Right now, Congress is sitting on several transformative bills, like the Freedom to Vote Act and the Democracy for All Amendment. These bills, if passed, would profoundly curb the influence of unlimited and undisclosed money in our elections. But Republicans are preventing action on these reforms at every turn to protect their own power and appease their donors.
The future of our democracy depends on leaders with the courage to reform our broken campaign finance system in a post-Citizens United world. Voters hold the power to enact these changes by demanding accountability and electing candidates who will deliver on democracy reforms.
This November, make sure the candidates in your state and district stand on the right side of this issue.
Sam Pizzigati
Inequality.org co-editor and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow
To significantly shrink Big Money’s political influence, we need to limit how big Big Money can be.
Why? Consider our most basic election reform: limits on individual contributions to candidates. Our wealthiest now routinely skirt these limits by pouring mega-millions into “independent” political committees. We could undercut these committees by insisting on disclosures that eliminate “dark money.” We could level the playing field even more by combining public campaign financing with limits on campaign spending.
But our richest will still hold outsized political influence so long as we let them amass outsized fortunes. They can flood the public with think-tank white papers, buy media organizations to twist the news, and their corporations can ensure aspiring candidates lucrative employment.
Louis Brandeis had it exactly right: We can have a democracy or great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. We can’t have both.
Anne Nelson
Author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right and member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame
Big Money has become a mounting problem in American politics since the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010, which opened the floodgates for corporate campaign funding. The damage is obvious on a national level, but states have felt the impact, too. A number of states have tried to ban corporate and union contributions to state-level campaigns, but some of these measures have been repealed or struck down by the courts.
Twenty-three states prohibit corporations and unions from contributing to political campaigns, five set no limits whatsoever, and the rest set differing limits. States also set an astonishing range of limits for individual contributions to candidates, ranging from Alabama, which sets no limit at all, to Massachusetts, which allows only $1,000 per candidate.
These measures make it harder for ordinary citizens to run for office or support the candidates of their choice. State legislatures should take a hard look at the way Big Money is polarizing their statehouse politics, and join the states that place limits on corporate, plutocrat, and dark money campaign financing.