Ahead of the Democratic National Committee's upcoming summer meeting in Minneapolis, organizers with the grassroots advocacy group Our Revolution on Thursday delivered a petition with 13,000 signatures calling on committee members to adopt DNC Chair Ken Martin's proposal to take a major step toward banning dark money in presidential primaries.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Martin's proposal directed the DNC Committee on Reforms to identify "real, enforceable steps the DNC can take to eliminate unlimited corporate and dark money in its 2028 presidential primary process."
The panel is set to vote on the issue on August 27 as the DNC wraps up the summer meeting.
The DNC has in the past declined to allow votes on resolutions that sought to ban dark money—undisclosed and corporate funds that can go towards election efforts through issue-advocacy groups—with the committee's resolutions panel refusing to bring the issue up for a vote twice in five months in 2022-23, after super PACs had spent $1.35 billion on the 2022 midterms.
While super PACs are legally required to disclose their donors, many effectively act as dark money groups because the sources of their funding are difficult to trace.
"For too long, billionaires and corporate super PACs have drowned out the voices of working people," said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, on Thursday. "Democrats can't claim to be the party of working people while letting dark money groups and corporate elites choose their presidential nominees. This resolution is about putting power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not billionaire donors."
Paco Fabian, campaign director for Our Revolution, told Common Dreams that Democratic leaders have long been driven by the "fear of scaring away funders that provide a lot of money to the party."
"This resolution is about putting power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not billionaire donors."
Our Revolution backed Martin's run to lead the DNC earlier this year in part because of his call for the party to rein in corporate and dark money spending in elections, said Fabian.
"I think he understands that in the past, especially in Democratic primaries, they haven't necessarily been shared contests," Fabian said. "The DNC can really make it a fairer process where it's not about who spends the most money. It's really about who convinces the most people to support them based on their policy positions."
Martin's proposal does not seek to ban super PACs from Democratic primaries, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has demanded, but the progressive senator—whose 2016 presidential campaign led to the founding of Our Revolution—applauded the step urged by the DNC chair earlier this month.
"Congrats to the DNC for starting the process to ban Big Money from presidential primaries," said Sanders.
Martin's proposal notes that the Democratic Party must "demonstrate its willingness to reject certain types of donations if it hopes to win the trust of voters," according to The New York Times.
"The DNC encourages Democratic officeholders and candidates at all levels of government to support efforts to reduce the influence of corporate and dark money in their campaign policy platforms, and to lead by example in rejecting such donations," reads the resolution, which does not specify how candidates would be held to account for accepting dark money from outside groups.
Larry Cohen, board chair of Our Revolution, wrote in The Nation on Friday that "candidates could be required to sign some version of the 'People's Pledge' agreed to by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown in the 2012 general election for the U.S. Senate," which required a candidate benefiting from "big money independent expenditures [IE] to donate a similar amount, from their campaign funds to a designated charity."
"Campaign funds are far more valuable than IE money, providing a powerful deterrent," wrote Cohen.
Cohen emphasized that in Democratic primaries, "big money has often weighed in on behalf of centrist Democrats and against progressives," with independent expenditures including dark money hitting record highs in 2024 "as millions of dollars poured into several districts in the weeks before primary elections, demonizing leading Democratic candidates" such as former Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).
Cohen added:
For those of us focused on progressive social change, this spending has blocked candidates committed to our entire agenda including workers' rights, Gaza ceasefire, financial reform, rent control, Medicare for All, and renewable energy. The Congressional Progressive Caucus which had been advancing towards a majority of the Democratic Party Caucus, has now seen incumbents defeated and new progressive candidates blocked by the onslaught of money from crypto, fossil fuel, and an endless parade of corporate spending, AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) and other right-wing groups, as well as Republican billionaires.
Our Revolution delivered the 13,000 petition signatures a day after the Times reported on the Democratic Party's plummeting voter registration numbers, with all 30 states that track voter registration by political party finding that Democrats ceded ground to the Republicans between 2020-24.
While Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between those years' presidential elections, the GOP gained 2.4 million.
Fabian expressed hope that Martin's resolution could be the first step towards "a real boon" for the party.
"It can really bring in folks to the party where they're like, 'Okay, it's not about money now. It's about people. And that means I feel like my voice will be heard, as opposed to the current system where my voice will only be heard if I bring a bag of money with me.'"
