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campaign finance
'Citizens United 2.0': GOP Pushing a Pair of Supreme Court Cases That Would Further Legalize Bribery
Journalist David Sirota writes that the cases, each firmly backed by the Trump administration, are aimed at "incinerating any remaining deterrents to pay-to-play corruption."
Oct 14, 2025
Fifteen years after the Citizens United ruling opened the gates for corporate money to flow into US elections, the Supreme Court will soon hear another pair of cases that journalist David Sirota says are aimed at "eliminating the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery."
One of the cases, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC), was launched in 2022 by then-Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance (R-Ohio), now the vice president of theUnited States, and several other Republicans, who argued that limits on coordinated spending violated the First Amendment.
The limits in question, which were imposed after the Watergate scandal, put a cap on the amount of money that outside donors can spend in direct coordination with their favored candidates.
"Though Citizens United unleashed a 28-fold increase in election spending, the ruling preserved the legality of campaign contribution limits," wrote David Sirota in Rolling Stone on Tuesday. "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."
In 2001, the court, then presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, upheld the limits by a margin of 5-4, with Justice David Souter writing in the majority opinion, "there is little evidence" that they "have frustrated the ability of political parties to exercise their First Amendment rights to support their candidates."
This time, Republicans in all three branches of government have seemed to work in tandem to get the law overturned.
In a highly unusual move, the Trump administration's Department of Justice has refused to defend the FEC. And contrary to his job as the federal government's lawyer, Solicitor General John Sauer—who also served as President Donald Trump's lawyer in the case that granted him "presidential immunity" from prosecution last year—has joined the Republican plaintiffs in calling for the Supreme Court to strike down the law.
Without the government to defend the law, the Supreme Court was put in charge of appointing an amicus curiae—"friend of the court"—lawyer to take up the FEC's defense.
The justices chose Roman Martinez, a member of a group run by the right-wing Federalist Society who has spent most of his career working for Republican presidential campaigns and has clerked for conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh and later Chief Justice John Roberts during the time he was deliberating Citizens United. Since 2016, when Martinez went into private practice, he "has led high-profile cases for corporate clients and political lobbying interests," according to The Lever.
The most notable of these was a case last year before the Supreme Court that overturned the Chevron doctrine, which had given government agencies leeway to interpret ambiguous statutes as they saw fit. Martinez, who has described himself as an opponent of "government overreach," called Chevron “a doctrine that puts the thumb on the scale in favor of the government.”
While experts have said they still believe Martinez will take his job seriously, having an outsider defend the coordinated spending limits puts the defense at a structural disadvantage: "It’s very different than when an agency with decades of expertise is defending their own law,” said Tara Malloy of the Campaign Legal Center.
Lever reporters Jared Jacang Maher and Katya Schwenk described the case as a "Citizens United 2.0" that, if successful, would further obliterate limits on campaign spending:
Since 2022, party committees reported $241 million in coordinated spending, compared to over $858 million in "independent" expenditures on individual campaigns. Striking the coordinated-expenditure cap could shift vast sums into direct, mega donor-driven collaborations between parties and candidates.
At the same time, the court is also hearing a case, Sittenfeld v. United States, with wide-ranging implications for the government's ability to prosecute politicians who accept bribes. The case was brought by former Cincinnati City Councilman PG Sittenfeld, who was caught accepting a $20,000 campaign contribution in exchange for supporting a local development project.
Though Sittenfeld is a Democrat, he has already been pardoned by Trump and is challenging his conviction with pro bono representation from the DC law firm Jones Day, which has served as counsel for Trump's campaigns as well as the Republican National Committee and helped defend Trump's cases to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
"Those circumstances and all that legal firepower make clear that this is less about one shady municipal deal and more about broadening a string of rulings making it increasingly impossible to prosecute public corruption cases," Sirota argued.
The court already narrowed the definition of bribery substantially last year when it ruled that statutes criminalizing overt "quid pro quo" deals between politicians and donors did not ban "gratuities"—gifts of value given to politicians after an act has already been performed. This was notably the exact form of corruption that conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas participated in when they received substantial gifts from billionaire right-wing donors.
"Sittenfeld’s appeal aims to take the Supreme Court’s legal assault on anti-bribery laws even farther," Sirota said. "In legal briefs, his lawyers are offering a novel theory: They insinuate that pay-to-play culture is now so pervasive that it should no longer be considered prosecutable."
One brief even cites Trump himself as a primary example of this endemic corruption: On the campaign trail in 2024, he directly asked oil executives for $1 billion in campaign cash, pledging to do favors for the industry in return. Sittenfeld's lawyers argue that a "prosecutor could doubtless present this meeting alone as at least ambiguous evidence of a quid pro quo" and lament that “politicians are open to prosecution if they say anything during these often informal, unscripted conversations that can be read to even hint at a possible quid pro quo.”
Sirota said these two cases follow the same tactics used during Citizens United, using a small dispute over a technicality to legislate major changes to campaign finance law that could never get through Congress.
"It’s the same dynamic today," he says. "Conservative groups behind today's two new cases undoubtedly hope that their spats over the esoterica of campaign finance and bribery law prompt the even-more-conservative court to not merely mediate these specific conflicts, but to issue broad rulings instead incinerating any remaining deterrents to pay-to-play corruption."
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Mamdani Holds Huge Lead in NYC Mayor's Race, But Top Dems Still Won't Back Him
Voters trust Mamdani more on issues from affordability to crime to Israel-Palestine, but one strategist says party leadership is likely still refusing to back him due to "donor pressure."
Sep 09, 2025
Progressive state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani holds a "commanding" lead in New York's upcoming mayoral election, according to the latest polling. But his continued momentum is still not enough for some top Democrats to get behind him, even as President Donald Trump openly colludes with his rivals.
A New York Times/Siena poll published Monday has Mamdani, a democratic socialist state assemblyman, 22 points north of his nearest challenger, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom he soundly defeated in the Democratic primary earlier this year.
Last week, several outlets reported that the Trump administration has been working behind the scenes to clear the field for Cuomo by offering administration posts to other mayoral candidates, including Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, and Republican contender Curtis Sliwa in exchange for them dropping out of the race.
Cuomo's identity as Trump's horse has ratcheted up the pressure for top Democratic leaders—namely the Empire state duo of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—to throw their weight behind Mamdani. But with the election now less than two months away, they have still refused to budge, to the increasing frustration of the party's base and its progressive leaders.
Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called out these leaders directly, asking on the steps of the Capitol: "Are we a party who rallies behind our nominee or not?"
"I am very concerned about the example that is being set by anybody in our party," she continued. "If an individual doesn't want to support the party's nominee now, it complicates their ability to ask voters to support any nominee later."
During a stop on his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Brooklyn native, said New York Democrats should be "jumping up and down" to support a candidate who has galvanized young voters like Mamdani.
Speaking of party leadership, Sanders said: "It's no great secret that they're way out of touch with grassroots America, with the working families of this country, not only in New York City, but all over this country."
That sentiment was shared by the liberal tastemakers on the popular podcast Pod Save America. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau called out leadership by name, saying their hesitancy to endorse Mamdani was "pathetic."
"Donald Trump's going to try to get Eric Adams out of the race so he can help Andrew Cuomo," Favreau said. "Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have not yet endorsed the candidate who won the Democratic primary in New York City, the choice of the Democratic voters. Because why, because they don't want to get involved in a primary in a city, in the state they represent?"
Favreau questioned what happened to the "rule that when a Democrat wins the primary, we've all got to unite behind the nominee... because we are facing an authoritarian threat."
Cuomo, he said, "is basically participating" in that threat by being "on Donald Trump's side."
According to CNN, this reluctance is widespread across New York Democrats:
Reps. Yvette Clarke, Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres have not said they plan to support Mamdani. Rep. Gregory Meeks, who endorsed Cuomo in the primary, has also remained silent along with Rep. Grace Meng, who represents parts of Queens.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mamdani have had "a number of conversations," Hochul said recently, and the two have met in person. Speaking separately to a Politico reporter, Hochul dismissed the talks between Adams and Trump aides with a profanity. Still, she has not made an endorsement.
Sources told CNN that the reticence stems in some part from the "public threat by Mamdani's democratic socialist allies to primary Jeffries and other congressmen" as well as Mamdani's "ties to democratic socialists and his criticism of Israel."
Sanders countered that Mamdani's were "not radical ideas."
"We're the richest country in the history of the world," he said. "There's no excuse for people not having affordable housing, good quality, affordable, decent transportation, free transportation."
Not only did the Times/Siena poll find Mamdani leading in the coming election, but voters also said they trusted him most on issues across the board, including ones that party grandees fear will be liabilities.
He holds leads over all comers, not only on his bread and butter issues of affordability and housing, but also on crime, taxation, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In an interview on CNN, former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod suggested that the refusal to back Mamdani was probably the result of "donor pressure."
Though Mamdani has surged in recent months with small-dollar donors, big money in the city has been behind Cuomo and other centrist candidates.
The biggest of these is the billionaire-funded Fix the City PAC, which received an $8.3 million donation from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and as of late August had dropped more than $15 million to keep Cuomo afloat.
Another fund, called New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor '25 has yet to declare a favorite, but has both barrels locked on Mamdani. Under a similar name, this PAC marshalled support for more than a dozen corporate-friendly city council candidates early this year, with support from the pro-Israel hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and several major players in New York's real estate industry. It has announced a goal of raising $25 million to defeat Mamdani in November.
Axelrod said that the party leadership's fealty to these donors over the groundswell of support for Mamdani was "a mistake."
"He ran on the issue of affordability and on a kind of positive politics that got—as Bernie said—many, many young people in that city to involve themselves in the process," he said.
Axelrod also added that, despite Jeffries' claim that Mamdani has yet to win over voters in the House leader's district, the insurgent candidate, in fact, "carried Hakeem Jeffries' district" by a 12-point margin.
Former Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss said that Axelrod's diagnosis of "donor pressure" was "correct."
"But," he said, "we should also be completely clear that 'donor pressure' is just a polite way of saying 'political corruption.'"
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Susan Collins Advanced Trump Tax Bill After Receiving $2 Million from Private Equity Billionaire
The five-term Maine senator's populist opponent has seized on her ties to Wall Street, saying: "I don't think private equity deserves more time with a senator than someone who works two jobs to get by."
Sep 04, 2025
As she gears up for a tough midterm race against a progressive challenger in 2026, Sen. Susan Collins is struggling to shake her reputation as a sellout to corporate interests. A new report out Wednesday may make that even more difficult.
Collins (R-Maine) was one of just three Republican senators not to vote for President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" Act in July, which slashes over $1 trillion from Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts for the rich and is expected to result in over 10 million people losing health insurance coverage.
But Collins did cast a crucial vote to advance the legislation to the Senate floor. An exclusive report from Tessa Stuart in Rolling Stone gives us damning insight into a possible reason why:
[Collins] cast that vote just one day after private equity billionaire Steve Schwarzman, the chair of the Blackstone Group and a man who will personally reap huge rewards from the bill, kicked in $2 million toward her reelection effort.
On June 27, Schwarzman gave $2 million to Pine Tree Results PAC, a Super PAC backing Collins; on June 28, Collins cast a decisive vote allowing Trump's bill to advance to the floor. The vote was 51-49. Vice President JD Vance was present at the Capitol, on hand to break a tie, but was not needed after Collins voted in favor of the bill.
The bill went on to pass the Senate just a few days later, to Schwarzman's presumed delight, since the legislation both extended the pass-through business deduction—treasured by the owners of private equity firms—and made it permanent, allowing partnerships to deduct 20% of their pre-tax income.
Collins' office has strongly denied that Schwarzman's influence had anything to do with her vote to advance the bill. As press secretary Blake Kernen noted, a tie in the Senate would have been broken by Vance, so "the motion to proceed would have passed without her vote."
However, Stuart notes that this was not Collins' first conspicuous donation from Schwarzman or the private equity industry at large.
According to OpenSecrets, Collins' campaign committee and leadership PAC received over $715,000 from private equity and investment firms—more money than any other person elected to Congress during the 2020 election cycle. It included maximum individual contributions from both Schwarzman and his wife.
That number does not include an additional $2 million that Schwarzman donated to her reelection super PAC in 2020. As Stuart points out, this donation came after Collins dropped a proposed amendment to Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, opposed by private equity. That amendment would have "[made] childcare more affordable, by making changes to the private equity industry's beloved carried interest loophole," Stuart wrote.
While Collins denies that her votes are influenced by the piles of money gifted to her by private equity, one of her most formidable challengers in 2026, oyster farmer and Marine veteran Graham Platner, has often seized on her extensive industry ties to hold her up as the poster child for the "oligarchy" he is trying to unseat from power.
"I believe that input from working people is far more important than input from someone who simply has money," Platner thundered during a Labor Day speech in Portland alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "I believe that we shouldn't be settling for crumbs while billionaires eat the cookie we baked. I don't think private equity deserves more time with a senator than someone who works two jobs to get by."
If Democrats are going to regain the Senate in 2026, Maine will be an essential state to win, something that looks increasingly possible as approval ratings for Collins have plummeted over the first half-year of Trump's second term.
Nearly 7,000 attended Platner's speech, during which he railed against the five-term senator Collins' long history of casting "symbolic" dissenting votes against her party, like opposing Trump's tax legislation, or voting to codify Roe v. Wade, to posture as a "moderate" without actually disrupting their agenda.
"Susan Collins' charade is wearing thin," Platner said Monday. "No one cares that you pretend to be remorseful as you sell out to lobbyists. No one cares while you sell out to corporations, and no one cares while you sell out to a president, who are all engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in American history."
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