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citizens united
'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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10 Ways Trump 2.0 Is Making Our Lives Worse
Common to all of these aggressive moves is an ideology based purely on profiteering: The single guiding principle of this administration appears to be how much money can be extracted.
Sep 28, 2025
The first nine months of the Trump administration provide ample evidence of how much ground it has covered—or more fittingly, ravaged? We may, in fact, be running out of hyperbole to describe the magnitude of the impact.
Multiple actions, abetted by acquiescence from those who should not be acquiescing, are collectively changing our form of governance, the character of our nation, and our way of life.
Here is a considered top ten. Presenting them all in one blast emphasizes that the challenges we face at this moment are more daunting than anyone could have imagined 10 months ago.
Many of the actions on the list have been noted individually, analyzed and documented at length in various publications. I believe it useful to view them all together and ask whether anything can be done to slow down the juggernaut.
- Failure of US Congress to serve as a check and balance on President Donald Trump’s overreaches of executive authority;
- The Supreme Court’s submissiveness in the face of the president’s destruction of major governmental institutions;
- The Executive’s unchecked attempts to undermine the independence of regulatory entities including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission;
- The president’s arbitrary and capricious downsizing of the civil service, diminishing the federal government’s capacity for competent, ethical, and well-managed operations;
- The erosion of a viable two-party system in this country, whereby two loosely structured political bodies argue fairly and reasonably about proper courses of action for the nation. We now have one remaining party, the Democrats, faced off against a propagandist machine that hides behind the label “conservative,” but spends most of its energy spouting untruths;
- The caving of an array of university leaders and media moguls to blackmail schemes foisted on them by an administration that arbitrarily withholds funds allocated by Congress;
- A series of presidential actions in patent violation of the Constitution, notably trampling citizens’ right of free speech and the constitutional mandate on the separation of church and state;
- The denigration of the Democrats as the party out of power, compounding the disarray the party has brought upon itself. The result is the lack of clear, cogent, and consistent opposition messaging and coordinated leadership;
- The realization of the full effects of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on the governance of the country, whereby corporate mega contributions distort all efforts aimed at well-reasoned decision-making in service of the common good; and
- The deprivation of the constitutional rights of thousands of citizens and noncitizens through cruel and unlawful detention and deportation.
Common to all of these aggressive moves is an ideology based purely on profiteering. In contrast to a diversity of political, social, economic, or religious ideologies motivating governments past and present, the single guiding principle of this administration appears to be how much money can be extracted. Laws, ethics, social welfare concerns, all are set aside. Whether the matter is international trade, foreign citizens’ work visas, or the uses of natural resources, the focus is solely the money. No longer is there even a nod to good will, generosity, conservation, fairness, or citizens’ safety and health.
This conflagration may be impossible to extinguish. Extreme measures are in order, if not too late. As quickly as possible, a nationwide protest vote open to the entire electorate must take place, repudiating the actions of the administration and the failure of others to act in opposition. Simultaneously, a massive national resistance movement must coalesce, one that is well organized, well led, and enduring.
A footnote: I am befuddled that defenders of the Constitution, such as previous presidents, billionaire philanthropists, and opinion leaders—those with much more agency and resources than I can muster—have not already come together to mount such top-level efforts.Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders Cheers New DNC Push to Curb Dark Money in Democratic Presidential Primaries
"Billionaire-funded super PACs like AIPAC and crypto shouldn't be able to undermine democracy and determine Democratic candidates," said the senator. "This principle should apply to congressional primaries too."
Aug 12, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and the advocacy group he helped found applauded a new resolution from Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, revealed Tuesday, that aims to limit corporate and dark money spending in the party's next presidential primary.
CNN obtained a draft of the resolution that Martin plans to introduce at the DNC's August 25-27 meeting in Minneapolis. The outlet reported that it calls for creating a panel that would identify and study "real, enforceable steps the DNC can take to eliminate unlimited corporate and dark money in its 2028 presidential primary process."
The draft "does not explicitly mention" super political action committees, "and it's not clear whether it will ultimately restrict super PAC spending in party primaries," according to CNN. It also says that the "only way to solve for this problem in the long term is through congressional action, including a constitutional amendment" to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates to corporate spending on elections.
Still, Sanders (I-Vt.)—who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020—welcomed the proposal as progress, writing on social media Tuesday, "Congrats to the DNC for starting the process to ban Big Money from presidential primaries."
"Billionaire-funded super PACs like AIPAC and Crypto shouldn't be able to undermine democracy and determine Democratic candidates," he added, calling out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "This principle should apply to congressional primaries too."
Sanders and seven of his Democratic colleagues—Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Tina Smith (Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Peter Welch (Vt.)—wrote to Martin and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) in June, urging them to curb the influence of rich donors and super PACs in party primaries.
Last year's federal elections were devastating for Democrats, who lost not only the White House but also both chambers of Congress. In the wake of that, Sanders said that "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
"Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?" he wondered at the time. "Probably not."
While then-DNC Chair Jaime Harrison swiftly lashed out at Sanders in November, calling his critique "straight up BS," the forthcoming resolution is a sign that Martin may be listening to key progressives—as well as registered Democrats and Independent voters, who are frustrated with the party and want to see elected officials fight harder for working people.
Just before the February DNC election in which Martin was victorious, Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, the group that grew out of Sanders' first presidential campaign, declared that "this moment demands a Democratic Party that provides more than just reactive opposition to an administration bent on rigging our economic and political systems in favor of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals on Earth."
Geevarghese also stressed the need for "leaders who put the party's grassroots base ahead of the donor class" and reject corporate rule, and accused Democratic leadership of "failing disastrously to meet this urgent mandate."
On Tuesday, Geevarghese welcomed the reporting on Martin's proposal, saying that "for the last 15 years, the disgraceful Citizens United ruling has unleashed a flood of spending from dark money groups and corporate super PACs that has drowned out working people's voices and sidelined the progressive candidates our party needs to challenge the corrupt billionaire class."
"This resolution is a crucial step to ensure the Democratic presidential nominee is chosen by everyday people—not deep-pocketed donors and the special interests they serve," he added. "We urge every DNC member to rise to the moment, back this fight, and put power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not the billionaires."
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