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citizens united
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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'Unprecedented': Trump Can't Run Again, So Why Is His Super PAC Raising Record-Busting Sums of Cash?
"Trump's super PAC has used pay-to-play to raise big money from special interests like a legalized shakedown," said an advocate for Public Citizen.
Aug 06, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is constitutionally prohibited from being elected to a third term in office, but that's not stopping his super political action committee from raising eye-popping sums of money.
A report from the Brennan Center for Justice released on Tuesday found that MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting Trump's political campaigns, raised an "unprecedented" sum of $200 million between last November's presidential election and the end of June 2025. This massive war chest is more than six times the amount that former President Joe Biden's super PAC raised between the November 2020 election and the end of June 2021.
The Brennan Center also said that MAGA Inc. has become "almost exclusively a game for the richest of the rich," with 96% of the money it's received over the last seven-plus months coming "from donors who gave more than $1 million each." This massive fundraising haul raises serious questions about where this money is going, presuming that Trump isn't going to try to run for an unconstitutional third term.
The biggest donors to the super PAC have been entities that might benefit from regulatory or policy changes that the government could enact: Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, donated $25 million; investor Jeffrey Yass, whose company Susquehanna International Group owns a large stake in the parent company of Chinese social media app TikTok, donated $16 million; and Foris Dax Inc., the firm behind Crypto.com, donated $10 million.
Advocacy group Public Citizen on Monday took a look at the donations pouring into MAGA Inc. and found that cryptocurrency companies, executives, and investors had forked over a total of $41.7 million to the PAC, while fossil fuel companies and executives had shelled out $26.8 million.
Jon Golinger, democracy advocate for Public Citizen, said that the massive sums being given to the PAC should raise real questions about corruption.
"The real question this mega-donor list raises is not 'how much,' but 'who from?'" he said. "By taking contributions from wealthy individuals and industries who want something from government, Trump's super PAC has used pay-to-play to raise big money from special interests like a legalized shakedown."
The Brennan Center similarly raised corruption concerns and said the super PAC's dealings were yet another example of how the
U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to scrap all limits on campaign donations from corporations and outsized interest groups had damaged the integrity of American politics.
"The degree to which wealthy donors appear to be using super PAC contributions to curry favor with the Trump administration once again illustrates how wrong the Supreme Court was... when it predicted that the 'independence' of groups like super PACs would prevent them from becoming vehicles for real or perceived corruption," the Brennan Center wrote.
A report from Politico last week suggested that the MAGA Inc. war chest could give Trump unprecedented power for an incumbent president to influence the 2026 midterm elections.
"Having millions of dollars at Trump's disposal—an unheard of amount for a sitting president who cannot run again—could allow him to become one of the biggest single players in next year's midterms, alongside long-standing GOP stalwarts like the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund," explained Politico. "Trump could boost his preferred candidates in GOP primaries, or flood the zone in competitive general election races in an effort to help Republicans keep control of Congress."
Trump has not yet ruled out running for a third term in office even though the United States Constitution's 22nd Amendment explicitly states that "no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice."
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SCOTUS v. Democracy: 7 Supreme Court Decisions Brought Fascism to America
Trump v. CASA, Inc. was the coup de grace, capping six earlier and toxic SCOTUS decisions which, scattered over two centuries, collectively enabled this moment.
Jul 07, 2025
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision on June 27, 2025 created in President Donald Trump an American fascist dictator.
The decision in the case Trump v. CASA, Inc. did not seem momentous. It declared only that Federal District judges could no longer issue “universal” injunctions to foreclose nationwide harm; they could now grant relief only to a plaintiff in a specific lawsuit. But the decision was far from trivial: Trump v. CASA, Inc. was the coup de grace, capping six earlier and toxic SCOTUS decisions which, scattered over two centuries, collectively enabled fascism.
In deciding Trump v. CASA Inc., the six conservative justices of the Roberts Court agreed with the Republican Party’s inane claim: The injunctions of Federal District judges across the country were impeding President Trump’s ability to govern.
A president who can break laws at will is a dictator. The political system creating and accommodating this condition is fascism. Donald Trump is a dictator heading a fascist regime.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller: “Our objective, one way or another, is to make clear that the district courts of this country do not have the authority to direct the functions of the executive branch.”
Attorney-General Pam Bondi: “Active liberal… judges have used these injunctions to block virtually all of President Trump’s policies.”
The argument is laughingly specious, plausible but dead wrong in describing what is actually transpiring. It is no more than misleading spin, resting on two audacious assumptions: (1) The “functions of the executive branch” never violate the law, and “President Trump’s policies” certainly have not. (2) The “active liberal judges” who think otherwise are knee-jerk partisans with not a shred of professional integrity.
Injunctions in lawsuits are issued to block the defendant’s illegal action from continuing to harm the plaintiff, when the judge determines the lawsuit is warranted and the harm is serious. Federal District judges deal with issues nationwide in scope—their purview is every bit as wide as the Supreme Court’s—and if they believe the harm from the defendant’s action poses a threat to the nation at large, the injunction is applied “universally” across the country. We have followed this protocol since it was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789.
Federal District judges do not engage in blocking actions they know to be legal. The injunction in the case at hand and some 40 others against Trump were issued by judges who thought his actions were not, and were harmful nationwide.
Did they make judgment calls? Yes, Federal District judges don’t do anything else. Do they ever make bad ones? Certainly, but they err on the side of caution. If they’ve misjudged, and the enjoined action turns out to be legal, its interruption does no serious social harm. If they’ve judged correctly, and the action is in fact illegal, its interruption prevents serious social harm.
Here, then, is what Mr. Miller, Ms. Bondi, et al., are truly seeking: No Federal District judge should be empowered to protect the nation’s well-being from President Trump’s illegal actions.
And that’s what the Supreme Court’s decision has now codified.
Trump v. CASA is truly cataclysmic. After 236 years of upholding the rule of law, the Supreme Court has now offered Trump an off ramp. He can violate any law he pleases and not be enjoined from jeopardizing the American people.
A president who can break laws at will is a dictator. The political system creating and accommodating this condition is fascism. Donald Trump is a dictator heading a fascist regime.
Fascism is defined in scholarly literature as far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist governance, characterized by a dictatorial leader, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, frequently a fusion with corporate power, and often a cult of personality.
Here we are.
The Supreme Court’s first toxic decision occurred in 1803, in the case of Marbury v. Madison. With no constitutional authority to do so, Chief Justice John Marshall’s Court overturned a law passed by an elected Congress and signed by an elected president. How democratic was that? SCOTUS has exercised the power of judicial review ever since, throwing out both federal and state laws.
Corporate oligarchy was the intermediate step between government by the people and fascism.
The next devastating decision was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 83 years later. In this case the court upgraded the status of U.S. corporations from artificial persons created by state charters, to that of legal persons, with constitutionally protected rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, petition for redress of grievances, and freedom from unlawful search and seizure. Corporate personhood is prima facie preposterous—in fact its granting was technically illegal—but today it is “settled law.”
The misfortunes of judicial review and corporate personhood joined forces in two more SCOTUS decisions, in 1976 and 1978. Buckley v. Valeo found unconstitutional the Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, and declared spending money in political campaigns is an exercise of free speech. Two years later, in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a state law prohibiting corporations from spending money in political campaigns. The court concluded, citing Buckley, spending money in political campaigns is free speech and corporations have that right, protected by the Constitution.
But money doesn’t utter sounds or leave marks, and corporations don’t walk, eat, breathe, make love, or succumb to disease. Money is speech and corporations are people? How can that be? These two absurd concepts set the nation on the path to fascism.
Both Buckley and Bellotti, however, retained some minor restrictions on corporate spending: “Some conditions apply.” But spend the corporations could, and savagely they did. Over the rest of the 20th century, American corporations exercised their rights of free speech to dominate campaign finance, and their rights of petition to dominate congressional and executive branch lobbying. When the constant stream of corporate money became more influential in Washington than citizens’ episodic votes, democracy was displaced. Corporations succeeded in tilting the crafting of public policy to favor corporate interests over the American people’s well-being. (The nation’s physical infrastructure decayed, for example, while the defense corporations prospered.) Corporate oligarchy was the intermediate step between government by the people and fascism.
The minor restrictions on corporate spending were lifted by the next toxic decision, Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. The court declared corporate political spending could not be constitutionally constrained. “Some conditions [no longer] apply.”
The grip of corporate oligarchy tightened, expressed vividly in the first Trump administration’s slashing of corporate taxes. But at the end of those four years the transition to fascism appeared in dramatic fashion, when Trump refused to leave office, and his cult of personality stormed the Capitol.
Trump was subsequently indicted in two federal cases involving his presidency, for a total of 48 felonies. He denied everything and fought back, claiming his prosecution would handicap future presidents’ freedom of choice, especially in national security issues, if they feared prosecution when out of office. He took his case to SCOTUS.
The Roberts Court showed its propensity for accepting inane arguments. In Trump v. United States, July 1, 2024, the court declared immunity from prosecution for former presidents, if their violations of law were incidental to “official acts.”
No one is above the law, the Roberts Court proclaimed, except presidents.
Then a year later Trump v. CASA Inc. was the straw that broke democracy’s back.
SCOTUS v. DEMOCRACY brought us fascism and fashioned a dictator. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority continues as Trump’s compliant servant. Pam Bondi is his defense attorney. The sycophantic Republican Congress passed a law massively enriching the corporate and the wealthy at the direct expense of everyone else. No democracy on Earth would do that, ever.
And no country is a democracy if commanded by a single unaccountable man.
Trump can violate, has violated, is violating, will violate any law he chooses and face no universal injunctive interdiction. If he is sued for violating federal statutes and Pam Bondi fails with demonstrated vigor to dismiss the charges, his prosecution is postponed by Department of Justice policy until he is out of office. And once out of office Trump is immune.
But that may not happen. he may not leave office. If Trump can ignore the 14th Amendment in voiding birthright citizenship, he can ignore the 22nd and run for a third term. Or he might declare martial law and suspend elections altogether.
What will stop him? He’s 79. Maybe death. Anything else?
Angry, well informed, organized, and committed people are already protesting in the streets. That could stop him, but only if the movement grows larger.
Toppling Trump is by no means out of reach. Scholars Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan tell why in their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Based on their rigorous research into historic conflicts, they offer a “rule of thumb.” An autocratic regime is in mortal peril when 3.5% of the people register civil resistance.
Doing the math we need a bit more than 12 million Americans to do this, and we may be about halfway home. An estimated 4-7 million individuals have joined in thousands of protests multiple times since Trump was inaugurated.
So, people, we have to get that many more into the streets. Full stop.
This article is drawn from a book the author is completing, The Triumph of Corporate Oligarchy: How It Defeated Democracy, Savaged a Thriving Nation, Normalized Fraudulent War, and Brought Forth Donald Trump.
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