BIG money in politics is why the GOP/oligarchs have “captured” the Supreme Court

We need to end big money in politics to save our democracy!

If you are upset with the GOP Supreme Court decisions on everything from the Voting Rights Act to overturning Roe v Wade, then please understand the connection between big money (more specifically “Dark Money”) and this corrupt court’s agenda. That is a big reason why on my SiriusXM show we just presented “Dark money” week. The goal was to showcase guests that share exactly how corrupt our campaign finance system—especially when it comes to untraceable “dark money” donated by the wealthy and corporations to shell companies and organizations not required to reveal who funds them.

In the 2024 presidential race, the Brennan Center for Justice detailed that these dark money groups “plowed more than $1.9 billion” into the election—up from $1 billion in 2020. And that was all legal—thanks in large part to the GOP Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010.

In fact, the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA) last week is all part of the dark money scheme. As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) noted in conversation, the U.S. Supreme Court has been “captured by dark money” from conservative corporate interests. That is why he fully expected the Court to gut the VRA because it helps the GOP remain in control of Congress and in turn deliver tax cuts for the wealthy, less regulations and more for their wealthy donors.

I spoke to Senator Whitehouse who shared details on the obscene amount of legal contributions to campaigns and ways to address it. Sen. Whitehouse has long championed a law that would mandate disclosure of dark money—which he believes will result in a 60% or 70% less of that money being raised because many of the people funding it want to remain unknown. You can check out my discussion with Sen Whitehouse below.

I also spoke to Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) who shared how big money in politics has impacted what bills the GOP committee chairs will allow to be discussed. She noted how bills were suddenly pulled because some big donors reached the GOP committee chair and demanded it. This is yet another example of why we must remove this money from our system by either state laws or reforming the Supreme Court. Below is my conversation with Rep Balint:

Big money also has a big impact on campaigns—as we all have seen. I spoke to Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about AIPAC naming him their top candidate to defeat in this cycle and that they are now poised to (legally) spend millions to do just that. However, AIPAC’s ads don’t talk about Israel or note AIPAC is behind them, instead they create companies with nice sounding names like “Michiganders for Progress.” And, again, our current system makes that type of dishonesty 100% legal.

Want an antidote to all of this? Well David Sirota—an award-winning journalist and author of the book “Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America”--laid out that the plan of the oligarchs is total control so that democracy is nothing more than a “ceremony.” Yet he is still optimistic that we have the power to rein them-as long as we have the will. Sirota—who created The Lever—focused on public financing as being one of the best ways to reduce the influence of big money in politics.

And Tiffany Muller—the President of End Citizens United—joined me to talk the efforts of state actors to rein in big money. We are seeing these efforts in Hawaii where a bill taking on Citizens United just passed the legislature and there is a ballot initiative in Montana doing the same. Both proposals define what powers corporations operating in their state have and prohibits them from having them from spending money in our politics. Yes, there will be court challenges but this is big test that could be copied in other states.

What is remarkable is that polls show that one of the few issues Democrats and Republicans agree on is that there is too much money in politics. A new Politico poll found 80% of people who voted in 2024 for VP Harris and 77% of Trump voters agree: “There is too much money in American politics.”

Other polls have found nearly 80% of Americans believe big money in politics in corrupting and should be limited. And polling is clear Americans oppose Citizens United and what it has done to our political system with the flood of money:

The real-world impact of this outrageous spending is that the average person thinks their vote is meaningless when compared to the oligarchs. In fact, more than 3 in 4 Americans (76%) — including 84% of Democrats, 68% of Republicans, and 77% of independents — agreed in a recent poll that “the appearance of wealthy donors or corporations gaining influence over or access to elected officials causes me to lose faith in this democracy.”

We all get that these wealthy people and corporations are not making campaign donations. Rather, they are making investments.

And in return for donating $200 plus million like Elon Musk did in 2024 to help Trump, they want something very tangible in return from government contracts to no investigations into their illegal practices to policies enacted that help them.

We have the worst government money can buy. But there are ways to reduce the influence of big money with state and federal laws. Of course, given the Supreme Court will rule on whether these laws are constitutional, we need to reform (expand) the Court to end this corrupting “dark money” and rein in campaign funding. This would be a big step in returning the power to the people.

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