money in politics

Fifteen States Against Citizens United

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This article was originally published on Red, Blue & Real, the author’s Substack publication. The version below includes sources and further reading.

Two Doors for Money Into Politics

Money in politics is a classically American conflict. In 2010, business interests gained an entirely new level of legal power. The change was not simply more money. It was a different kind of money, operating under different rules, in quantities that made the previous system look small by comparison.

Two federal court rulings that year dismantled major parts of a century of campaign finance law. One allowed corporations to spend directly on elections. The other created the super PAC system — unlimited independent spending, unlimited contributions, no effective ceiling.

The results reshaped American politics. Outside groups spent roughly $4.5 billion in the 2024 election cycle.5 Super PACs alone raised more than $5 billion.5 Dark money — political spending that does not disclose its original source — reached record levels approaching $1.9 billion.8

Fifteen states have now developed a legal theory intended to close the corporate spending door. The super PAC door is another matter entirely.

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Two Parties, One Machine

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The Political Machine

The American two-party system requires that you declare a party before you can participate in the voting system. This is the back door to authoritarianism. This is an authoritarian structure.

These days, authoritarianism generally arrives through democratic backsliding — elected leaders gradually take power away from voters and redirect it toward the machine that keeps them in office. The machine is a set of interlocking interests: party infrastructure, donor networks, media systems, and the officials who serve all three. It grows through accumulated small captures of democracy, each one normalized before the next one lands. Voter suppression, manufactured division, and information control are the visible tools. The two-party system is its foundation.

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It is All One Pot of Money

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Americans tend to think about the economy in sectors. The defense industry. The oil industry. The banking sector. The tech giants. This is a useful shorthand for what these industries produce — weapons systems, energy, credit, software — but it describes function, not ownership. The question this piece examines is a different one: at the level where the money actually accumulates, do these sectors exist as separate things at all?

The answer the ownership record suggests is largely no. The same concentrated pools of capital sit at the top of the shareholder lists across industries that are supposed to be distinct, supposed to compete, supposed to be governed by separate regulatory frameworks built around their differences. This piece assembles that picture — not sector by sector, but all at once — and asks whether economic activity at that scale is better described as productive or extractive.

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The Auction Block Democracy | Part 1 of Money in Politics

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The Auction Block Democracy: How the Fundraising Treadmill Corrupts Representation

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series on how wealth captures democracy and what we can do about it. The series explores the second most critical reform for American democracy: freeing representatives from dependence on wealthy donors.

Four hours a day. That’s how long your representative spends begging rich strangers for money.

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Clean Elections: Solutions That Work | Part 3 of Money in Politics series

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Proven solutions exist to free democracy from wealth capture. Seattle’s democracy vouchers tripled voter participation. Arizona’s clean elections system elected over 200 publicly funded candidates while doubling women’s participation. From local cities to entire states, public financing is transforming American politics by giving ordinary citizens a financial voice in elections.

Constitutional Reform and Corporate Accountability | Part 4 of Money in Politics

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Smart reforms can rebalance power in America by strengthening democracy, keeping markets fair, and holding corporations accountable. Part 4 of the Money in Politics series looks at the deeper structural changes that make this possible — from stronger enforcement to corporate accountability to constitutional reform. These are the foundations that can secure lasting democratic equality and fair competition for generations to come.

Building Coalitions Against Extraction | Part 5 of Money In Politics

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Americans have united across party lines before to break powerful systems of wealth extraction — and we can do it again. Part 5 of the Money in Politics series shows how building broad coalitions around shared constitutional principles can defeat special interests, restore fair competition, and strengthen democracy for everyone.