Michael Scherer: “Fifteen years after Mitt Romney stood on an Iowa hay bale and proclaimed that ‘corporations are people, my friend,’ his declaration is no longer mockable. The amount of money corporations spend anonymously to sway federal elections has increased from $359 million in 2012 to $1.4 billion in the most recent presidential cycle. All of that spending by ‘dark money’ nonprofits is protected by the same right to free speech enjoyed by ‘natural persons,’ because the Supreme Court decided in Citizens United v. FEC that U.S. corporations function as citizen associations under the Constitution.”

“But not all of these ‘people’ are created exactly equal. Whereas humans are automatically granted certain rights at birth, corporate personhood comes into existence under state laws that define its powers—a fact that opponents of corporate money in politics hope to use to transform how U.S. elections are funded.”

“Hawaii is the first state to try. Earlier this month, a nearly unanimous and bipartisan majority—well, as bipartisan as it gets in a state with so few Republicans—of Hawaii’s state legislature voted to change the powers of corporations doing business in the state and no longer grant them the ability to spend on most political causes.”

“For a brief moment in American history, the rich didn’t control politics,” the New York Times reports.

“Back in 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed new campaign finance restrictions that would have largely eliminated the ability of wealthy people to buy elections. In addition to donor disclosure rules and contribution limits, the new legislation capped so-called ‘independent expenditures’ on behalf of political candidates at $1,000 a year. There were even curbs on what rich people could spend to get themselves elected…”

“Flash forward to the 2024 presidential campaign. Six of the nation’s wealthiest billionaires spent more than $100 million apiece to help get another billionaire, Donald J. Trump, elected president. Independent expenditures by wealthy outsiders for the first time in history exceeded what the candidates’ own campaign committees spent.”

New York Times: “Three Republican-led House committees investigating the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue are increasing their pressure on the organization, sending a letter demanding documents that the committees say ActBlue improperly withheld from a subpoena request.”

“We’re spending a shitpile of money on elections right now, and I don’t think we’re getting a better informed public at the end when they go to the voter’s booth.”

— Former Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), quoted by Issue One.

New York Times: “Across America, there has been a remarkable shift in the type of people who fund politics.”

“The biggest thing is that they often aren’t people at all.”

“The 10 largest individual donations so far in the midterm elections? They total almost $300 million — and none of them came from a human being. Some of the origins can be deduced, but other checks came from a series of little-known nonprofits whose original donors will most likely never be known.”

A law firm working for ActBlue last year warned the Democratic fundraising giant that its CEO “had given a potentially misleading response to congressional Republican investigators in a 2023 letter explaining how the organization vetted donations to ensure that they were not illegally coming from foreign citizens,” the New York Times reports.

“The memos instigated a meltdown at the highest levels of ActBlue, one of the Democratic Party’s most vital financial organs. A series of top officials resigned in quick succession… Democrats are nervous that any additional upheaval at ActBlue could destabilize the party’s critical fund-raising apparatus ahead of the midterm elections.”

“Silicon Valley billionaires have been seething over the threat of more taxes and regulations at home. Now, a proposed nine-figure fund aims to give wealthy Californians an unprecedented tool to reshape the state’s politics in their favor,” Bloomberg reports.

“The fund is being pitched to some of the state’s richest residents as an endowment that would operate in California for decades to come… Organizers are seeking $100 million this year, with hopes of reaching at least $500 million and up to $1 billion in the coming years.”

Wired: “Unlike traditional fundraising models like super PACs that pool funds from publicly reported donors, these creator collectives pool audiences and leverage social networks and off-the-shelf tools like Shopify and Tiltify to convert followers into donors.”

The New York Times found that “300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees.”

“Five presidential elections ago, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that lifted many remaining campaign finance restrictions, the share of billionaire spending was almost zero — 0.3 percent, to be precise.”

Despite campaign finance laws preventing coordination between campaigns and super PACS, the New York Times found anonymous X accounts with links to Rep. Wesley Hunt’s (R-TX) U.S. Senate campaign sharing strategic information, private polling and messaging advice with outside allies for months.

Texas Tribune: “If Texans want to know who’s funding the deluge of ads in the final stretch of the U.S. Senate primaries, they’ll need to keep guessing.”

“The race is awash with dark money, or contributions from political nonprofits that are not legally obligated to disclose donors, according to campaign finance reports that were due Thursday.”

“A super PAC supporting one of the Democratic candidates, James Talarico, reported $6.1 million in contributions from Jan. 1 through Feb. 11. But more than half that came from a political action committee that was entirely funded by a dark money group on its last monthly report.”

“And as Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston tries to squeeze into a primary runoff on the Republican side, a group supporting him — and another opposing him — are also being mostly funded by anonymous sources, according to the filings with the Federal Election Commission.”

“Taken together, the reports show that big-money interests are heavily invested in the Texas primaries — but unwilling to reveal their identities at a critical juncture of the race.”