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GET READY FOR CITIZENS UNITED 2.0  
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Meagan Day
July 14, 2025
Jacobin [[link removed]]

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_ Is it possible for American democracy to be further degraded by the
influence of billionaires? Thanks to champion of the working class J.
D. Vance and his right-wing friends, including “dark money
kingpin” Leonard Leo, we may soon find out. _

JD Vance at a cabinet meeting.,

 

The _Citizens United_ Supreme Court decision in 2010 is rightly
remembered as a devastating blow to American democracy, spawning
legions of super PACS and dark-money groups with unlimited funds to
bring anyone who contravenes donor interests to heel. Outside spending
in federal elections has skyrocketed
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time of the ruling to a staggering $4.5 billion in 2024.

Now the Supreme Court dares to ask the question: Is it possible to
make this bad situation even worse?

The court just agreed to hear a case
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fall
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could result in undermining already-weakened campaign finance law. The
plaintiffs in _National Republican Senatorial Committee et al v.
Federal Election Commission et al__ _are seeking to emulate
the _Citizens United _strategy, positing moneyed influence in
politics as a First Amendment freedom. Federal restrictions limiting
coordination between national party committees and candidates would be
abolished.

A ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor would mean that corporations and
wealthy individuals could spend freely on committees, which could then
funnel money to candidates, bypassing existing finance restrictions
(which created the need for super PACs in the first place).
The _Lever_ calls the upcoming case a “corruption bomb
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and estimates that its impact will rival _Citizens United_ if its
plaintiffs are successful in winning over the Supreme Court.

The case originated from a 2022 Ohio lawsuit filed by current vice
president and self-styled champion of the working class
[[link removed]] J.
D. Vance. The case was designed
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ascend through the court system to the Supreme Court, where it could
serve as a pretext for overturning a previous ruling against exactly
the kind of regulation skirting its plaintiffs are after. Vance’s
original lawsuit was part of a broader coordinated strategy
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conservatives to chip away at the last remaining protections against
corporate money in politics.

Perversely, the Republican plaintiffs have argued their case
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citing the rise of super PACs since _Citizens United _as a
problem_, _claiming that their preferred outcome would slow their
ascent. That’s one way to look at it, I suppose. If corporations and
billionaires have yet another wide-open channel through which to
influence the US electoral system and they’re able to spend directly
on party committees, that probably _will _minimize those
corporations’ and billionaires’ need for Super PACs. It would also
increase their overall influence in politics.

The Trump administration, through the Department of Justice, declined
to defend existing federal campaign finance laws. Instead, the
administration submitted a brief to the Supreme Court supporting the
plaintiffs. Dark-money groups spent $1.9 billion
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the 2024 federal election cycle, up from $1 billion in 2020, with the
bulk of it going to Trump’s presidential campaign.

The administration was joined in its support of the case by a cast of
usual suspects, including the US Chamber of Commerce and the
Republican Governors Association. Little wonder: while Democrats have
raked in a considerable amount
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corporate money since _Citizens United_, the Republican Party
has outpaced them
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to one. Eight of the top ten largest donors in 2024 gave to
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candidates, with the largest single donor, Elon Musk, contributing
over $290 million to Donald Trump and other Republican races.

The GOP, high on Donald Trump’s reelection victory and the
establishment of a 6–3 conservative supermajority in the Supreme
Court, is keen on taking the lucrative strategy — which Sen. Bernie
Sanders calls “legalized bribery
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to the next level.

To their credit, several official Democratic Party entities have
motioned to intervene against the plaintiffs in the case. Still, very
few Democratic politicians have actually run campaigns without
corporate money since _Citizens United_. Notable exceptions include
Sanders and fellow democratic socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and
Zohran Mamdani, all of whom have refused the help of super PACs on
principle.

Dark-Money Ouroboros

An important force behind the upcoming Supreme Court case is Leonard
Leo, a conservative legal activist and Trump adviser who sits at the
helm of a vast dark-money network
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largely responsible
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delivering the court a right-wing supermajority. Leo is
sometimes referred to
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as a “dark money kingpin.” Now, he’s using his financial
networks built in the aftermath of _Citizens United_ to secure the
influence of dark money itself.

Leo has devoted decades
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carrying out the Federalist Society’s
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of filling the country’s courts with conservative ideologues. The
hope is that judges can succeed in advancing right-wing projects where
legislatures, hampered by majoritarian politics, have failed. His
fingerprints were all over the Supreme Court’s
2022 _Dobbs_ decision overturning_ Roe v. Wade_, for which Leo
handpicked three
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the justices who voted in the majority and orchestrated the broader
legal strategy.

Beyond bountiful judicial appointments, Leo’s nonprofits and their
subsidiaries have recently pushed states to tighten voting laws, tried
to scrub public-school curricula of content that runs afoul of
conservative orthodoxy, and financed organizations pressing states to
remove millions of Americans from the Medicaid rolls. Leo
describes his goal
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“operationalizing and weaponizing” conservative ideas “to crush
liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our
society.”

Leo’s network, particularly through nonprofits like Marble Freedom
Trust, the Concord Fund (formerly Judicial Crisis Network), and Rule
of Law Trust, has provided substantial financial support for legal
challenges aimed at dismantling campaign finance regulations. These
groups are known for channeling large sums to support lawsuits and
amicus briefs that push for deregulation of political spending.
This _Citizens United 2.0_ Supreme Court case is the pièce de
résistance, and J. D. Vance’s original lawsuit was critical to the
operation. Vance has long been connected to Leo, joining his Teneo
Network group in 2018 and delivering a private speech
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members at a 2021 retreat.

The timing of the SCOTUS case is no coincidence. Current finance law
was put in place by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which
was later amended in 1974 to create the Federal Election Commission
(FEC), the regulatory body that has since overseen and enforced
campaign finance law. But right now, the six-member FEC is in profound
disarray. Missing three members due to two resignations and one
controversial firing, it lacks quorum
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Thus it is unable to appear in court, make statements, or otherwise
defend itself and its remaining bedrock regulations. From the
standpoint of actors whose main interest is kneecapping the
commission, now is the perfect time to strike.

The broader implications of this legal gambit extend far beyond
campaign finance into the foundational structures of American
governance. If successful, the case would mark another milestone in
the systematic capture of democratic institutions by wealthy
interests, following decades of strategic investments in judicial
appointments, think tanks, and legal advocacy organizations. If the
plaintiffs are successful, the ruling will accelerate the
transformation of elections into auctions, where deep pockets
determine outcomes. Wealth has already achieved a level of political
dominance that rivals or exceeds the robber baron era. _Citizens
United_ 2.0 could cement that oligarchic structure into
constitutional law.

_Meagan Day is an associate editor at Jacobin. She is the coauthor
of Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to
Democratic Socialism._

* Citizens United
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* Supreme Court
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* Dark Money
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