According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 72% of Americans stated that the role of money in politics is a very big problem. (Pew) This issue includes the money spent on Presidential and Congressional elections, and the additional money spent on lobbying those elected.
In the 2024 primary and general elections, a staggering $15.8 billion was spent, including 10.3 billion on Congressional races and 5.5 billion on the Presidential race! The average amount spent by a winner in the House was 2.8 million dollars and the average amount spent by a winner in the senate was 26.5 million dollars! (Open) This raises the obvious question, “what is the source of all this money?”
Some of this money may include the money spent on lobbying– the efforts to influence our leaders to pass or void legislation beneficial to a particular industry. This amounted to over 4.4 billion dollars in 2024! Pharmaceuticals and health products led these industries with lobbying expenditures of 387 million dollars. (Open source)
The top 100 individual donors contributed 5 million dollars or more and the top 12 donated 40 million or more! Elon Musk led the list at 291 million. Much of this money was funneled through various organizations or Political Action Committees (PACS) or “Super” PACS. Sixty-five candidates self-funded most or a large amount of their campaign expenses. In fact, six individuals contributed over 10 million to their own campaign and five of them lost in either the primary or general election! Approximately 2% of the U.S. population donated $200.00 or more to the 2024 elections. (Open)
Most of this money was spent on traditional media-TV and digital advertising. (Statista) Unfortunately, much of this advertising seems to be focused on misleading information and half-truths by both parties. Critically thinking listeners and readers are now faced with the task of fact-checking the information on their own or ignoring it. Political ads should be guided by higher standards of truthfulness.
The principal legislation and Supreme Court cases governing some of the important financial limits in our national elections are:
- The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, later amended in 1974 due to the Watergate scandal and campaign finance abuses, placed limits of $1,000 per individual or group to any one candidate, party or committee. Political committees were restricted to $5,000 per candidate. It also allowed for a matching government fund of $250 for every $250 received from an individual for a major presidential candidate. A separate grant was established to finance a presidential campaign if the candidate agreed not to accept any private financing. Contributions and expenditures were to be reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). (Sandler)
The FEC regularly updates the contribution limits for each election cycle. For the 2023-2024 election cycle they ranged from: $3,300 per individual to federal candidates and $123,900 per individual to additional national party committee accounts. The contribution limits included 6 Donor types and 5 different Recipient types. (Federal) This demonstrates the complexity involved with campaign financing and raises the issue as to how the FEC can possibly enforce those funding provisions on all the Donors and Recipients of our elections.
- The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 put an end to “soft money” contributions, previously unregulated by the FEC. “Soft” money is money contributed by tax exempt organizations that concentrate on issues or party-building activities rather than a particular candidate. ”Hard money” is funding permitted by the FEC that can directly finance a political party or campaign. The Act also prohibited “federal candidates from using corporate and union funding to launch television ads on satellite or cable within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election.” (Cornell)
- In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court struck down limits on expenditures while allowing limits on contributions. Contribution limits were upheld “because they act as a deterrent to quid pro quo corruption.” It also “established the principle that political money is speech.” (Campaign)
- In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the court stated that ”corporations and unions can spend unlimited sums of money on ads and other communications designed to support or oppose a candidate either on their own or through contributions to Super PACs and dark money groups…but are still prohibited from contributing directly to federal candidates.” (Campaign)
The court upheld the view that any prohibition on corporations and unions was in violation of free speech protected under the First Amendment. The court further argued that corporate spending “did not pose a substantial risk of corruption” because it was not directly to an individual candidate or party and voters would be able to discern the source of such political messaging. This 5-4 decision led to an expansion of the role that big money plays in politics. Wealthy individuals can now funnel large sums of money through Super PACs and “dark money” groups. Dark money groups are nonprofits that engage in political activity, but not as their main purpose. Super PACs are required to file a list of donors to the FEC; dark money groups are not required to file a list of donors to the FEC but are required to file records with the IRS. (Couloumbis)
Concluding Remarks
- Our aspiring leaders and those elected are constantly scrambling for campaign donations to fund their next election, rather than concentrating their efforts on serving their constituents and the needs of America.
- Big money campaign contributions by lobbyists, wealthy individuals, corporate and union entities equate to POWER and this power leads to access and access leads to potentially unfair influence with our leaders.
- There is a level of complexity in our current campaign finance laws and court decisions that provide an avenue for loopholes and uncertainty that make compliance less likely and difficult to observe or enforce.
- An independent body should filter political ads to ensure a reasonable level of truthfulness. At the very least, outright lies and gross exaggerations should be avoided.
- The most effective and fair way to fix the financing of political campaigns is to remove all private funding and replace it with public financing of elections. Unfortunately, the ability of such legislation being passed by Congress, approved by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court will be difficult.
- Another possible but even more difficult solution would be the passage of a Constitutional Amendment for the public financing of elections. Term limits for Congress could also be considered.
Bibliography
Couloumbis, Angela of Spotlight PA. “15years after Citizens United, big money dominates politics in Pa. and beyond.” Centre Daily Times. Retrieved 5-17-25. https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/15-years-after-citizens-united-big-money-dominates-politics-in-pa-and-beyond/ar-AA1E6w6O
“Campaign Finance and the Supreme Court.” Updated February 07, 2023. Retrieved 5-17-25. www.NCSL.org/elections-and-campaigns/campaign…
Cornell Law School. “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.” Retrieved 5-13-25. www.law.cornell/edu/wex/bipartisancampaign…
Federal Election Commission. “Contribution limits for 2023-2024.” Retrieved 5-13-25. www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/…
Open Secrets. “The Cost of Election 1990-2024,” including other charts and graphs. Retrieved May 7, 2025. www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/cost-of…
Open Secrets. Top Recipients of Contributions from Lobbyists, 2024 Cycle www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-recipients
Pew Research Center, “Americans Continue to View Several Economic Issues as Top National Problems.” February 20, 2025. Retrieved May 7, 2025. www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/20/top…
Sandler, Joseph E. “Federal Election campaign Act of 1971.” Free Speech Center. Updated March 31, 2025. Retrieved 5-11-25. Firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/federal-election…
Statista. “Political advertising in the U.S.-statistics & facts.” Nov. 25, 2024. Retrieved 5-7-25. www.statista.com/…/political-advertising-in-the-us