Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday demanded action to curb billionaires' outsized influence on U.S. elections after new federal filings revealed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other ultra-rich Americans have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican nominee Donald Trump's presidential campaign in recent months.
"In three months, three billionaires donated $220 million to Donald Trump," Sanders wrote on social media, referring to Musk, Miriam Adelson, and Richard Uihlein. "Democracy is not billionaires buying elections. That's oligarchy. We must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move to public funding of elections."
Both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have received financial support from members of the United States' increasingly wealthy and powerful billionaire class. According to a Forbes tally, at least 27 billionaires—including Musk—have spent more than a million dollars boosting the Trump campaign, while at least 28 have spent that amount in support of Harris.
The Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision spurred the creation of super PACs that can spend unlimited sums in support or opposition to federal candidates, as long as they don't coordinate directly with campaigns—a restriction that is often flouted in practice. Polling has shown that strong cross-partisan majorities in the U.S. support imposing limits on money in politics.
"Citizens United is among the worst decisions in history," former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote Wednesday, pointing to the new campaign finance filings. "It corrupts our system every day."
In addition to Sanders, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) called for the overturning of the 2010 decision as the 2024 election shapes up to be the most expensive in U.S. history, fueled by massive spending by big donor-funded super PACs.
According to the watchdogs OpenSecrets and RepresentUS, "the top 1% of donors accounted for 99.1% of all the money raised by super PACs and hybrid PACs" in the 2024 election cycle through September 22.
Last year, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) led more than two dozen House Democrats in introducing the We the People Amendment, a proposed change to the U.S. Constitution that would specify "that the rights provided by the Constitution are for people—not corporations—and that artificial entities have no constitutional rights."
"Corporations are not people and money is not speech," Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said after introducing the amendment. "In every election cycle since the disastrous Citizens United decision, we have seen more and more special interest dark money poured into campaigns across the country."
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced a similar amendment in the U.S. Senate in September 2023.
Neither proposal, in either chamber of Congress, has received a vote.
