On the recordJanuary 21, 2016
today marks the 6-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In this far-reaching opinion, on a divided 5-4 vote, the Court struck down years of precedent and held that the First Amendment permitted corporations to spend freely from their treasuries to influence elections. As a result of Citizens United and the series of decisions that followed in its wake, special interests and wealthy, well-connected campaign donors have so far poured more than $2 billion into recent Federal elections, including 2016 races. About half of the total outside spending since Citizens United went toward the 2012 Presidential election. More than 93 percent of all Super PAC donations in 2012 came in contributions of at least $10,000 from only 3,318 donors, who make up 0.0011 percent of the U.S. population. Of that group, an elite class of 159 people each contributed at least $1 million--which was nearly 60 percent of all Super PAC donations that year. In the lead-up to the 2016 Presidential primaries, we are once again witnessing an immense amount of spending. A New York Times investigation in October found that of approximately 120 million households in the United States, a mere 158 families, along with businesses they own or control, had already contributed $176 million-- nearly half of all funds raised to support the 2016 Presidential campaigns before a single primary vote has been cast.…
