Reform #2. Require dark money disclosures

The reform in the previous section would change how much money can be spent and by whom. The reform in this one would change whether the public knows who is doing the spending. One limits, the other illuminates. They address the same principle from different angles, and the public broadly supports both.

Dark money is the term for election spending by groups that are not legally required to disclose their donors. Most of it flows through 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofits and 501(c)(6) trade associations, which under current IRS rules can spend nearly half of their budgets on political activity without ever naming their funders. These groups can then contribute to super PACs, which are legally required to disclose their donors but only by the name on the check. When that name belongs to a 501(c)(4) or a shell LLC, the super PAC's filings show the intermediary, and the original donor stays hidden. Direct ad spending by dark money groups peaked in 2012 and declined through the 2010s, as the same groups increasingly routed their money through allied super PACs instead. By 2024, super PAC contributions from undisclosed sources accounted for $1.3 billion of the roughly $1.9 billion total, almost double the 2020 cycle, and the most in any cycle since Citizens United.¹ Most of that spending would have been illegal before 2010.

The strangest thing about the current situation is that the Supreme Court itself pointed to disclosure as the safeguard. The majority opinion in Citizens United devoted several pages to it, arguing that the new spending the Court was permitting would be acceptable because disclosure would let citizens "see whether elected officials are 'in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests." Eight of the nine justices joined that part of the opinion, including the four dissenters.²

Americans have been clear about what they want done. In a 2015 AP-NORC poll asking whether all groups that raise and spend unlimited money to support candidates should be required to publicly disclose their contributors, 76 percent said yes, 23 percent said it was acceptable for the information to remain private.³ A New York Times / CBS News poll the same year found the same number on a near-identical question, with 76 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of Democrats saying these groups should publicly disclose.⁴

The federal reform Americans have been asking for has also been written. The Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act, known as the DISCLOSE Act, was first introduced in 2010 by Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Chris Van Hollen in response to Citizens United, and it has been reintroduced in every Congress since. The bill would require any organization spending more than $10,000 in an election to publicly identify donors who contributed $10,000 or more, close the routing loopholes that let money pass through intermediary groups to obscure its source, and require shell companies engaged in election spending to disclose their true owners.⁵

It came closest in the summer of 2010. The House passed it in June by a vote of 219 to 206.⁶ In the Senate, where 60 votes were needed to break a filibuster, no Republican voted to advance it, and the bill failed on two cloture attempts that fall.⁷ In every Congress since, the same pattern has held. The last Senate cloture vote, in September 2022, failed 49 to 49 on a strict party line.⁸

The similarities between the two issues covered so far are, frankly, absurd. Similar reasons for reform, similar support across party lines, similar inaction in Congress, similar result.

Footnotes

1. Anna Massoglia, "Dark Money Hit a Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races," Brennan Center for Justice, May 7, 2025. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/dark-money-hit-record-high-19-billion-2024-federal-races. See also https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/01/dark-money-groups-have-poured-billions-into-federal-elections-since-the-supreme-courts-2010-citizens-united-decision and https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/top-election-spenders ↩

2. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), Part IV. Joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Alito, Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZO.html ↩

3. Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, "Americans' Views on Money in Politics," November 12–17, 2015. https://apnorc.org/projects/americans-views-on-money-in-politics/ ↩

4. Nicholas Confessore and Megan Thee-Brenan, "Poll Shows Americans Favor Overhaul of Campaign Financing," The New York Times, June 2, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/politics/poll-shows-americans-favor-overhaul-of-campaign-financing.html ↩

5. H.R. 5175 (111th Congress), introduced by Representative Chris Van Hollen on April 29, 2010. https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/5175, https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-cicilline-reintroduce-disclose-act-to-end-corrupting-influence-of-dark-money-in-american-democracy/, and https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4822 ↩

6. U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call Vote 391, H.R. 5175 (DISCLOSE Act), June 24, 2010. Final passage 219 to 206. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2010391 ↩

7. U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 220, motion to invoke cloture on S. 3628, July 27, 2010. Cloture rejected 57 to 41. Second attempt September 23, 2010 rejected 59 to 39. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1112/vote_111_2_00220.htm and https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1112/vote_111_2_00240.htm ↩

8. U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote 346, motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 4822 (DISCLOSE Act of 2022), September 22, 2022. Cloture rejected 49 to 49. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00346.htm. See also https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/09/with-deadlocked-vote-on-dark-money-disclose-act-fails-to-clear-senate/ ↩