How to get rid of 'Citizens United'

Several of you responded to my “Sunday thought” by saying that the first step out of the mess we're in is to get rid of the Supreme Court’s bonkers Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, which held that corporations are people — entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the rest of us.

- Robert Reich

The United States Supreme Court in Washington D. C, on a clear fall day.

(Dreamstime/TCA)

Corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to unlimited super PAC spending and the undisclosed dark money we face today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded by more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark-money groups spending millions to influence the 2024 election.

Most people I talk with assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United (we could wait a very long time) or to amend the U.S. Constitution (this isn’t easy).

But there’s another way! I want to tell you about it because there’s a good chance it will work.

It will be on the ballot in Montana next November. Maybe you can get it on the ballot in your state, too.

Here’s the thing: Individual states — either through their legislators or their citizens wielding ballot initiatives — have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because they determine what powers corporations have.

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privileges has belonged only to the states.